You can leave = you consent?

Economics Political Theory
121

Ok, now we’re getting somewhere. On a different tangent though.

But how do we separate the perception of a threat, to an actual threat or violence?

For instance, the US government does not say that it will murder anyone who does not pay taxes. But I think that universally, anarchists and probably most libertarians know that murder is the inevitable result of continued resistance against the state. But what about all of the non-libertarians who do not think they will die? Are they truly part of the system via coercion? Have you seen how excited and patriotic people get over their flag and their massive imperial military that slaughters innocent civilians worldwide?

I mean, these are some real backwards, bloodthirsty, ignorant people. Millions of them. It’s obviously not as intense in Canada, but we have a bit of the same cowboy attitude. People love the state, health care, education, parliament, a shrinking national debt. They’re actually PROUD to be part of the system. A disgusting habit cropped up among young Canadians around 15 years ago. More and more of my friends and people I met (from around the country, I was working with hundreds of young people my age) were getting the Maple Leaf tattooed on them.

In these cases, people are thrusting their wallets into the chest of the mugger, demanding he take it, and if he comes back tomorrow, they will give him more! And while the state steals from these people, they never feel threatened, and in fact that it is the way it should be. The state should take, so it can provide.

So again, coercion in a lot of cases is a mental phenomenon. An American or Canadian male may be coerced by their state, but they are under little of the threat of state violence a homosexual Iranian may face. Or a Palestinian. Or a Chinese farmer. Due to the piracy of the state, they enjoy a standard of living and comfort that is literally off the charts, and for the most part, underwritten by the blood and sweat of Asians, Middle Easterners and South Americans.

This notion that the state has a knife to the throat of a citizen when it asks for taxes may be true. But millions and millions comply, without ever knowing the knife is there.

Which is all off track, except that I think the notion of coercion being universal, and people not willingly submitting to enslavement (conscious or unconscious faustian bargains) is false. Some people do consent. I think a lot of people “go with the flow” more than fear for their lives.

122

The frog in a pot of water will not realize the temperature is gradually being brought up until it’s much too late.

123

Never dance with the devil in the pale moonlight.

124

The problem here is that we’re trying to have an intellectual-level discussion about what constitutes consent, and Liberty Student and Max Liberty are constantly derailing the discussion by shifting it to a personalized catfight about activism and apathy, which is really irrelevant to the intellectual-level discussion going on. People are simply describing the coercive nature of how the state works in terms of very fundamental libertarian political theory, and they are responded to by being accused of being apathetic or lazy and Max Liberty proceeds to claim the mantle of king of action. Then they accuse people of being hopeless idealists simply for trying to have an intellectual-level discussion about concepts. They always do this, it’s a reoccuring pattern on this board.

125

First, I think this applies

argumentum ad baculum

http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/skepticism/blfaq_fall_force.htm

A distinction should be made, however, between rational reasons and prudential reasons. No fallacy, the Appeal to Force included, can give rational reasons to believe a conclusion. This one, however, might give prudential reasons for action. If the threat is credible and bad enough, it might provide reason to act as if you believed it.

As I mentioned, the western state does not actually make an overt threat. Even the act of resisting and being killed could take a long time and only occur through levels of increasing coercion that are not regularly tested or institutionalized.

Second, I took the time to read this.

Tacit Submission

Now I’m closer to understanding that people make the deal irrationally, and that submission is probably a more appropriate word to use than consent.

But I’m still hung up on free will. If many people submit based on irrational but prudential reasons (or rather the rationalization of fear) , then people who do not submit are …

Why do we submit? Why do I submit? I’ve known my government does not have a legitimate claim to rule me for at least a couple months now. I construct fairy tales about teaching others, and that if I act I need to renounce my citizenship which is not a simple option for a Canadian like it is for an American. I think I fail to act rationally out of laziness and fear.

Now I don’t know if I am creating a closed feedback loop or what but that seems to conform to what I like least about libertarianism as a movement of mouths and pens. And I’m becoming susceptible to it as well.

That’s it. It’s all I’ve got. I refuse to believe that people have to submit. All evidence (while in the minority) is to the contrary. We submit because we’re scared, lazy or maybe even not totally sold on this idea of libertarianism/anarchy actually ever becoming reality.

126

I remember reading a point Roderick Long made about this, he said something along the lines of the violent nature of the state needs to be realised in order for citizens to pay their taxes and listen to its orders and at the same time people must also view it as peaceful in order for them not to rebel against it.

127

Try not paying taxes and see how hidden the threat is. Or not stopping for the police when you have done nothing wrong.

Interesting note on the ‘no-knock warrants’ they have here in the US, I took a conceled weapons permit class the other day and the ‘castle doctrine’ trumps that. The cops break down your door without identifying themselves as police, you shoot a couple and it’s considered a ‘justifiable’ shooting as far as the law is concerned. The last big home invasion in the Phoenix valley had the invaders dressed up as police and they shot up the house pretty good (think it was Mexican gang related) so someone doesn’t even have to have a reasonable belief that the people dressed up as police entering their home are actual police acting in the commision of their duties.

