What use is it? The state can and will practice their ability to coerce. I even believe they are entertained at the opportunity.
Am I being to pessimistic?
Yes.
Civil disobedience confuses the statists. I see it as a master of trolling IRL.
What would you hope to accomplish as a practitioner of civil disobedience?
The downfall of the state will be the aggregate of our civil disobedience. So I say: have at it. At the very least it’s fun, so why not. Don’t get yourself in serious trouble, or harm your fellow human beings. But besides that, hurt the state in any way you can. Yes the state will coerce, and statists get off on it, but the only alternative is cowardly surrender. Tu ne cede malis!
Shame the target into relinquishing power. ‘The state’ is not a person. It is an institution which employs many persons to enforce its rules, and those persons are human beings. As human beings, they sympathize with other human beings, and find it particularly distasteful when fellow human beings are inflicted with pain without any explicit provocation. There may be some employed by the state that do not feel that sympathy, or do indeed take pleasure in inflicting pain on innocent people, but I’d say they’re far outnumbered by their well-adjusted colleagues. The same is true for those enacting the rules and the bureaucrats facilitating their enforcement.
Obviously, the trouble comes in organizing enough people to practice civil disobedience effectively. But I don’t see why the overall strategy is flawed. Consult further one of my favorite articles: Without Firing a Single Shot: Defense and Voluntaryist Resistance by Carl Watner.
What use is it? On a pragmatic level it’s a man (or woman) making a very intimate, personal statement: I am my own property and no one else’s. Yes, the state can and will practice its ability to coerce. And yes, it is inclined to use its destructive powers and “flex its muscles” at every oportunity. It’s narcissistic; it loves itself. Are you being pessimistic? I don’t know. That you would have to decide for yourself. But remember this: Politics is a numbers “game”. They look at the numbers. The State can be brought down.
Civil disobedience is freedom except with the fear of being arrested. The state’s agents can then persecute people at their own tyrannical whim, since the law gives them this power.
For freedom to exist, power must be taken away. The state’s agents must fear persecuting people because they face consequences for such an action.
Just start running red traffic lights (safely, of course). That always makes me feel better.
I would like to add that I believe that not only does a man or woman make a very intimate, personal statement during situations such as the one under discussion, but they make a very powerful statement as well. Michael J Green alludes to some of this in his post.
There are issues I have with everyone here.
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Is the civil disobedience effective when the masses are pro-state
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Someone mentioned “Don’t get in trouble”. In some cases this becomes extremely difficult to do. And just giving in to the coercive authorities is the safest way out.
This comes back to my point that the state not only relish’s every chance they get to practice their power, they seem to in fact enjoy and welcome the opportunity as well. Whether your asking for trouble or not is irrelevant, the state wants to an excuse to abuse their power. Also does that then in their eyes further justify their themselves and their growth? In their own twisted way of thinking?
@Stranger, to your article you linked. TL DR.
With the statement you linked it with though, I agree. The state is currently not in a state to be fearful of what it does.
filc, How are you defining “effective”? Though I’m sure it’s a rarity in the annals of history, just one person may resist to the point of disobedience and be willing to suffer the consequences out of personal convictions alone with no forethought as to motivating others to follow suit. In such a case whether it motivates others to follow suit is not something the one undertaking the disobedience even considers, yet for him/her the act of disobeying is, in a very real way, “effective”. He/she accomplished what he/she set out to do from a basis of personal convictions in the first place. Thus, no other definition of “effectiveness” was/is necessary re: the masses. They are inconsequential, so to speak.
For what it’s worth filc, I’m certainly no expert on the matter and I have asked myself this question MANY times over the years and “played out” different scenarios in my minds eye to consider what the possibilities may be under various conditions and circumstances and still I wonder. I believe it is a question worth asking nontheless.
I believe Civil Disobedience is as effective (if not more) as simply educating people/teaching them about freedom and liberty (what we are doing here now). It’s a practical example of how to show the true nature of the state in all it’s “glory”. Sure, some people will not understand that, even among anarchists/libertarians there are many, who see such people as “attention whores” (sorry my language). But it is not. The effect and the meaning of this is much more deeper than simple attention.
It drags attention back to it’s core - the violent coercion of non-violent individual. Again, some people will always blame the victim. Even I sometimes catch myself doing that. But when I think about it twice, I can see it more clearly, and I can hope, others can do that too. After some time they will remember that (act of CD) that they have seen and maybe then will “get it”.
I just finished watching the video and once I realized the entire event was based on the refusal of the young man to remove his hat per the court, the first thing that popped into my head was “Would courts in a free society have the same policy as a gesture toward simple decorum?” I tend to believe this would be the case (though I openly admit this is more intuitive than anything else, so I could be incorrect). If this is true then the young man, in my opinion, probably was in the wrong and simply should have removed his hat and concentrated on “bigger fish to fry”.
Btw, I am assuming my position on the matter from an American perspective. I’m sure that some cultures, due to religious beliefs, do not require their adherents to remove head-dress no matter where the person is located.
Since I was in a rush for evening plans I forgot to mention that I don’t believe that arresting the young man was the correct action to take either.
i don’t see what that hypothetical policy has to do with relevance. That room would be the private property of the arbitration agency. Also, its likely all they could do would be to simply remove the person that was not obeying their rules, where in this case, Pete was sent to a cage.
Civil Disobedience in Keene has pretty much created a free (to use) drugs zone in the central square of the town. There were arrests at first, but that only brought out more activists, now its just a routine daily activity.
So I do think its good in terms of getting publicity out there and educating the public, although in some sense, it can backfire if the public isn’t already on your side as most of the comments will be cheering on the state. And in very big numbers, they can do some good as well in terms of getting the state to legalize things in a de facto sense before the legislature gets around to it. Although if you already have that kind of support its likely not too far away.
Seems hypocritical to use violence to protest against aggressive oppression, in my opinion.
With the internet and decentralization of information, ideas have reached to areas and minds we might never have gotten to. The pace is steady and freedom is a good unifier.
I think that the manifestation of a ‘libertarian society’ from peace has a much stronger foundation, and creates a certain consistency never seen in any other system.
I believe the only valid form of civil disobedience lies within the defense of your property.
Civil disobediance is not synonomous with violence in many cases. Violence directed at the individuals who represent the state would only provided statist with more of a reason to swell the size of their worshipped institutions.
I feel it would speak volumes if individuals in large numbers became defiant and articulated their reasons for doing so well enough to discredit smear tactics.