Coherent strategy

[thinkliberty]

It seemed to me that Muni's big question was "how do we get thousands of people doing civil disobedience?"  I didn't get the impression he was wanting an argument/debate, but was really trying to understand where we were coming from.

Most people break the law everyday without even realizing it,  speeding, singing happy birthday, etc. Thousands of people are already doing civil disobedience, because It's impossible to follow or even read every law written in the US. They just don't know that they are doing civil disobedience, when they do it. 

Here are some examples:
http://www.threefelonies.com/Typicalfelonies/tabid/86/Default.aspx

[Kat Kanning]

What I told Muni yesterday, for anyone else who's interested was roughly:

He was wanting a central strategy and leader.  I said I thought it was more like "I Pencil".  No one person can make a pencil.  No one person is in charge of the market, directing all aspects of it.  Same with what we're doing.  Each activist is tackling the problem most important to him, in the way he thinks is best.  It all adds up to a "marketplace" of anti-government, or at least anti-big-government activity.  The activity draws more people in.  I said this would eventually lead to changing the way most people see the government, and therefore changing the government itself.  Right now, we're in the drawing more people in phase.

Russell says that civil disobedience speeds up the whole process of changing the way people think.  I added that when you write something, they tell you to "show" rather than tell it.  Civil disobedience shows rather than tells that the government is violence, that it is corrupt.  This may be why is speeds up the whole process.

Somewhere in there Muni asked if I'd rethink this "plan" in a few years and I said not really.  I believe this is the moral way to resist the government.  It does not involve violence on my part, and it does not involve me coercing anyone else to my way of thinking.  Sometimes it's just the right thing to do to say no.  What is there to rethink?

[Sam A. Robrin]

It seemed to me that Muni's big question was "how do we get thousands of people doing civil disobedience?"  I didn't get the impression he was wanting an argument/debate, but was really trying to understand where we were coming from.

Most people break the law everyday without even realizing it,  speeding, singing happy birthday, etc. Thousands of people are already doing civil disobedience, because It's impossible to follow or even read every law written in the US. They just don't know that they are doing civil disobedience, when they do it. 

Here are some examples:
http://www.threefelonies.com/Typicalfelonies/tabid/86/Default.aspx

Well, it'll never happen to me. . . .   I mean, You're just an alarmist. . . .  I mean, Well, the Senators must know what they're doing. . . .  I mean, You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. . . .  I mean, There's no need to go to extremes. . . .  I mean, Well, what would you suggest we do? . . .  I mean, Well, we can't have everyone just doing whatever they please. . . .  I mean, This is just the price we pay for living in a society. . . .  I mean . . .

[SethCohn]

He was wanting a central strategy and leader.  I said I thought it was more like "I Pencil".  No one person can make a pencil.  No one person is in charge of the market, directing all aspects of it.  Same with what we're doing.  Each activist is tackling the problem most important to him, in the way he thinks is best.  It all adds up to a "marketplace" of anti-government, or at least anti-big-government activity. 

And all aspects of activism are part of that, in-political system and out...

There is no 'central' leader (or plan), in large part because there can never be one leader who embodies everyone's perspective.   Think of this as political 'wikinomics': the tapestry isn't a single vision, and sometimes we clash, but our overall goal is united, even if our methods and areas are diverse.

Somewhere in there Muni asked if I'd rethink this "plan" in a few years and I said not really.  I believe this is the moral way to resist the government.  It does not involve violence on my part, and it does not involve me coercing anyone else to my way of thinking.  Sometimes it's just the right thing to do to say no.  What is there to rethink?

I think it's not a question of 'rethinking' so much as taking the next step at any given time, given where and who you are... If publishing a newspaper is the right step _for you_, you'll take it.  If running a forum is, you'll take it.  You can't predict what next year, or the year after, will bring, and at that time, you'll make the right decision for you, just like the rest of us.  I've seen politicals become more anarchistic minded, anarchs become more political minded, etc...  as I posted, the key is be like water: flow and let it find all of the places... water can cut channels through stone, given enough time, energy, and droplets.

