• Welcome to New Hampshire Underground.
 

News:

Please log in on the special "login" page, not on any of these normal pages. Thank you, The Procrastinating Management

"Let them march all they want, as long as they pay their taxes."  --Alexander Haig

Main Menu

Listening to Your Heart

Started by dalebert, August 08, 2009, 05:59 PM NHFT

Previous topic - Next topic

dalebert

This is a copy & paste from an email I sent out to Mark, Ian, and an FTL listener just now. I'm not including the listeners email to me because it seems like a violation of trust since it was a private email, but basically he was asking a question and elaborating with some of his own thoughts on the discussion we had this last Thursday about an anarchist who went to a town hall meeting to speak out against a local smoking ban.

---

Actually I thought on this more after the show and even considered calling in sometime to expound. Mark is equating this act with voting based on the notion that you're just voting by proxy, i.e. trying to persuade council members to vote a certain way.

I wouldn't go in there telling them to vote a certain way. I would simply use the platform of the meeting to talk about why they have no right to control the behavior or property of others. Simple as that. I wouldn't give any moral support to the idea of the vote. I realize they are going to vote on it, but that's their game. What it comes down to is that I'm not going to go through the motions and essentially act out what is to me a big lie. It's the same reason I don't rise for a judge. They are asking me to go through the motions and act in contradiction to my deeply held beliefs and I will not entertain them. It's disgusting and offensive to me. Telling them they have no right to control others is as honest as I can be.

You have to understand that the vote is not the act of violence. The vote is a lie. The vote is an elaborate justification that makes them feel okay about it when they do violence. I feel strongly that we need to stop providing them that comfort while also doing what we can to sensitize them to the cognitive dissonance they should be feeling absent all the years of indoctrination.

If the vote is swayed in a favorable direction, that's just icing as far as I'm concerned. I'd be even happier if a councilor decided to quit even if it meant a bad outcome of the vote. That would represent such a clear victory in terms of changing hearts and minds compared to the brief victory of the vote.

I can't definitively argue that there is more harm done in the long run by playing their game than not. I can't pour specific choices of action into a graduated cylinder and compare them. It's not a mathematical equation that can be solved on paper. I've played their games for a while and I've watched a lot of politics and part of it is just my gut about what feels really wrong. That little voice of justification that says I'm alleviating some harm right now and what's the big deal anyway is drowned out by the other voice that says in the long run it's just not worth it. I think we all have a sense of how some questionable action can get us a short-term gain but at a long-term price and that's what this is to me. That's why I tell people to do what in their hearts feels right. It's what I'm doing. Maybe some day, after they play the game a while, they will feel what I feel. There may be events, opportunities for me to remind them to do some introspection as with the recent medical marijuana bill, but ultimately they have to sense it themselves. I don't think I can talk it into them.

dalebert


Kat Kanning

Quote from: dalebert on August 08, 2009, 05:59 PM NHFT

You have to understand that the vote is not the act of violence. The vote is a lie. The vote is an elaborate justification that makes them feel okay about it when they do violence. I feel strongly that we need to stop providing them that comfort while also doing what we can to sensitize them to the cognitive dissonance they should be feeling absent all the years of indoctrination.


Nice!

AntonLee

voting makes some people feel as if they have rights over others.  That makes a lot of people feel strong who otherwise are timid and/or cowardly.

I tend to go by that principle that if you don't have the right, then how could you give that right to someone else.  I don't have the right to bomb anyone in Iraq.  How could I possibly give that right to some soldiers if I don't have it myself.

dalebert

Quote from: AntonLee on August 09, 2009, 11:53 AM NHFT
How could I possibly give that right to some soldiers if I don't have it myself.

Oh, oh! Let me guess! The same way you can create prosperity out of thin air by writing new laws like minimum wage laws.

AntonLee