How to Popularize the Resistance

[David]

I was struck during the Earth Day/Freedom fest gatherings, that the earth day event had a large number of women involved.  The conventional wisdom with freedom folks is that women are just not interested.  That is not entirely true, but it is a justified steriotype.  I think women are as much activist oriented as men, but on different issues. 
This has larger implications.  We have struggled to get anyone interested, we just struggled less to get men interested. 
I want this to be a mass movement, and out of pratical neccessity, long term success would seem to favor a mass movement.  To do this, we need to focus on issues that would interest a larger audiance. 
I am increasingly in favor of de-emphasizing the anti-gov't aspects of my activism, and emphasizing my opposition to conflict.  Think about it, gov't is bad because they cause conflict, in the form of taxes, regulation, wars, you name it.  This way, I can attack the problem, without attacking the organization itself. 
It is also the root of Voluntaryism.  Where you see trade, voluntaryism, peace, you do not see much conflict at all.  You certainly won't see tax collectors bent on financing the war, or new prisons, etc. 
Question, am I wasting my time?  Specifically, women, and married men, what do you hear your lady friends and wifes saying.  Would this appeal to women, and men, more than the traditional anti-gov't spiel? 

[Tom Sawyer]

Pro anything is better than anti...
Positives verses Negatives.

Women, I think, are more impressed by the creating an intentional community. That is the appeal of going to church, social/community building.

[K. Darien Freeheart]

I love my wife because anything aimed "at women" doesn't interest her one bit.

I think that supporting ANY message you REALLY don't beleive it a bad idea. If your message is anti-government go for it. I understand your reasoning but with personal experience I've found that arguing a point from any perspective but your own makes the point less impacting. I can toss around pros and cons of homescooling till the cows come home but since the issues is personally irrelevant to me, I KNOW I'd not be as passionate or motivational speaker for it as someone who really does care.

As a final though... My wife is not really activism minded. She's a pot smoker and the fact that she's a social outcast and a legal target upsets her to TEARS but she's not willing to get active. Put simply for HER stability, even stable oppression, is easier to deal with than free insecurity. Looking at it objectively, considering that even MALE liberty actists are in a global minority, I'd ask what is it that attracted US to the ideas of liberty.

[memenode]

Rationally speaking, pro is indeed better than anti.

But the rage is a hard thing to overcome, and emotion tends to prefer a target over an objective. I guess the solution is in a balancing act between the two.

I for one am increasingly beginning to feel the urge to arm myself with knowledge, technology, devious strategies and an alter-image that will turn into a machine efficiently powering up the cause. I will not die before I see this network, the nervous system of a voluntaryx society built and powered up.

Any way.. Any way we can do this. Let's do this. But it starts with each of us individually, in our own special ways. Unlike a lot of people in this forum I am an indoors type of guy, working on my computer, haunting the internet (if you'd allow me to be so graphic ), building web sites, exploring new ideas (how I came to voluntaryism?) and plotting my way of pushing the good ones (of which voluntaryism is the pinnacle now).

I'm rambling, but I think one of the good things to do about this resistance is really look into ourselves individually and see what is it.. that crucial thing within us, that we can exploit to release, like an invisible shockwave, the most world changing power and then pursue it to its inevitable conclusion.

Voluntaryism is about free will and peace, but it is about these things because at its core it recognizes that humans can be more than we are taught we are. In other words, it is about the power of an individual.

Maybe one of the good ways to promote our message is to appeal to that in people we talk to: "Did you know that you are a very powerful individual?

We are very powerful. Some people just didn't find the *on* switch yet to get energized fully.

Cheers

[Kat Kanning]

Long tedious discussions of philosophy:  bad.
Discussions of doing positive things:  good.
Actually doing positive things:  even better.

[David]

Pro anything is better than anti...
Positives verses Negatives.

Women, I think, are more impressed by the creating an intentional community. That is the appeal of going to church, social/community building.

I agree. 

Long tedious discussions of philosophy:  bad.
Discussions of doing positive things:  good.
Actually doing positive things:  even better.

I agree.

Kevin, I suspect your wife is in the majority of those in a persucuted class of people. 

[K. Darien Freeheart]

Kevin, I suspect your wife is in the majority of those in a persucuted class of people. 

I agree totally. Luckily she has me. Luckily she's been to New Hampshire now, and munched on chips where people were discussion action. I beleive that over time she'll make her stand.

I think to a certain extent Kat kind of proved (at least one) difference, but I don't think it's a male/female difference or at least not directly. If I had seen your registration activim as little as a year ago I'd have thought you were a loser. I would have dismissed you as someone who was attention seeking and trying to challenge authority, not someone who was trying to gain freedom that required a challange to authority.

The difference is that I listened to The Market For Liberty and engaged in philisophical debate with the guy known here as gu3st. It was groking the logic that allowed me to look at other things and question them. I think the biggest way (in a very broad sense) to bring people into the fold it to expose previously mundane things as "bad". People are content paying taxes, but they might think twice about paying the same funds if they consider it "theft".

I'm not saying philisophical debate is going to solve anything but it is one VIABLE way to get people interested in the resistance movement. Debate ALONE will do nothing, just as I think activism ALONE will do nothing. That's why I said I think people should hit it from their angle and support what makes sense to them. Kat and Russell organize the Free Press. My wife is a printer and has some deep respect for printed word. Kat and Russell did in ONE ISSUE what almost a year of chatter with my wife couldn't do - made her question her reality. At the same time, the Underground here has existed over a year but I had NO interest in it until something like TMFL presented me with something that appealed logically and emotionally that made me want to do something about it.

People are different and there is no one way. That's my opinion and I stand by that firmly. Do what works for you. Keep the activism network/culture strong. As it grows so will "the recruits".