The decentralized model is very hard for people looking for a coherent centralized plan to understand, because it's a different way of thinking.

[thinkliberty]

What I told Muni yesterday, for anyone else who's interested was roughly:

He was wanting a central strategy and leader.

Muni might be interested in this book:
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

It's about people that want a central leader to lead them.

[PaulOtt]

Liberty is an attitude. No one can take your liberty from you. They can punish you for exercising it. The tyrants' power comes from us. By exercising our liberty and denying them our sanction we reduce their power and enhance our own.

EDIT: What is it that you want to be free to do? What part of the tyrants' activities is most irritating? What personal goals do aggressors stand in the way of you accomplishing?

Using your point-of-view: I do not want anyone to be punished for exercising their liberty.

[George Donnelly]

I think it's a mistake to worry about other people and what happens to them. It's most important to worry about what happens to oneself. This I think is a mistake many politicos fall into.

There are many ways to achieve your goal, but I don't think you can attack it until you really understand liberty as an individual matter.

Are you refusing to support the state? Are you denying it any of your labor? These are great first steps towards your goal from my POV.

[RightofMan]

I've seen many instances of civil dis that seemed (to me, at least) to be worthwhile: productive, throught provoking, bold, etc. In short, a Net Positive. I've also seen other, seemingly self-destructive events (i.e. Net Negatives). My suggestion would be to do some market research, both in your local markets as well as regionally. You can't perform CD in a vacuum, and that means your efforts will gain notoreity or infamy depending on how the rest of the community perceives the event. Cold calling a random sampling of residents and conducting a survey both pre- and post-CD event could reap huge rewards in determining how people perceive and respond to any particular event. That might help to define further goals or methods.

If a change in perception regarding unjust, unneccessary laws/regulations/beliefs is the desired result, having the support of the larger community is helpful if not absolutely mandatory.

[muni]

so i talked to Muni again in Manchester yesterday. i keep forgetting who people are in real life

that was pretty good, even though i don't think we are communicating very well

Oh - I thought we communicated very well. What you said was eye opening and I certainly realize that it's a different way of thinking than mine. I'll have to listen to you - and to others that think like you - to fully understand what you say.

One thing I realize now: These things can not be done in a forum like this. It has to be face to face, maybe with some beer involved too ...

Thanks again to Kat and you for coming to Manchester, now it's my turn to drive to Grafton ...

muni .

[muni]

What I told Muni yesterday, for anyone else who's interested was roughly:

That's a good summary - thanks. Of course, now I have even more questions

Thanks again for talking to me, I hope we'll be able to do it again .

muni .

[Kat Kanning]

Thanks again to Kat and you for coming to Manchester, now it's my turn to drive to Grafton ...

muni .

Nice.  We're having a party on Feb. 20th...
http://nhunderground.com/forum/index.php?topic=19876.0

[muni]

Nice.  We're having a party on Feb. 20th...
http://nhunderground.com/forum/index.php?topic=19876.0

Excellent! We'll be there, assuming the party is kids friendly .

[Kat Kanning]

Yes.

[Pat K]

Kat makes me play nice when there's kids around.

[dalebert]

This was posted over on Free Keene by error and I think it belongs here as well.

----

At the risk of quoting way too much from an excellent source, I'll agree that the strategy is the most important thing. But that the strategy is unclear (to outsiders) does not mean it doesn't exist.

This is from The Voluntaryist No. 29, excerpted from I Must Speak Out: The Best of the Voluntaryist 1982-1999 and it squarely addresses this issue.

Nineteenth-century reformers, especially the non-resistants and abolitionists, grappled with this problem. How were they to advocate the abolition of slavery? Should they wait for Congress to abolish slavery or should they try to eliminate the vestiges of slavery from their daily lives? Should they be immediatists or gradualists? Should they use legislative means or moral suasion? Should they vote or hold office or should they denounce the U.S. Constitution as a tool of the slaveholders?

