If you are going to voluntarily not vote on your own body, then what do you expect me to say to you?
I already provided an example how it can. A city council could declare that the city would not take homes away from people that do not pay property taxes. Everyone would stop paying property taxes, the city government would go broke, and poof, it would be gone.
I think there are three ways to get rid of the government. One, is to use the system to slowly reduce government until it is so small, that people would not be opposed to letting people opt out of the system. Two is to get enough people to stop obeying the government that it falls. And three is that it will just become insolvent and fall to such small levels that people would be willing to let others opt out. I think three is our most hopeful option at present. A lot of cities in the U.S. are starting to get rid of their police departments, and contract with county sheriffs. There are a couple of cities that are getting rid of libraries. I see them getting rid of more and more “services”, and people will realize that there are a lot of things government is providing that it does not need to provide. I could be wrong.
Regardless, this discussion is about whether or not voting or not voting is consent. And neither of them are. And if people vote and lose more freedom, they are not sore losers for complaining about losing freedom.
The fact that you are enslaved doesn’t mean that you have to voluntary go and grant the slave masters your approval. Which is what you are doing if you are voting and not coerced into the act of voting in itself.
It is also simply degrading to vote. I don’t understand how anyone with any sense of pride in there body can go and vote. Molenuyx compares it to some bullies stealing you candy and throwing it back and forth. You know you will never get the candy back but still you degrade yourself by running back and forth after it. Have some pride and just say: “Keep the fucking candy” and walk away.
I don’t. But those that do, do believe that voting will make a difference. And I don’t condemn them for it.
Really? Then how do governments exist that don’t have voting?
Given that there are quite a few governments in the world that do not have voting, I would beg to disagree.
Because voting is not what government officials necessarily use to justify their authority. Usually they just use the fact that you live where you live, and if you don’t like it, you should move.
Again, I don’t usually vote. In fact, I have only voted once in my life. But I understand those that do, really do believe they can make a difference. And if they could vote in enough anarchists to let me opt out, I would support them.
If contradicting logic is the best option to attain my personal ends, so be it.
If I were in jail, and I wanted to break out (say it was impossible to physically break out, like tunneling, because you would just end up in a different prison. You had to go through the gate as the only escape). Now, I could just rush the gate, hoping somehow miraculously I wouldn’t be killed in the attempt, or caught and put into solitary, I could pray for deliverance, or I could maybe get in good with one of the guards, and try to manipulate my captors to release me.
Now which would be most effective? If you collude with the guards, it may be against principle, but I wouldn’t call it illogical or contradictory. It’s simply another means to your ends. Let’s face it; fair or not, right or not, you’re still in jail.
So if we can get rid of the state by murdering a few million innocent people that is perfectly allright?
Personally I don’t think the end is relevant. What I mean is that we can not create a peaceful society by waging war. If we do however practice peace a peaceful society will follow automatically. We don’t need to care about the ends cause they follow automatically from the means we choose to apply. Thus if we don’t practice evil there will be less evil…
That I have actually resisted being enslave as oppose to agreeing and then trying to just improve my conditions as a slave.
Why in the world would you need for a useless parasite to declare anything when everybody, or at least most people, are ready to stop paying their taxes?
Anyway, this makes no sense. If this council has the authority to declare your freedom, then it also has the authority to declare your slavery again.
There is a great logical contradiction with the approach you are proposing. Are you familiar with this part from Power and Market?
Or you could look at it as people who don’t vote are quitters. I myself don’t think people who don’t vote are quitters, but on the other hand I don’t think people who do vote are losers.
If it’s a logical contradiction, then it’s impossible. In case that wasn’t clear.
You don’t have this choice. You cannot collude with the guards to free yourself. You can only collude with them to give you extra gravy on your plate. The system is a closed system. When you escape the prison house, you find yourself in a bigger prison house. That is all.
Because for some reason, people listen to government and you would not even need close to a majority of the people to be on your side to get a majority of the city council.
Lol, thanks a lot, maybe he is at his “creative nothing” from which he sprung.
The example i gave was a true story. Hopfully it illustrates the insanity of judging yourself, people, and things based on some cause/fixed idea; instead of actually entering a “union and intercourse” with things as “your own” and looking at people / things as “their own” one by one as they effect you. Also I used the real life example to illustrate how freedom to do/ power ultimatly comes from “your own” with the tools you have available.
Hopefully someone “got it”, hopefully it was an adequate example.
Once again, I don’t serve honesty, I serve my cause. My cause was to my prosperity, my friends / customers, my employees/friends, my enjoyment and my family. I had several tools available to me: voting, loopholes, and downright breaking the law. I used them all to my advantage as I saw fit. While this was going on my customers saw me diligently working to stop the smoking ban / break the law for their benefit and mine, by any rational way possible. I would have been a bigger loser if I had power to attempt do something in my favor and didn’t.
Also, If a murder said “stick your hands up, or I shoot”, then I (being absolutly impossibly defensless in this scenario) stick my hands up and get shot anyway, I didn’t play his game; I simply tried to improve the odds of living (my game). Assuming I lived after that, would I complain? If it had a chance to help my game.
Once again, I don’t condemn/condone their game, I just play mine within my power. My game was to own a prosperous bar and help myself, family and friends. And I used the best means (that I was aware of) at the best time. There was no reasonable hope at the time for me to keep my prosperity and expect the “ancap revolution” to happen, so why pull out the ancap tools when they were not useful?
And once again, I am not going to get buried as a martyr for the “ancap cause”, nor am I going to judge people and things soley based off of it.
The loot or be looted is a losing strategy. For every penny you can get back, you will give up a dollar. And when you complain about the dollar, you will have to explain the penny in your pocket. This is how pathetic this has all become. Every time you beg for your penny back you are recognizing their autority to rule over you. It’s embarrassing and humiliating.
