Last week, Supreme Court Justice nominee Elena Kagan, the White House’s solicitor general, was being questioned by Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.) about natural rights.

The day before, he had unsuccessfully tried to get Kagan to concede that the constitution’s Commerce Clause does not give government the power to mandate by force (“Law is force,” Bastiat said) that Americans must consume fruits and vegetables. Kagan, by the way, never answered definitively but seems to say that non-economic activity, which presumably means eating, falls outside the scope of federal powers. Yet, in the case of marijuana, just possessing the substance was considered a commercial activity if the law were part of a larger regulatory (control) framework. So a stand-alone law mandating everyone in America eat their veggies would be unconstitutional, but if it were part of a national health care initiative, it is probably a go.

In his follow-up questions the next day, Coburn asked if self-defense was a natural right pre-existing the constitution. Kagan’s response was revealing. According to a CNN transcript, she said,”Senator Coburn, I believe that the Constitution is an extraordinary document, and I’m not saying I do not believe that there are rights pre-existing the Constitution and the laws. But my job as a justice is to enforce the Constitution and the laws.”

I am not defending the constitution by any means, nor do I expect the government to abide by its own rules and laws. However, it should be pointed out when government people do not live up to their own rules. Kagan is directly in conflict with the ninth amendment of the Bill of Rights, which states that “the people” possess other rights not previously enumerated. Famously, the founders said that we are endowed “with certain unalienable rights …. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.” For Kagan to say “I don’t have a view of what are natural rights, independent of the Constitution” means she is completely unfit by the government’s own standards to serve on the Supreme Court.

I cannot just fault Kagan. Though widespread, the idea that government should exist to defend our liberty and property is already completely contradictory. Government systematically assaults our liberty and property. From “all men are created equal” to “Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes” signals a complete defiance of inalienable rights and the natural law of equal liberty. Taxation is modeled on the idea of paying royalties for the privilege of engaging in commerce, owning property or earning a living.

I am aware Kagan is all but guaranteed to be confirmed. She will be one of nine people who ultimately interpret what the constitution means. So when it comes down to it, the rule of law is still the rule of men (and three women). But through indoctrination and guilt-laden propaganda, people have come to accept and embrace the authority over them. The whole show — the law, the authority and, ultimately, the government — are just manifestations of bad ideas.

Ideas fuel fear and avarice. You cannot shoot an idea or dynamite a myth. They are invincible to violence, even self-defense. Luckily, ideas also fuel truth and beauty.

Liberty supporters are at a distinct advantage though. Lies require constant supervision and constant maintenance. Lies must be heaped upon lies. Truth and beauty stand on their own. Like scientists, philosophers and intellectuals must transmit their discoveries if their work is to have any value. In business, that is the role of the entrepreneur, to turn concepts into consumables. For truth and beauty to have any power, they too must be communicated and acted upon to be made real. They must be practiced. That is the most admirable role of the liberty activist. That is how we will get our certainty and our freedom now, by living it.

I do think those terms have a legitimate use in referencing the means and the scope to which those means are used.

With that said, Darian Worden gave a great presentation (below) on why libertarianism is a left ideology. You can learn more about left-libertarianism at the Alliance of the Libertarian Left and join local ALLies in the Metroplex at the DFW Alliance of the Libertarian Left.

More of Worden’s work can be found at the Center for a Stateless Society.

For minarchists, constitutionalists, and so-called patriots, their primary path for reigning in the abuses of the federal and state governments has been through the conventional political process — electoral politics, lobbying, and petitioning. It’s been a long path too, since 1787, when the nation’s second constitution was formulated.

More precisely, limited-state supporters have tried to scale back the powers of the federal government since President George Washington marched conscripted troops on Pennsylvania whiskey tax resistors in 1794. Many look back at the early days of the federal government with starry-eyed vision of a glorious republic that was the hallmark of what a government ought to be. Never mind that, at the time of its inception, there was never a common interpretation of the what the constitution meant or how far the federal powers reached. What they forget was that while, yes, the government was relatively small and insignificant in most people’s lives, that was because it was a new government. It was paying off a tremendous war debt and was biding its time to gain legitimacy. As Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton noted, the purpose of the whiskey tax had less to do with paying down the debt than “to advance and secure the power of the new federal government.”

