Politics is an immoral dead-end

[J’raxis 270145]

I just sat down and read this entire thread, from beginning to end. What a read! It's amazing that a thread this long has stayed on topic without diverting in to many tangents.

Is that a good thing? It's twenty-eight pages long, and no one's opinion was really changed—Vitruvian still doesn't consider political action valid, and no political activists have come around to his point of view, either.

Yeah, which is why there are 29 other threads for them to go to -- hint, hint. We got some work to do over here on our one thread and you're distractin' us.

I think for Vitruvian to accomplish anything, he needs to learn to be a bit more tactful in how he presents his arguments. That's what got most people's backs up in this thread, I think; at least I know that's why I tore into him so quickly. Perhaps if everyone cools off, and this debate is restarted in a few weeks with a less pompous-sounding opening post...

By the way, did you see my reply to your comments? You sound like you're still under the impression I'm on the "politics only, everything else is useless" side.

[CNHT]

The biological subfamily Bovinae (or bovines) includes a diverse group of about 24 species of medium-sized to large ungulates, including domestic cattle, Bison, the Water Buffalo, the Yak, and the four-horned and spiral-horned antelopes. The evolutionary relationship between the members of the group is obscure, and their classification into loose tribes rather than formal sub-groups reflects this uncertainty. General characteristics include a cloven hoof and usually at least one of the sexes of a species having a true horn.

oh...oops

Hee hee you are too funy froggy

[jaqeboy]

By the way, did you see my reply to your comments? You sound like you're still under the impression I'm on the "politics only, everything else is useless" side.

Oh, yeah. Please don't think I ignored it, I was just struggling to keep up with the thread and pick what to respond to in limited time. I still have hand-written notes here of what I want to respond further to, but, occasionally I have to do some real life things. How annoying, really.

Actually, I have a nit to pick with Vitruvian, though not a major one. I think it is something that would clarify a few things and answer a couple of dozen posts at once. But that kind of post takes a bit of thought and composition...

[Vitruvian]

Why can't the 'out of system' people do their thing.. and the 'system' people do their thing and sometimes they can't work on things together?

The 'system' people, when they vote or are elected to office, arrogate for themselves what is mine by right.  This makes me angry and perhaps "less tactful" (read: "more honest") than I would be otherwise.  Intentions, even good ones (to reduce State violence, to vote against the greater evil, etc.), count for nothing in reality.  When a person, by voting, chooses to place the power of the State into the hands of another, or, by holding office, takes it into his own hands, he purports to make choices for others, whether or not those others have given him their consent.  To put it simply: Ron Paul, if and when he is elected, will still take money from ME with the taxing power granted him by the Constitution.  When you vote for Ron Paul, you concede that he should have this power over ME, that he should be able to steal from ME.  So, know this: When I condemn your actions as immoral, I mean it.

[MaineShark]

One of the things that was an enhancing concept to my understanding is the pop psychology concept of "boundaries" that go beyond just the physical realm, ie, respect also for the sexual, emotional and spiritual boundaries of others. I know Pia Mellody wrote a good bit on this, and I'm sure Faber knows of others.

So, it seems many are stuck in libertarian kindergarten, where they only respect physical boundaries, such as your person or your property lines, but have never considered your emotional or spiritual boundaries to be anything other than open season. It's, of course, abuse to transgress in those ways, as you acknowledged when you finally had to press "ignore" in self-defense.

I have to thank you.  While many posts in this thread have caused me to smile in amusement, this is the first one to actually make me laugh out loud.

There is no initiated force against someone's "emotional or spiritual boundaries."  That's just silly.  Another can cause you physical harm.  Only you can cause an emotional response within yourself.  The most basic precept of emotional health is owning your emotions and not blaming them on others.  No one makes you feel anything.

I have a responsibility to avoid doing you unjust harm, not to hold you hand and sing kumbaya.  What is this nonsense?  Positive rights to have pleasant emotions delivered to you on a platter?  Give me a break...

Actually, I have a nit to pick with Vitruvian, though not a major one. I think it is something that would clarify a few things and answer a couple of dozen posts at once. But that kind of post takes a bit of thought and composition...

