Nitro already pointed out that this will fail, but what’s more I don’t know how you can say “Ron Paul” will admit this when he is
[quoted as saying]
(http://www.ronpaulfan.com/ron-paul-quotes/),
“…We have to come to our senses about this issue of war and preemption and go back to traditions and our Constitution…”
Ron Paul is a nostalgic. He wants that dreaded piece of paper to rule you and others; he does not want you to be free, but rather controlled to the boundaries of tradition. He’s a con, a conservative through and through.
First, let’s say that I am going to college, even worse, a state cartelized college. You cannot compare this to Paul as I am not gaining monetary reward for participating in the college. Furthermore, going to college is a training program, not a job, and so I am not expected to produce anything - I would still be under the wings of my parents who are producers. Paul, on the other hand, is no doubt a member of the parasitic class. He is not training for anything, nor is he producing anything, yet he makes money. Why? Because he has thugs to make you pay his salary. With college, however, the situation is different. By going to college I am not producing, but I am not yet out of the spand of my parent’s jurisdiction and so am only a parasite or a producer as far as they are. Once I am out of their reach of authority and protection, we can talk about my juxtaposition to Paul, until then, if I am involved in education, it is as a member of the entrepreneuriat (de facto by my family) and not of the parasites.
Second, I am not getting into my personal situation. I may go to college, I may not, it may be a private university, or it may not. Either way doesn’t seem to matter as none will further apply to the Paul situation. He was successful as a doctor and now he wants to suck at the neck of those he first provided a service for? Shame, shame.
Third, my father is in business and my mother is a doctor. Neither work for the state, so there goes that.
Surely one should be able to recognize the difference between a state agent working within the framework state itself and a citizen using public services who pretty much has no choice in the matter,
This is an absurd reoccuring argument of yours that is not analogous to being a politician. Noone consents to the state by using the internet. Using the internet is not comparable at all to voting or being a politician or a state bureaucrat. I shouldn’t even have to point that out. Please - the internet is not analogous to directly patronizing the state or literally becoming a member of it, like Ron Paul has. Lay off the internet argument. We’re talking about politicians. Internet users are not comparable to politicians. Common internet and road and school users are not state agents, they are not rulers. If you wish to blur the distinction between society and state or between rulers and ruled, that’s your problem, not mine.
I don’t really understand the continual attempt to portray the state as beyond public control. They don’t have a choice in the matter? Clearly most of them actively choose for those public service to exist, or else it wouldn’t.
Its central to the argument for anarchy that states only exist because people want them to. If states were able to exist without active support than anarchy would be impossible.
Yes and no. “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” Now that the state exists, active “wanting” is not required to keep it alive. A very small minority “wanting” the state can control a very large majority that doesn’t want it. People must not-want the state very, very badly in order to make it go away. Badly enough to die in the process, sometimes.
What’s not to understand? Part of the fundamental nature of the state is that it’s an exclusive institution, even in a so-called “democracy”. Those who truly directly and meaningfully control the state constitute an oligarchy, even in representative democracies. In order for the state to truly be under public control, every single citezen would literally have to be members of the state apparatus themselves and decide on all matters that effect them - which is a utopian pipe dream due to the nature of the state. The state is always made up of a fairly small number of individuals who claim the right to do that which everyone else cannot - institutionalized moral hypocrisy.
Noone in the lay public actively controls the state or truly chooses how their resources will be used. That’s what the oligarchy of rulers does, not the public at large. If the people as a whole were left to voluntarily use their resources in the first place, the public (I.E. state) services would not exist in the first place. The very existance of such state services is dependant on expropriation and forced redistribution. The state imposes one-size-fits-all standards that eliminates the competition and plurality that would otherwise be inherent in people’s decisions as consumers. This should be common knowledge here, so I don’t understand why I should even have to be explaining this.
Actually it’s central to the argument for anarchy that governments are fundamentally involuntary institutions that can’t come into existance without land theft and intergenerational extortion. If governments were genuinely voluntary then the entire philosophy of anarchism would be invalidated and irrational. Anarchists reject state legitimacy. It is of course true that most people believe in the legitimacy of the state as a concept and in general terms, but this by no means implies that they actually consent to everything or any significant portion of what the state does - they disagree endlessly on particulars. It does not magically make the means by which the state sustains itself voluntary.
Huh? If the state were voluntary then anarchy would just be withdrawing consent. It is perfectly reasonable to advise people to end abusive voluntary relationships.
Yet they continue to support the state despite disagreements on the particulars. No where is it written that for a relationship to be voluntary both parties must be in perfect agreement. You think couples never disagree?
Of course I never described the state as voluntary or even legitimate. I said it has public support. You’re the one who is offended by that, as a possible back door rationalization of the state. I have no disillusion that democracy validates the state. People have supported monarchies and dictators in the same way Americans support Republicanism. They had no delusions of controlling the state apparatus, they simply thought it was in their interest to be ruled.
If you want the state to disappear, you have to get people to agree that they don’t want it anymore.