Long Odds, Losing Payoff

Despite over 200 years of trying to reform the system, government at all levels continues to grow at an ever-expanding pace. Since the likes of Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson, advocates of limited government have failed to restrain government to its self-imposed, self-enforced, and self-interpreted constitution. Today, over half of Americans “now receive significant income from government programs,” according to one study. (That estimate is understated because even those who work in the private sector and have nothing to do with government contracts can also ride on the government’s dime if they support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example. They get to shift the costs of those wars onto future generations through deficit financing.) The figure above has nearly doubled since the 1950s, when just over a quarter of Americans relied on government for significant support. With aging baby boomers set to retire in the coming decade, the number is only going to increase. Limited-state advocates were unsuccessful 50 years ago, when government had far less influence. Now, with a 100 percent fiat printing press at its fingertips and 12-year indoctrination camps under its control, the chances of rolling back government by using government are even bleaker.

With data like this, is there any reason to believe that Americans who directly or indirectly receive government handouts are going to support limiting those handouts? After all, Social Security and government heath care recipients, who represent the largest direct beneficiaries, “earned” their entitlements.

Anecdotally, I know someone who believes a clandestine band of government officials orchestrated the 9/11 attacks for the fortune of the military-congressional complex yet actively sought and attained a position at one of the largest military contractors in the world. When asked to reconcile this belief and taking a job with a believed co-conspirator in the 9/11 attacks, it was “for the benefits,” I was told.

The election process requires 50 percent of the vote plus one. The odds of electing small-government advocates en mass is even longer considering those who receive government support are more likely to participate in the electoral process than others. Also consider that those who receive government support have family and friends. Is it reasonable to expect people, no matter how principled, to vote to dump their loved ones off Social Security or deny their grandparents access to a Medicare doctor? In my heart, if I had to cast the deciding vote, I could not do it. Maybe I am a hypocrite (fair enough), but I don’t think I’m much different from traditional voters. The social and familial pressures I’d face would be unbearable.

When I talk to people about reducing or eliminating a government program, it’s always the same objection. “What about the poor and the elderly?” I have no doubt that they would be cared for since nearly everyone has the same objection and government actively creates poverty. (I would be a little concerned if no one expressed concern for their well being.) Those concerns are appeals to our decency and ethics. Yet, the most prominent case being made for smaller government is on teleology grounds, a utilitarian argument, in effect conceding the ethical high ground to violence and theft. How backward.

A possible reason most limited-government supporters do not make a deontological (or ethics-based) case for liberty is because it would reveal their logical contradiction. They cannot support liberty, peace and a limited state, which necessarily is based on aggressive violence by its very existence, as any non-consensual territorial monopoly would be. Limited-state supporters and maximum-state supporters, thus, have already agreed that aggressive violence is necessary to solve social problems. The only disagreement is over how much violence is necessary.

Ignoring Imaginary Giants

As I see it, electoral politics is our Quixotic imaginary giant. It’s a distraction. No matter how many laws are on the books, all that matters is government currently has the legitimacy and the power to enforce them. If we undermine its legitimacy, its power won’t matter. They will still hold the gun in the room, but we will all know they have no bullets. We don’t need to convince a majority of our ideas either. We need a determined minority who will withdraw their consent in spirit and in practice. Many already have. It’s easy to get started. They practice their trade outside the strictures of government regulation, enjoying the benefits of an unregulated open market. Others can do the same and in such a way as to build trusted, decentralized networks of traders and entrepreneurs who directly and immediately benefit from these ideas.

