In browsing the backtopics on the forum, a question of tactics arose and since a lot of the material is new to me, I thought I’d pitch it to the vets and pros to hopefully gain some more insight and polish up a viable strategy - and for everyone who blew off checking my “no more government” post (1st one), the bottom line is my positon is looking for an active approach to a very real abolition of all forms of government, period. The rest of the whys and hows and what happens can be handled by the people in whatever fashion - my main goal is ways and means of successfully evaporating government. Incidentally, discovering this forum intercepted what was swiftly becoming my last recourse, inciting a violent revolution and just removing the “people” of government the old fashioned way - bullets and such. So good for you guys [:P]
K, here’s the question:
Would it be easier, viable, more likely successful to contend a bit longer with some government and work locally with campaigns and focus groups of sorts to push the advantages of state seccession from the federal government…and then gradually gain enough numbers of collective states having done so to go ahead and abolish federal government, and then once that’s out of the way, then focus on abolition of all state governments…
or
Would it be better to look for ways and means of simply abolishing all government period - and if so, what would be the most favored solutions to going about it without getting bombed!
Just about every libertarian starts to feel like it’s all just a pipe dream at some point… but I have some hope.
All this argument about the best strategy can be very productive in figuring out what can work and what can’t but in the end I tend to favor a multi pronged attack on statism.
-The intellectual battle. Libertarian thinktanks, economists, philosophers, activist ect. need to find ways to reach both the intellectually elite and the average Joe. Basically, Hans Hoppe’s “anti-intellectual intellectuals.”
Agorism seems interesting to me. I think more people should try it but I’m not yet absolutely convinced of it myself. Agorist methods will also need to be supported by other methods.
Secession movements seem promising. Vermont secessionists and the League of the South are getting some publicity and success. Polls show 13% of Vermonters and I believe over 20% of South Carolinians favor secession. Of course these aren’t exactly libertarian groups, VT is socialist and the League is basically paleocon, but once the principle of secession takes root at any level, I believe it can spread much more quickly down to the individual level.
I also like Stefan Molyneax’s theory about the family and think more in this direction should be pursued.
That the way that we raise children makes them predisposed to Statism. Hence the manner by which to eliminate Statism comes from striking the root so to speak.
That seems like a too simplistic way to put it IMHO. From what I’ve seen, his point is that there is a phase in early development where children makes a lot of whys. The way parents respond to this is paramount to whether that person will develop is rational mind and be able and confortable to argue. Maybe his point is more elaborated than this, but that’s what I have captured.
I believe that political decentralization is always a good thing, so long as it is done with more liberty in mind. However, I don’t think state secession will work. Maybe the Free Staters will have some luck, but we’d need a Free State project in every state if we are ever to dissolve the Federal Government by secession at the state level.
I believe foremost in individual secession through Agorism or civil disobedience, and secondly in disrupting local enforcement apparatuses by saturating local governments with libertarians. Perhaps some small-scale geographical secession could result from that. But in general, a widespread movement of individual secession combined with a coalition of libertarian mayors, councilmen and women, sheriffs, magistrates, et cetera.
The purpose of putting liberty-minded people in municipal government is to throw a wrench in the tax collection and law enforcement processes. I.e., cops who don’t arrest and magistrates who don’t convict. City councils who privatize municipal services, parks and roads. I think libertarians should stay the hell out of State and Federal politics altogether.
The State’s power increases at the expense of social power. The State will begin tp diminish when social power starts increasing without regard to the state.
Is social power near that level? Not even close and what would cause the trend to reverse is unknown.