Only if people want the state badly enough to die to keep it. If the actual oligarchy had to defend the state itself, there would be no state. The state is enabled because others are willing to die for them.
Huh? You’re view confuses the hell out of me. If the state were voluntary, then anarchists would have no reason to object to it in the first place! There would be no reason to develope a notion of anarchism. Archism would be anarchism.
And as I repeatedly tried to point out in our debate about abusive relationships in another thread, they aren’t voluntary. Abusers are aggressors. This should be quite obvious. I don’t understand how you could view such relationships as “voluntary”.
They do not literally consent to whatever the state does. They only ideologically support the state because they have been brought up to believe that it is necessary for social order. That doesn’t mean that they necessarily actually actively support the state in any direct or explicitly consensual sense.
What exactly are you trying to drive at? You were initially responding to skepticism on my part towards the notion that the state is truly under the control of “the people” and that they actually explicitly consent to it. Pointing out that there is ideological support for the notion that a state is necessary does nothing to counter this skepticism. Ideological support does not equal genuine control or explicit consent.
Not necessarily. I can think of a few other ways in which the state could dissapear, such as by destroying the source of it’s supply or generally being made obsolete by the market itself. In either case, I hardly see how your position makes a case for a reformist or infiltration strategy. Joining or taking over the state or participating in the democratic process is not going to make the state dissapear or truly make people agree that they don’t want it anymore. By the very nature of such a strategy, the demonstrated preferance would be to use the state and the institutional framework would be enabled.
They want it badly enough to kill to keep it. The same conflict carries very different risks for the entrenched state and the lone anarchist. Since the outcome is virtually guaranteed–the death of the anarchist–the state merely needs to be willing to kill. The anarchist needs to be willing to die.
But Americans do not support the idea of the state, they support the American state.
Why do you keep bringing up “controlling” the state as part of consent? Isnt that the logic that defends democracy?
The state is not voluntary. Even if it were, there would be plenty of reasons to object to it. Any cult destructive of human well being should be objected to. The nature of the cult determines how you can object to it; if it is volunary you must use social influence.
You are rebeling against reality. If you asked 10 people if they wanted the state to end what answers would you get?
No individual in the territory known as America, to my knowledge, actually supports the American state as a whole (as in everything it does). None of them explicitly consent to the state as such. The fact that most people advocate certain positions on certain issues does not mean that they actually support or consent to the state in general terms.
The individual in society is effected by the state, often in direct contradiction to their desires and to their own personal detriment, regaurdless of what their ideological position is and regaurdless of whether or not they vote or how they vote. The state presents them with package deals in which they cannot truly “support” all of it even if they tried. In large part, the state acts independantly of their desires and consent. So I don’t see why you insist on blaming the victim.
My entire purpose is tear down the logic that defends democracy by pointing out that the state is truly not controlled and consistantly or genuinely consented to by “the people”. Your position threatens to actually defend democracy by presenting the people as consenting to the state.
Anyone who advocates change of any sort is rebelling against the status quo to some extent by definition. But the status quo is not some kind of static “reality” that always has been and always will be. Do not conflate “the present” with intrinsic laws of nature.
Even if all 10 of them said “the state is necessary”, this would not actually mean that they truly control or consent to the state. It would only mean, at a bare minimum, that they ideologically support the concept of the state.
It brings up the interesting question, that if Paul is fighting against the status quo for more (albeit not absolute or complete) liberty, from within the state, is he somehow more evil than the citizen who endorses the state but earns a living privately and only uses public infrastructure for transportation?
Maybe Nicky should be hating on people who ride the bus!
Btw, i find it hilarious to see the left libs run to defend Niccolo when he’s under fire, but are notoriously absent when he is being ignorant or a rude. All of these arguments for morality, and yet none for common decency.
If the Union were to allow individual secession, how many people would take that option? Despite whatever disagreements people may have, nearly all would remain citizens.
Of course, the state is not voluntary because it does not allow that option.
Incidently, this scenario would provide a unqiue challenge to agorism. Nearly all “upstanding” citizens would remain with the State and only anarchists and criminals would choose to secede.
Your position says that the State is not legitimate because it does not live up to its democratic rhetoric in practice. I dont see how you could get any closer to defending democracy, or how its any different than the mainstream.
This rhetoric is silly. Just as you act like a boor and child to create “spice and venom”, Paul plays up nationalism and patriotism. If the alternative is to post like BP, where Joe Sixpack is left scratching his bald spot, I’ll take Paul’s less than perfect message.
You rail against reformists, not realizing that they are halfway to where you are. Your real enemies are the people who understand libertarian ideas and don’t want reform at all. Or at least target the masses as Paul does, by appealing to something familiar, not long winded .libertarian philosophy. Is Paul’s language less than honest? Sure it is. But he’s trying to get people to think, to capture their attention and appeal to libertarian sentiment within them, even if it isn’t full blown anarcho-capitalism.
I can’t imagine how many people who have been drawn to Mises.org by Paul, only to be completely be put off by your theatrics and insults. And you seem to think this is a winning strategy. [8-)]