First a little background information so you can understand my situation. My parents are both in the U.S. Air Force and have been all their lives. My brother is following closely in their footsteps. I was brought to the light by my government teacher who is an undercover anarchist and introduced me to the Austrian School of economics. From that point on I just followed the logical path that Austrian Economics points out and arrived at anarchism like any reasonable, intelligent person should.
Anyway, we were watching Jeopardy and the answer to one of the questions was eminent domain, which prompted me to exclaim in disgust, “It’s just a fancy way of saying theft”. This, of course, provoked an argument and my brother said, “How is it stealing, they pay you for it”. I looked at him and said, “I’m going to point my gun at you and I’ll use it unless you give me your cat for 50 dollars.” Shortly after I was condemned as an idiot by everyone and the argument was over.
I need help convincing my family, any technique would be appreciated because everything I’ve tried has failed. They aren’t stupid people, they’re just neck deep in the mire and it’s my responsibility to get them out. Thanks in advance for anyone who can offer any suggestions.
Dang…Your not my student are you? Get a TASK pass and we’ll chat. (I kid)
My humble suggestion would be use the examples of the private industry and government using ED to take land from others despite protest, paying less that the going rate, and not being used for the common good, such as a car dealer expansion in Cal. You don’t have to shoot the cat, abuse has been crazy since the 50’s. You are doing great!
Well when your brother says, “they pay you for it.” Ask who is paying you for it. And when this inevitably leads to taxpayers being the ones who are footing the bill, all you need to show is that taxation is theft and extortion, really easy.
I could almost feel the tension in your response, a really good thing to do is to just stay cool and help lead them to these conclusions without being so forward. (Just a suggestion, different tactics for different people, obviously.)
I like to sneak up with the extortion argument, in the form of a little story. After everyone has forgotten about your tense argument throw down an innocent thought experiment.
Imagine a fellow who owns a bakery, and one day a mobster, let’s say Tony Fatorli - comes knocking on this poor man’s door. Now Tony breaks some some dishes or whatever, and makes it very clear that this baker is going to pay the mob “protection money” in order to make sure nothing worse comes to his doorstep. This is the definition of extortion - and now it doesn’t take too far a stretch of the imagination to copy this situation over the taxpayer/state relationship.
What happens when you stop paying your taxes? The same thing that happens to our little baker, only perhaps worse because it’s so systematic. What happens if our baker decides to defend himself, as most would agree he has the right to do? He most assuredly dies, as do you if you really defend yourself from an attack from the cops.
EDIT: Okay, maybe not paying taxes won’t usually lead to you getting beat up or killed. Maybe you’ll be lucky enough to get thrown in a cage and man-handled by a very lonely new room-mate.
Also when they respond to this analogy with cries about how the government still keeps most things like this from happening, remind them that mobs in this situation actually do have an interest in keeping other criminals away from their extortion target. So in a way the extortionist will protect the baker, but only insofar as this benefits the mob.
Either calmly and rationally explain your position, or don’t bother.
Why is it your responsibility to change them? When you go in from that perspective you’ll frustrate yourself for sure, and actually won’t achieve what you would like. You have to realize these people for who they are, and that your hapiness is very important. So if you get upset you’ve already lost. Only if you can approach the situation from a no-lose perspective can you stay calm.
Nielsio said it right. Once you’re arguing from the vantage point where you want to change them- they’ll naturally resist even if your ideas make perfect sense. Just talk like you would without any expectation for their views to change- a few soundbites here and there isn’t enough for people to get rid of their attachments to powerful beliefs they’ve been raised with. But your own conviction and sense of calm is a very powerful agent for persuasion.
What is forgotten in these situations is that these are not discussions on logic and reason, though that may be your intent.
Your asking people to abandon their understanding of reality and the world around them. Your asking them to casually and kindly betray the beliefs they’ve held thier whole life. They will always respond with an emotional retort, the issue isn’t about logic, these issues always becomes emotional. Your attempting to dismantel the foundational understanding of life as they know it. Anytime the walls of their understanding are shaken, they will retort with emotion.
You yourself didn’t come to anarchy in one swell swoop. It took someone with some serious patience, and a better understanding of how to subtly expose these idea’s. What you have to do is find a non-confrontational way to start introducing these idea’s. It’s not going to be easy when the parties involved are those who’ve given thier life to the state.
Be prepared to leave your family, because you gonna alienate them. I would suggest not to be “pushy” and just try to see if they are interested at all of what you are talking. If not, let them be.
Start with economics. They can’t understand anarchism unless they understand concepts like opportunity cost or supply and demand. There’s a reason state schools don’t teach that stuff. Maybe buy them a introductory economics book. Or just be honest, tell them you would like to see them enlightened. But it’s a serious intellectual effort, and depending how much of their time and attention you have it might not even be possible. Don’t make it about anarchism, that just scares them off. Make it about economics.
It’s depressing to read stuff like this on this forum. Every now and then, we see somebody talking about how they were behaving provocatively in the classroom, in the family household, and asking advice on how to take even more radical steps like that.
Focus on where you are common with family, not where you differ.
Indeed. To build on this, you’re essentially asking them to turn their entire worldview inside-out. Most people don’t react well initially to the idea that everything they’ve known or believed in is a lie. After all, what would that imply about them? Nothing good, that’s for sure – at least not in their minds.
As someone who’s also been trying to convince people of our worldview, I can assure you that it’s a “war of attrition”. If you’re sincere about this, you’ll need a huge amount of determination and perseverance.
These situations aren’t so black and white like you’re making them out to be. So many people believe that government is working towards the greater good their perception isn’t even that violence is being advocated. The state is behind the violence- if the state stopped tomorrow I have a feeling his family won’t be on the streets protesting FOR eminent domain or more taxes. They more than likely support it because its the status quo and they haven’t really dug into it.
Perhaps it depends on how serious your family is about politics- but from what Zephyr described it was just an argument about a topic- they weren’t ready to beat him down or throw him out the house over it.
Let it pass and presevere- it doesn’t matter if someone insults you, your feelings might be hurt but those are literally just sensations in your body- you’re not losing anything really.
It is not just politics, it’s a whole world view. The same as atheist preaching to a devout christian about non-existence of god. So I suggest him to be prepared for that kind of reaction.