That should be interesting.  Of course, I can't imagine why it would take "thought and composition" to address any of these issues.  Nothing esoteric has been raised (eg, defining "personhood" for non-human entities, which is an amusing debate and actually provokes thought).  This is all extremely basic stuff - Anarchy 101, if you will - and should not require any particular level of thought.  All my posts in this thread are written "on the fly."  Of course, I guess it takes time to make things up, versus just posting the plain truth...

Still, I'll be amused to see what might appear...

When you vote for Ron Paul, you concede that he should have this power over ME, that he should be able to steal from ME.  So, know this: When I condemn your actions as immoral, I mean it.

When you pay your taxes you give the government actual physical power, which they use to hurt me, and my family, and my friends, and everyone else.  Clearly, you are an immoral agressor (okay, that was redundant, wasn't it?).  I demand reparations.

Joe

[CNHT]

Why can't the 'out of system' people do their thing.. and the 'system' people do their thing and sometimes they can't work on things together?

The 'system' people, when they vote or are elected to office, arrogate for themselves what is mine by right.  This makes me angry and perhaps "less tactful" (read: "more honest") than I would be otherwise.  Intentions, even good ones (to reduce State violence, to vote against the greater evil, etc.), count for nothing in reality.  When a person, by voting, chooses to place the power of the State into the hands of another, or, by holding office, takes it into his own hands, he purports to make choices for others, whether or not those others have given him their consent.  To put it simply: Ron Paul, if and when he is elected, will still take money from ME with the taxing power granted him by the Constitution.  When you vote for Ron Paul, you concede that he should have this power over ME, that he should be able to steal from ME.  So, know this: When I condemn your actions as immoral, I mean it.

 

[Alex]

Mark is a slave, chained to prevent escape and whipped daily. Mark convinces his master to only whip him 6 days a week. Does doing this mean that Mark supports being whipped 6 days a week? Does it mean he supports being a slave? Is Mark doing something immoral? Does Mark need some moral justification for his behavior?

Of course not and only a retard would think otherwise!

[Alex]

Ron Paul, if and when he is elected, will still take money from ME with the taxing power granted him by the Constitution. 

True.

When you vote for Ron Paul, you concede that he should have this power over ME, that he should be able to steal from ME. 

False.

"In truth, in the case of individuals, their actual voting is not to be taken as proof of consent, even for the time being. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, without his consent having even been asked a man finds himself environed by a government that he cannot resist; a government that forces him to pay money, render service, and forego the exercise of many of his natural rights, under peril of weighty punishments. He sees, too, that other men practice this tyranny over him by the use of the ballot. He sees further, that, if he will but use the ballot himself, he has some chance of relieving himself from this tyranny of others, by subjecting them to his own. In short, he finds himself, without his consent, so situated that, if he use the ballot, he may become a master; if he does not use it, he must become a slave. And he has no other alternative than these two. In self- defense, he attempts the former. His case is analogous to that of a man who has been forced into battle, where he must either kill others, or be killed himself. Because, to save his own life in battle, a man takes the lives of his opponents, it is not to be inferred that the battle is one of his own choosing. Neither in contests with the ballot – which is a mere substitute for a bullet – because, as his only chance of self- preservation, a man uses a ballot, is it to be inferred that the contest is one into which he voluntarily entered; that he voluntarily set up all his own natural rights, as a stake against those of others, to be lost or won by the mere power of numbers. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, in an exigency into which he had been forced by others, and in which no other means of self-defense offered, he, as a matter of necessity, used the only one that was left to him." - Lysander Spooner

If there were an election to make either Ron Paul or Hitler dictator of Earth and somehow you knew that if you didn't vote that Hitler would win and if you voted for Ron Paul that he would win, can you honestly say that you wouldn't vote? Do you really think that anyone would believe that this meant you supported Ron Paul and approved of anything he might ever do? As far as I'm concerned, the only immoral action here would be having the power to stop a Hitler dictatorship and choosing not to do so.

[Dreepa]

Vit... do you buy gas?  Why?  that means you pay the gas tax... which is used by the government..NH and Fed... and that is 'immoral'.

Have you eaten in a restaraunt in NH?   You paid a sales tax... which is used by the government ... and that is 'immoral'.