Depends on who you talk to. Tax evasion, resisting arrest, drug trafficking, gun running, take your pick.

Prisons are filled with people who didn’t submit to the State’s victimless crime laws and most police forces have a special enforcement arm called the Vice Squad.

Why should you have to leave your life and property because of the criminal activity of others?

Isn’t that the whole point of this thread, since you submit to the State you tacitly consent to their rule? Just because nobody wants to go play The Heart of Darkness with Max doesn’t automagically make us a bunch of state sympathizers as is often heard on these forums.

128

I’m not trying to take the moral high ground here. On this issue, I am at the same point as everyone else. I might be questioning it differently, but if my rhetoric about action is honest, then I am failing my own test. And I am admitting that.

Why should you submit to the state to maintain the charade that by staying you are keeping it? As long as you are under the state, your life and property are forfeit in an instant. That’s presumed to be understood.

129

There really isn’t a ‘Plan B’ on this matter.

You either submit to the State or violence will ensue because that’s how they enforce their will over their subjects. Basically ‘your wallet or your life’ type of relationship has been established between the people and the government and most people value their life a lot more, I know I do.

Even Max’s utopian dream will eventually attract the violence of a much better armed State because no matter where he goes some group claims a monopoly over it.

130

This is why the length of time you endure the coercion matters. The longer you endure something which you claim to be a gross injustice and do nothing the more it appears that you are no longer being coerced but in fact are making a conscious decision to participate.

If a woman goes to a bar and gets raped we all agree it is an injustice. After the first time, if she continues to go to the bar and get raped every night for the next six months her claim that she is being raped every night loses a lot of credibility and certainly greatly reduced sympathy. If you say you are being assaulted and robbed on a daily basis and take no action to stop it or at least reduce it then the credibility of the claim is greatly diminshed maybe to the point that it is no longer believable much like LS is observing about many people who actively participate in the state.

So what action the victim takes over time matters a great deal to whether the injustice is as is claimed. Maybe a lot of people suffer from a type of battered wife syndrome as it relates to the state in that they have lost all hope. This does happen, as evidence think of all the people who walked into the gas chambers without resisting. So if you have lost all hope then I can understand this victim mentality.

131

This is the loss of all hope that I was referring too. The line forms to the right please walk, in order to maintain your safety no running into the disintegration chamber is allowed.

132

I’m not saying you are wrong, but I have to discover that for myself. Obviously, some people do opt for a plan “B”. I need to understand why. I need to find out who John Galt is. (I’m only halfway through Atlas Shrugged, so I hope I used that right)

Right but I think a lot of “subjects” buy in regardless of the violence. Most of them don’t even see it. And those who do buy in, forfeit their life and property at the whim of the government anyway. It’s like the knife to the girl’s throat. She gives in today to avoid the knife she might submit tomorrow as well. And it’s not a trade for possession of the knife, or even a promise of future freedom from harm. The knife is ever present, regardless of whether one submits or not. Statists and rapists are not rational people. They are irrational. A rapist could rape, and then disfigure or murder with a knife. The knife has already established that it is the power in the relationship, independent of how much the person being raped surrenders or for how long.

Max’s dreams are not mine. This is the second straight post you have brought Max up to me. What his plans or dreams are have little or nothing to do with me. I am not Max. We don’t agree on everything, I’m not even sure we agree on the important things. What he and I have in common, is a desire to do more than be fearful citizens.

133

If you can find an actual agorist maybe you could ask them but they still risk a violent confrontation with the State because of their activities.

Maybe that’s Plan B, violence…

You had a public education, right? Name one thing they taught you that wasn’t pro-state or didn’t justify their right to rule over you.

I wasn’t saying they were.

What’s wrong with trolling Max?

134

I have a plan B. It’s not violence. But good point. Although there are probably Agorists all around us. But I doubt they advertise it. I think Agorists use secrecy as cover, and I think philosophers use the secretive nature of Agorism as cover.

My public education was disrupted 6 times. I didn’t get proper brainwashing treatment. Thankfully.

As long as it’s not trolling me. I’ve already got an obsessive secret admirer. There’s only so much of me to go around.

135

Only to those who view reality as a dream.

136

And how about if the bar was hers?

137

If your neighbors elect someone to be the offical thief in the town, are you consenting to being robbed by not moving?

138

This is a difficult concept for you I know, but at some point in life you have to accept responsibility for how your life is. If you are being assaulted and there is no one else to help you but yourself then it is up to you to resolve the situation. I never said this excused the assailant but if you continually allow yourself to be assaulted when other options are available, I begin to doubt your claim that you are being assaulted and certainly have decreaasing sympathy for your whining.

139

I’m guessing you solution is too… join the liberty colony?

140

Yeah, I think that’s the argument the customers that frequent the sex slave shops also use.

If they didn’t consent they would just run away…