In today’s world, people lay claim on others. We are living under a system of collective enslavement. If you ask anybody on the street: “Should I be able to see a doctor who is not licensed by the government?”, the answer today is most definitely “No”. Or if you ask: “Have you ever yelled at your child?”, the answer is most definitely “Yes”.
Politics is the machine through which people try to own and control others. It follows automatically from the former belief.
Voting is a tool invented by the state. What is the promise of voting? The promise is to partake in the ruling of society.
Nobody should have the right to vote. Nobody should be king. Nobody should rule. And so, there is nothing for Ron Paul to do. I would not want Ron Paul to make my decisions.
There is only one proper rule: there shall be no ruler. No one person ruling over another. And so we get to anarchy - an archy. Anarchy does not mean chaos. Anarchy does not mean no rules. It just means no ruler.
From this we have the decision between anarcho-capitalism (anarchy with private property) and anarcho-communism (anarchy without private property). First, we own our body, which is our private property and no one else’s. Second, in order to sustain our body, we need to appropriate things from nature for ourselves exclusively; which is also private property. The anarcho-communists are wrong.
The last thing to complete the philosophy of freedom is moral agency. This is to describe what things we can appropriate and what things we cannot. My answer is that agents who can respect participants of society and thus partake beneficially in society deserve this respect also. It would also be against societies’ interest to harm beings who are learning to become moral agents.
On the opposite side of laying claim on others is showing respect for others. There are many ways in which you can show your respect for other people’s rights, and thus spreading the philosophy of liberty. How you treat your friends, how you treat your colleages, your customers, your family, your children. And spreading libertarian ideas (articles, books, presentations, informal chats) is of course showing respect for others, because you are directly telling people that they own themselves.
So what about government jobs? Can you be a police officer and an anarchist consistently? The job of police officer involves many things that directly tell people that they don’t own themselves, and there is no way of getting around that. As a public school teacher the same thing applies. You tell children what they should do, where they should be, and you punish them if they don’t obey. The only proper thing to do would be to tell them that you don’t think they should be there and that they are free to use the time spent there in the way they see fit, and if they would like to learn about something that you would be happy to tell them about it. But again there is no way you could keep this job like that, and so you will end up telling the children directly or indirectly that you don’t respect them… , so maybe find another job.
A major reason why people don’t allow others to be free is because they are afraid of freedom for themselves. When we hear someone advocating authoritarianism, our first instinct is to attack that person. But it can help if we remember that this person is also advocating for his own diminished freedom. If a person asks for a war on drugs, they are wishing this on themselves as well.
How is it that all these government programs can exist? Why aren’t people angry and widely standing up against it all? The reason is that for all these programs there are mythical fears attached to them. We must have minimum wage because of fear X, we can’t have education freedom because of fear Y, et cetera, et cetera. So for all these programs to exist, it means that people are extremely fearful. Many people’s choices also don’t come from their own understandings and moral compass, but from fear of rejection.
On the opposite side of living out of fear is living out of joy. Of seeing this world as a mountain of opportunity, to be explored and experienced. To get people to live out of joy, they need to see the beauty of all this. And also to find inspiration in others who are self-directed and self-responsible. I invite you to be this inspiration.