[Vitruvian]

Mark is a slave, chained to prevent escape and whipped daily. Mark convinces his master to only whip him 6 days a week. Does doing this mean that Mark supports being whipped 6 days a week? Does it mean he supports being a slave? Is Mark doing something immoral? Does Mark need some moral justification for his behavior?

If "Mark" were making such a choice only for himself, I would agree with you.  However, as I said before:

When a person, by voting, chooses to place the power of the State into the hands of another, or, by holding office, takes it into his own hands, he purports to make choices for others, whether or not those others have given him their consent.

If you, Alex, had bothered to read this thread before posting this,

Of course not and only a retard would think otherwise!

, you might have seen that Lysander Spooner's argument from self-defense has already been introduced and rebutted, its chief flaw being that a vote cannot be aimed at one's oppressors (unlike, for instance, a rifle), and must affect innocent third parties.

Your next argument (

If there were an election to make either Ron Paul or Hitler dictator of Earth and somehow you knew that if you didn't vote that Hitler would win and if you voted for Ron Paul that he would win, can you honestly say that you wouldn't vote? Do you really think that anyone would believe that this meant you supported Ron Paul and approved of anything he might ever do? As far as I'm concerned, the only immoral action here would be having the power to stop a Hitler dictatorship and choosing not to do so.

), has also been addressed, in Wendy McElroy's essay, Why I Would Not Vote (http://www.voluntaryist.com/articles/085b.php), which, again, you would have found if you had bothered to read this thread before insulting the intelligence of the people with whom you disagree.

Vit... do you buy gas?  Why?  that means you pay the gas tax... which is used by the government..NH and Fed... and that is 'immoral'.

Have you eaten in a restaraunt in NH?   You paid a sales tax... which is used by the government ... and that is 'immoral'.

The difference is coercion.  I am forced, as is everyone else, to pay taxes (not the ones you mentioned, however, they are built into prices: the merchant, therefore, is forced to pay them). If I refuse to pay, I risk being imprisoned or killed.  Morality rests on an ability to choose one's actions, and coercion precludes such a choice: when choice is taken away, as in the case of taxation, morality is inapplicable.  As I have said many times in this thread (a fact that no one has disputed), you are not forced to vote, so standard libertarian morality still applies.

[MaineShark]

The difference is coercion.  I am forced, as is everyone else, to pay taxes (not the ones you mentioned, however, they are built into prices: the merchant, therefore, is forced to pay them). If I refuse to pay, I risk being imprisoned or killed.  Morality rests on an ability to choose one's actions, and coercion precludes such a choice: when choice is taken away, as in the case of taxation, morality is inapplicable.  As I have said many times in this thread (a fact that no one has disputed), you are not forced to vote, so standard libertarian morality still applies.

Yeah, because you are forced to eat in restaurants and buy gas.  Haven't you heard of shoes?  You can walk.  Or buy a horse.  And plant a garden for food.  You don't need to pay those taxes.  You certainly don't "need" to be posting on an Internet forum, using taxed electricity.

And having someone pay on your behalf doesn't count, anymore than hiring a hitman makes one less of a murderer.  The merchant collects sales tax, and hands it over to the government, but the actual payer is the customer.

Joe

[Rocketman]

standard libertarian morality

No such thing.  Morality is morality.   

[MaineShark]

standard libertarian morality

No such thing.  Morality is morality.   

Indeed.

There is one rule, called the zero-agression principle, and it applies universally.  That's why it's called a "universal moral principle," I suppose.  Maybe someday, another might be derived, but I doubt that, unless some course of evolution fundamentally changes the character of humanity, such that other standards become universal rather than situational.

All else is aesthetics and personal ethics.  And Vitruvian's aesthetic displeasure with voting doesn't magically become "libertarian morality," just because he wants it to.

Joe

[Vitruvian]

No such thing.  Morality is morality.

I agree with you.  Other people may not, though, hence the modifiers.  Every "morality" yet invented, however, including the correct one, also depends on choice.

[Russell Kanning]

Yeah, which is why there are 29 other threads for them to go to -- hint, hint. We got some work to do over here on our one thread and you're distractin' us.

Every time I think I don't want to keep up with this thread .... the title drags me in. I agree with the premise of this thread. It brings me pleasure to rail against politics. If you don't like hearing those kinds of words ... you can go to the politics section and say things I won't even see.