Voting: Helping or hurting the cause of liberty

Miscellaneous General
41

Inefficient currently because there are only so many hundred Congressmen. Following Thomas Jeffersons’ model, of a ratio of 30,000 citizens: 1 politician there should be roughly 10,000 in Congress.

Good luck to the Elites in trying to stop the Ron Paul revolution then. The way it is now, makes it much harder. The MSM is the key. Ron penetrated that by being in the debates.

The more local you go, the greater the chances of success. Free State project is one example. One state being made free would be a great start.

Completely doubt it. Who has done more to legitimize “Ending the Fed?” = Ron Paul. You are talking about practicability. You want action! And then you turn to a philosopher… lol

Are you that foolish too want Ron Paul to run as an ancap? I mean really? C’mon now… “let’s run on a platform; sell the White House, privatize it - it may become a Hotel?” [:|]

Ron Paul is the filter, he is the ultimate sales man for Liberty, truth and principles. He uses the U.S Constitution as a soundbite - and he has said as much before he ran. He is in an era of manufactured consent, you want to try convincingly sell ancap proposals in a 2 minute time frame, without sounding out of it? (i.e taxation is theft, and numerous other sound bites we understand but others baulk at)? I mean seriously…

Speech by US Congressman Ron Paul at the “Prague Spring Lecture”, Czech Republic, 29 May 2006

Theme: “Ludwig von Mises and Politics”

Ron Paul is hosted by Czech President Vaclav Klaus at the launch of the “Czech Translation of Human Action” organized by Liberální Institute.

6m 45s - 9m 01s

Washington Warp: Why Even Good People in the Beltway Can’t Think Straight by Jeffery Tucker (25min +)

“DC culture has the effect of turning people into secret anarchists or secret totalitarians.”

Which one do you think Ron Paul is? But more to the point, if I ever got the opportunity to ask him in confidence & he told me. I wouldn’t announce it at all, nor would I want anyone else too. Talk about committing political suicide and that is what it would amount too. The tearing down of one of the Liberty movements greatest assets.

42

I usually suggest approaching voting in one of these two ways.

First is the obvious protest vote: you pick the outsider with zero chances of winning, regardless of his/her positions. In most people’s minds that’s a way to tell “people in charge” that you still believe in the democratic model but change is needed. Personally I have troubles with this model: the French tried this with Jean-Marie Le Pen, the populist leader, and it didn’t work. The Dutch tried it with Pim Fortuyn, another populist, and he was murdered by a “lone nut” on the hedge of a groundbreaking victory, his movement breaking apart immediately. The Austrians tried it with Joerg Haider, yet another populist: he was first attacked in every concievable way, then forced out of national politics and finally killed in a car crash so suspicious even dear old ladies in Carinthia suspected he had been murdered.

Second is deal with an election in the same way as you deal with buying a new car or refrigerator, the only difference being you cannot go back to the shop and ask for a refund in case you bought a lemon. You pick the candidate that’s closest to your needs. Problem is home appliances manufacturers need to keep their promises or else they’ll go bust in no time (unless they are big enough to warrant a bailout, of course) while politicians need not to worry about this. Not only that but they can deliberately lie to you and even threaten you. They can laugh in your face and tell you “who are you going to call?”. Would you still buy a washing machine from such persons? I wouldn’t but apparently most people are very happy to pick a product that falls very short of promises year after year or even a dangerous one that can set their house on fire. Imagine if people kept buying microwave ovens that char their dinner when they should be crisp cooking or expensive cars using enormous amounts of fuel to return pathetic performances and subpar build quality and reliability. Impossible you say? Welcome to democracy!

43

Ron Paul is not a secret anarchist biding time in the Congress. He is constantly hearlding the tenth amendment and thinks it is justified for states to enact moralist legislation on the public by majority vote.

44

A candidate may oppose drug laws, they’re still not going to go up to make a speech with a joint hanging out of their mouth.

45

Well it would be a consistent example of theory and action. However, stating that states can pass any law they choose by use of the 10th amendment isn’t regressing the size of government, it is just an exchange of power.

46

I’m quoting this because it needs to be repeated.

I don’t believe in putting all of your eggs in one basket. My personal strategy is a mixture of many things:

Voting for liberty minded candidates( VERY RARE), voting against any state or local ballot measure that increases the power of the state, educating anyone who will listen, educating myself, avoiding supporting businesses that publicly support statism, supporting anti-state entreprenuers, publicly defending liberty (op-ed pieces, forums) and attacking statism, looking for a time and place to support sucession, and always looking for new strategies.

I am interested in non-violent direct resistance to the state and feel as if I should be prepared if violence is ever necessary.

47

Yes, perhaps, it would also be incredibly stupid, simply put, you wouldn’t never win an election by doing so.

You can sit there being an ideological purist all day, you won’t get anything done. Ron Paul knows exactly what certain people want to hear and what people are responsive to, in spite of the MSMs’ decisions not to give him any coverage he managed to get a sizable number of supporters. The reason he was able to do this is that he appeals to a huge number of crowds, an important one being the constitutionalists.

48

I think you are engaging in speculative forecasting

Constitutionalism is not Anarchism. So really there is no purist/oppertunist debate here. We are discussing apples and oranges.

49

If you think so, that’s fine. But I doubt people would trust a candidate who makes speeches with a needle hanging out of his arm.

And you’re missing the point, Ron Paul is not going to run on an anarchist platform because not only is it contradictory but most people think of anarchists as brick throwing, anticapitalist thugs (break their windows).

50

Agreed. Although I agree with Hoppe that the state-level is still too large. We need to start with counties, cities, villages.

Well, philosophers are influential in the sense that they provide the ideas and arguments. Then second-hand dealers like Paul spread the word. People need to understand that the best case for secession is not that it’s “American,” but that it is simply an extension of freedom of association.

No, that would probably be inefficient. But if we’re talking about strategies other than reformism, such as secession and seasteading, then, yes, it is possible to strike at the root of government, it’s territorial monopoly on ultimate jurisdiction. For example, if your village secedes, you can establish market anarchy.

This is one of the reasons I prefer an apolitical strategy. You don’t need to go through all that Constitutionalism, limited government, minarchism bullshiite. You can just skip right past that stuff and go straight to market anarchism.

If your argument for anarchism is that (1) there is an unjust inequality of rights between government and governed, and (2) government is plagued by incentival and informational problems, then the logical conclusion is market anarchy. Limited government isn’t part of the equation.

I think this approach would lead to faster conversions, because you don’t need to detour into limited government la-la land.