It’s better to spend that energy evading the loot altogether to your maximum ability, while undermining the system by not supporting it. Why give them the benefit of the doubt? Humiliate them back! Let them know and everybody around them that they are no different then robbers and murderers. If they manage to take your full dollar, so what? After all, you’re never risking the dollar, but only the penny.
Don’t get me wrong (as shown by the highlights I added to your post) I don’t disagree with the overall sentiment. but still to address some points in the order they were stated:
If I complain to someone it is only because I see there may be an advantage in it for me (to serve my cause). It is not submiting to an authority but seeing if I can use some tool to increase my power. If a complaint/ vote can gain me power so be it. It is not them or their authority I look to, just any tool to help me at a reasonable cost.
Even if you feel that you may be a slave (overwhelmingly overpowerd by an external force), if smart, you look for any opening you can. If the “master” has the potential to be weakend by voting…vote. I don’t feel humiliated by not being able to fly like superman though I would like to, I simply don’t have the power to do so now. However, while still operating under the same laws of gravity I can build a jet. Did I humilate myself by operating within the current reality of gravity by “coping out”, obeying it’s laws, and build a jet instead? No, I just used the nature of the reality I knew around me and did the best thing within my power to achieve my goals the best way possible. I am no slave to gravity, I just get what I take to increase my self enjoyment. I did not operate under the law of gravity…I operate under my law that happens to be within gravity.
Gravities concern is gravity, my concern is flying like superman. I care NOTHING for gravities concern and it cares NOTHING for mine. I can not fly like superman. But I can take from my own power the tools in my environment to fly, and build a jet, and fly that way. I did not serve gravity, I utilzed it to the best of my known abilities so I could serve myself. And if I were to crash down in my jet, if there were a way to “complain” to gravity to prevent it, I would utilize that ability as well, to serve my concerns.
If I came complaining to “the authority” while putting myself below them, yes that is a slave; but when I am a miner just digging a resource to increase my self enjoyment, what is that? I do not get from democracy the freedom to or not to smoke / run a bar, I can only get it from my power. And if there is potential to get it from mining a democratic resource at a reasonable cost, so be it, I’ll take it. But I don’t serve democracy, I only operate my affairs by my power with the resources available to me.
So long as I serve myself and my cause there is NOTHING to be humilated about. If I feel humilated it is because I am putting something above me. I answer only to myself, and it is only myself that can humilate me.
While I ultimatly sold the bar (for a profit). I lost nothing, in fact I gained a lot. I can live off the profits for about 2 years in a new and awsome city while finishing school, I gained MANY new friends, learned how to handle some very difficult situations, learned many useful skills, came out smarter/better, pissed off the local govt and news a little bit (honest), kept good people happily employed, served people who I enjoyed serving, etc. All because I utilized the tools I knew how to the best of my ability and treated each person and experiences as unique (something I actually had to learn to do the hard way). I accomplished enough in six years to serve my ends by the best way possible.
I lost nothing and I gained much, simply by serving my own cause; not the cause of democracy, freedom, etc . I looked at people and situations as “their own” uniques from “my own” unique self NOT under democracy and freedom’s “own”; and from that came my true self enjoyment.
So how would you suggest escaping? There’s always suicide, but that seems a little defeatist. If the prison is eternal and inescapable, why bother talking about escape, just for fun?
This is the kind of eschatological defeatism zealots always fall back on when out of ideas. Just sit back, allow the status quo, and hope for messianic deliverance, hell I’m guilty of this myself (c’mon 2012!)
Of course, “nothing changes, if nothing changes”, so I’m sure the prison gaurds are delighted you think this way, it makes their job a lot easier.
Nobody is denying your motivation to serve your own personal cause. But in no way are you serving the cause of liberty. This is the whole point of the discussion.
You have not increased your power. You have simply managed to get some extra gravy on your plate… for now.
And you are using the political means as a tool. But isn’t the “tool” the problem here? Isn’t it the reason you don’t have any freedom? So how in the world are you ever going to free yourself if you use this tool like everybody else?
And if you came complaining to the authority while putting yourself above them? You’re still a slave! Although a delusional one.
You’re trying to refute this by appealing to your emotions. It doesn’t work with economics and it won’t work here.
A statist like everyone else.
You have to seek permission to smoke on your own property.
Until we realize that freedom is not about paying lower taxes, but about not being ruled, we’re never going to be on the right track.
I don’t want to fight for permission to smoke on my own property! That is a “liberal” statist stance. I want to fight for my right not to be ruled.
The prison is only eternal as long as you continue to support it. There is nothing else holding it in place. What you fail to realize is that you cannot withdraw your support as long as you continue to actively participate in the political process.
You keep thinking that the degree of support can be determined by voting. Vote for the libertarian, vote to reduce your taxes, etc… But what you are effectively doing is nothing but to continue to support the idea that your “freedom” is determined by someone else. This isn’t freedom! It’s just the prisoner trying to get some longer lunch breaks. In no way are you gaining more freedom by having a longer lunch break that is dependent on kindness of the warden.
No, this is actually your idea. I hope I made that more clear above. You think that you can do away with the system by continuing to support it.
Again, you have it backwards. The guards are just servants of a system that you support by participating in its charade. The minute you withdraw your support, the system looses a bolt. Once enough bolts are loosened, the system will lose its sense of legitimacy. It’s power will be reduced and finally diminished. It is the only way. Working within the system is nothing but accepting the system’s right to exist.
Evade and avoid. Become expensive to be ruled. Educate and spread your message. The system is not invincible. It will fail over and over again. But every time, mankind makes the same mistake of re-erecting it. What we need is for more and more people to withdraw their support so that when it fails, it will have a hard time to re-erect itself.