The insurgents of 1848 did not have arms. They only had organization and the will to besiege the state.
You’re still dodging my question. You claim today’s leaders are not getting it done, but you aren’t the solution, and you are not preparing a solution.
So how seriously can someone take your criticism of leadership, when you are not trying to lead yourself?
Isn’t this backseat driving?
History’s lesson is that when people rally around a strongman one of two things happen.
The strongman becomes a tyrant, or the strongman gets assassinated.
The power of liberty going forward, IMO is in decentralizaiton. Not in leaders, but in decentralized activism. In a market process.
He’s never said he would be the leader, all he said is that is what is necessary, and he’s correct.
I’ll agree with him to the extent that libertarians need to be radical, committed and organized. But this notion of laughing at the infancy of an awakening, mocking it when contrasted against Euros whose idea of civil disobedience is to block traffic until the unions get more money, or kidnapping CEOs seems like a joke to me.
At least Americans are starting to orient their ire at the state, and not private enterprise (as the state and MSM is directing them to do). At least Americans are asking for less taxes, not more for their taxes.
And I’m no big pro-America guy myself.
Some of the anarchist on this thread asking for leader change kinda ironic don’t ya think?
So the Europeans are willing to act, even if they’re acting towards the wrong end (or more accurately, means). Seems like a big improvement over standing in a park, sipping Starbucks and chanting “USA”.
This implies you’d rather have violent action for socialism than non-violent (and perhaps ineffectual) action in the direction of liberty.
This imo. It riles people up. They aren’t used to a real intellectual challenge, politically speaking. Once we have planted that seed of doubt in their mind, all we need to do is provide it time to blossom. Water it now and again with new insights and thoughts on philosophy. It will happen eventually in most cases.
A year and a half ago I was an Obama supporter, now an anarcho-capitalist. I have one friend who is on the verge of becoming an an-cap, and two others who are radical libertarian minarchists. This was all due to Ron Paul and the proliferation of libertarian ideas into mainstream discussion (the internet helped a lot too: I was reading LRC very early on.) We are in no hurry, the state did not just appear yesterday.
You have no idea what’s happening Giles. While Europeans, as you admit, are “acting towards the wrong end” Americans are focusing on the right end. Being deliberate instead of acting out of irrational confusion. Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know what will emerge and neither do you. But to act wrongly is just the same or worse than not acting at all, but yet Americans are acting in rallying and focusing on what is the culprit. Are Europeans acting for freedom or more government expansion of that EU over there? Save the workers? Meanwhile Americans are taking the time to pin-point our target and you now hear our voice against the State even in mainstream media. Who is on mainstream media actively talking out against the State in Europe? If there is somebody, then good, cause I would like to have this message of freedom spread all around. Like that Spanish website with Ron P. on it. Why not a European? But this is all silly cause we have this one person, Ron P., rallying a political cause against the State. Yes there are others, but nobody this active and this popular. So we have one more than you… Both sides of this ocean are starving for people to step it up.
Any advantage in this portion of the discussion is superficial. Is it better to be wrong or ineffective? Which is easier to correct?
Ultimately, the Americans, when motivated and pissed off, will go home and get their guns, and then change will be swift and absolute. What’s important, is that ideologically they go home to get their guns, to demand liberty, not to demand socialism.
I see the tea parties as just the beginning. Next year, the Repubicans can’t afford to be as involved, as the people will be more radical, and it will be a mid-term election year. There will be more anarchists, more libertarians and more Ron Paul oriented people. If this year brought out 100,000, next year could bring out 250,000. If the economy is bad enough, it could be 750,000.
Americans have a history of tax revolt, whether it is the Boston Tea Party, the Revolution, the Whiskey Rebellion or the War against the States.
And more power to them, because I am a Canadian, and Canadians are apathetic like Americans, and defenseless like Europeans.
I’m not laughing at the tea party, I’m crying, because the politicians are laughing about it.
All it takes is a bus full of poor people to frighten them into giving back millions of dollars. Who gives up that much money without a fight?
Ineffectual action is a contradiction in terms.
What you call a victory, I call misdirected bolshevik thuggery. The politicians LOVE going after wealthy execs with bonuses, which is why they have show trials. When the people (weakly) protested taxes, the entire media machine sprung into action to discredit it. Just as any talk of secession gets discredited.
The AIG execs were never the problem. The AIG bonuses still exist in the corrupt machine. They were merely distributed differently.
The correct course was to oppose the bailouts, by opposing taxation in the first place.
But as I said, every time I watch a british protest, they pull someone aside for an interview, and ostenisbly this is what is said,
“I’m out 'ere because my family only gets 75 pounds a week, and that’s not enough to live on.”
These people are firmly invested in the nanny state, and their protestations are nothing more than screaming for a fresh teat to suck on IMO.
Agreed. Every time I read about a protest in Europe, it is about the unions not getting enough, or workers not getting enough, or some such crap. The protestors all want more handouts, not more freedom.
Of course they do, they’re guilty as fuck! Everyone knows they’re guilty.
And it’s insane to live on 75 pounds a week but when there are no opportunities and you have been reduced to a servant, you go fight. That’s all you have left to do.
Sure. But you can either fight for the right thing or the wrong thing. They are fighting for the wrong thing. Wealth redistribution is immoral and harmful to the economy.
They don’t know that. They don’t know anything other than they have been ripped off. They know what the people leading them in the fight tell them, and if it’s not going to be us then it’s going to be the bad guys.
They are fighting for themselves, and it’s the right thing.
So, theft is OK as long as you are stealing for yourself?
Fighting for yourself (themselves) is the right thing, but don’t fight for more taxation and thievery and go the very way we are advocating not going. I mean is this really making sense to bash people that are standing up for freedom? I understand Europe is in a mess, but don’t start fighting against leaders speaking up for freedom. For now you’re becoming even more misguided or misguiding.
You’re an astonishing moron.
Am I not making myself clear? If we aren’t going to be the leaders protecting them, they are going to find other leaders. This is no longer a philosophical argument. There are those who are going to fight and those who are going to let people starve. If the leaders speaking up for freedom won’t lead the fight, the leaders speaking up for socialism will.