I don’t propose abandoning the electoral process entirely. So long as a majority of people give the concept of democracy some weight, it provides a free soap box to spread our ideas. I wouldn’t look to electoral progress as a sign of our influence either, as the conventional political process is a lagging indicator of intellectual progress. Part of the reason that conventional politics can only be practiced marginally is because it demands “compliance with, acceptance of, and payment to its institutions,” as Samuel Edward Konkin III said.

Government enjoys the tacit approval of Americans to belligerently harass them and confiscate their wealth so the military and government-founded corporations can belligerently attack and confiscate the wealth of poorer peasants in other countries. There is nothing redeeming about it. It is extortion. But people put up with it because the devil they know is better than the devil they don’t know. We can cast a light on the possibilities of what freedom looks like by practicing it ourselves and leading by example. What could be more libertarian?

If we want to win, we’ve got to stop playing by the government’s approved rules. “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal,” as Emma Goldman quipped.

Instead of trying to free an entire country, we begin somewhere we have control — ourselves — making steady pragmatic progress individual by individual, and eventually social institutions will reflect these values we hold.

The life of Joseph Stack, the man the FBI believes flew his single-engine airplane into an office complex housing the Internal Revenue Service, ended in tragedy Thursday. It has been reported that at least one other man inside the Austin building was killed following the impact and many others were sent to the hospital to treat injuries.

To the loved ones of Mr. Stack and his victims, I offer my condolences. For Stack, I have nothing but condemnation for his acts. His brutality was needless and heartless.

I agree with Stack that what the IRS does is evil. Taxation is extortion.

What is easy to overlook is that the vast majority of people who advocate for government intervention into peaceful people’s lives do not see it that way. That’s just the way it is, they say.

Part of it is a lack of education. They have not read the books we have or heard the speeches we have. They have never studied agorism or read How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World by Harry Browne. And so they are still indoctrinated in government slavespeak.

Part of it as well is they believe that with enough government intervention and threats of violence, they can overcome circumstances they dislike in society. The only practical solution they see is violence. To offer voluntary and consent-based solutions to their problems seems so foreign them. In fact, in Stack’s suicide note of sorts, he said “[V]iolence not only is the answer, it is the only answer.”

So if the news reports are accurate and this man did do this, then he would have been acting under the same failed premises as those he intended to attack. He was a frustrated, desperate man who was willing to take his life rather than become a victim of the IRS any longer. But that is not how he will be remembered. He did not advance the cause of liberty one inch. He set it back. I’ve written before why violence is not the path to liberty.

For those of us whose highest political end is individual liberty, I believe one of our missions is to explain why violence and threats of violence are at best temporary antidotes to social ills — like heroin to an addict. Luckily, most everyone lives by the non-aggression principle everyday; it only takes making them aware of this and convincing them that the same principle applies to government too.

I would suggest reading Stack’s letter. An excerpt is below.

I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are. Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of shit at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along.

He was obviously an intelligent and lucid man. He was angry at an unmerciful system that cripples ingenuity and compassion. He hoped to be a martyr in the revolt; but really, he is just a killer.

Not only are we all anarchists now, there are abundant examples of anarchism working fabulously well. However, instead of opening anarchic relationships to everyone, governments have worked to abolish them from the private sphere and instead centralize anarchic relationships into the hands of politicians. I know it sounds strange that anarchy exists internally within government. My point here is to demonstrate that anarchic relationships are omnipresent.

Before beginning, I want to note that critics of market (or individualist) anarchism will point out that the market functions best with an impartial judicial system ruling on comprehensible law. I readily agree. Supporters of government also claim there needs to be a final body, such as the Supreme Court, which entails a supreme law that settles disputes once and for all. I don’t think it matters either way, especially since the political system does allow for disputes to continue in the legislative process even after the final court proceedings. I also don’t believe that a monopoly could provide an impartial judicial system or a comprehensible law. However, for the sake this discussion, I will concede all three points.