Those nineteenth-century thinkers whom I would label voluntaryist (such as Henry David Thoreau, Charles Lane, William Lloyd Garrison, Henry Clarke Wright, and Edmund Quincy in pre-Civil War days, and Nathaniel Peabody Rogers) all believed that a better society only came about as the individuals within society improved themselves. They had no plan, other than a supreme faith that if one improved the components of society, societal improvement would come about automatically. As Charles Lane once put it, "Our reforms must begin within ourselves." Better men must be made to constitute society. For "society taken at large is never better or worse than the persons who compose it, for they in fact are it."

The Garrisonians, for example, were opposed to involvement in politics (whether it be office holding or participating in political parties) because they did not want to sanction a government which permitted slavery. Their opposition to participation in government also stemmed from their concern with how slavery was to be abolished. To Garrison's way of thinking it was as bad to work for the abolition of slavery in the wrong way as it was to work openly for an evil cause. The end could not justify the means. The anti-electoral abolitionists never voted, even if they could have freed all the slaves by the electoral process. Garrison's field of action was that of moral suasion and not political action. He thought that men must first be convinced of the moral righteousness of the anti-slavery cause. Otherwise it would be impossible to change their opinions, even by the use of political force.

Given this approach, it seemed that the anti-electoral abolitionists had no real strategy. In rebutting this criticism, Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, in a September 6, 1844, editorial in the Herald of Freedom, spelled out his answer to the question: "What is your Plan?"

[T]o be without a plan is the true genius and glory of the anti-slavery enterprise. The mission of that movement is to preach eternal truths, and to bear an everlasting testimony against the giant falsehoods which bewitch and enslave the land. It is no part of its business to map out its minutest course in all time to come,--to furnish a model for all the machinery that will ever be set in motion by the principle it is involving. The plan and the machinery will be easily developed and provided, as soon as the principle is sufficiently aroused in men's hearts to demand the relief of action.

What is the course of action these abolitionists have pursued? How have they addressed themselves to their mighty work? . . . They were not deterred by finding themselves alone facing a furious and innumerable host of enemies. They felt that the Right was on their side, and they went forward in the calm certainty of a final victory. They began, and as far as they have remained faithful, they continue to perform their mission by doing "the duty that lieth nearest to them." They soon discovered that Slavery is not a thing a thousand miles removed, but that it is intertwined with all the political, religious, social and commercial relations in the country. . . . In obedience to the highest philosophy, though perhaps not knowing it to be such, they proceeded to discharge their own personal duties in this regard--to bear an emphatic and uncompromising testimony against Slavery, and to free their own souls from all participation in its blood-guiltness. They laid no far-reaching plans . . . but obeyed that wisdom which told them that to do righteousness is the highest policy, and that to pursue such a straight-forward course would bring them soonest to the desired goal. Their question was not so much how shall we abolish Slavery? as, how shall we best discharge our duty?

Edmund Quincy in a February 24, 1841, editorial by the same title, in The Non-Resistant, pointed out that social institutions are but the projection or external manifestation of the ideas and attitudes existing in people's minds. "Change the ideas, and the institutions instantly undergo a corresponding change." In words reminiscent of Bob LeFevre's emphasis on self-control, Quincy went on to write that

There is a sense in which the kingdoms of the world are within us. All power, authority, consent, come from the invisible world of the mind. . . . External revolutions, accomplished by fighting, have in general affected little but a change of masters. . . .

We would try to bring about a mightier revolution by persuading men to be satisfied to govern themselves according to the divine laws of their natures, and to renounce the [attempt to govern others] by laws of their own devising. Whenever men shall have received these truths into sincere hearts, and set about the business of governing themselves, and cease to trouble themselves about governing others, then whatever is vicious and false in the existing institution will disappear, and its place be supplied by what is good and true.

We do not hold ourselves obliged to abandon the promulgation of what we believe to be truths because we cannot exactly foretell how the revolution which they are to work, will go on, or what will be the precise form of the new state which they bring about. . . . A reformer can have no plan but faith in his principles. He cannot foresee whither they will lead him but he knows that they can never lead him astray. A plan implies limitations and confinement. Truth is illimitable and diffusive. We only know that Truth is a sure guide, and will take care of us and of herself, if we will but follow her.