In Two Treatises on Civil Government John Locke said there are two things wanting in a “state of nature”: “established, settled, known law” and “a known and indifferent judge” (emphasis in original work). To clarify, my understanding is that a government functions as a third party that provides ultimate dispute settlement within a given territory. Again, for the sake of this discussion, I will concede that an “established, settled, known law” exists. So without an “indifferent judge” whose decisions are commanded, by force if necessary, anarchy exists. For the sake of this discussion, I will concede that there is always sufficient force to command a judge’s decision. So really, the question is if there is an “indifferent judge” or not. (I’ve written a little here and here why I believe a market-based legal system is more able to provide equitable justice.)

The first basic anarchic relationship is between government and its citizens. The second is among different governments. The third is between citizens and foreign governments. The fourth basic anarchic relationship is among citizens of different governments. (More elaborate anarchic relationships can be read about here.) With this understanding, it becomes abundantly clear that government cannot eliminate anarchy; it is ever-present. Government can only centralize and transform it, many times with devastating effects.

The first form of an anarchic relationship is between the United States federal government and American citizens, for example. There is no “indifferent judge” when the federal government comes into conflict with individuals or groups of individuals. In those cases, the federal government prohibits a third party from resolving the dispute. It is helpful that a different branch hears the case, but that branch is appointed by and subject to the pressures of another branch of government responsible for enforcing the court’s decisions. Supposedly, that is the purpose of the constitution’s checks and balances — to bind the federal government, yet the federal government is also responsible for interpreting and enforcing its own limitations. Politicians also act in a state of anarchy with each other. There is no external agency that enforces rules among them, and so they exist in a form of “political anarchy” as opposed to natural “market anarchy,” according to Alfred G. Cuzan, who said:

[I]n their relations among each other, they remain largely “lawless.” Nobody external to the group writes and enforces rules governing the relations among them. At most, the rulers are bound by flexible constraints imposed by a “constitution” which they, in any case, interpret and enforce among and upon themselves. … In short, society is always in anarchy. A government only abolishes anarchy among what are called “subjects” or “citizens,” but among those who rule, anarchy prevails.

Since governments get to decide conflicts, they are so inclined to create conflict and then rule in their own favor, expanding their authority.

To give some state governments credit, there have been calls throughout the years to nullify particularly outrageous federal legislation. But those states can only do so much because the federal government controls the currency and can hand out goodies to those states willing accept expansive federal powers. In the United States, the federal government’s dispute authority is not as centralized as, say, North Korea, where the final authority is given to a single person. In effect, Kim Jong-il has abolished anarchy is North Korea for everyone but himself.

In the second form of anarchic relationships, the federal government also exists in a state of anarchy with all other governments around the world. There is no mandatory final arbiter of disputes between Canada and the United States, for example. If the Canadian government is accused of price fixing, the disagreement is settled by the World Trade Organization, per their membership agreement. Both governments had a mutually agreed-upon dispute resolution process. The United Nations is the closest thing to a world government, but even its membership is voluntary. The United States government could even opt out and no longer be responsible to funding it or abide by UN resolutions within its territorial borders so long as the federal government did not threaten to aggress against other UN member governments. National governments voluntarily cooperate by honoring visas and legal documents (like marriage certificates and drivers licenses) and ratifying all sorts of treatises. So empirically, there is no need for a world government for other governments to peacefully coexist. But of course, nations do not always interact so peacefully.

There are a couple of reasons why violence committed by governments have been so devastating. Mainly, it has to do with the imbalance of power between governments and citizens. That is the reason cited by many constitutionalists for their defense of the right to keep and bear arms, as recognized by the Second Amendment. Some of the greatest genocides in history have been perpetrated against an unarmed populace. If the theory holds, it would seem that the greater the imbalance of power the more deaths that have resulted, while greater peace would occur as a result of a more evened balance of power. In fact, the figures seem to say just that. In the past 100 years, 262 million people were killed by their own government. (I am using “own government” very loosely.) Approximately 35 million others were killed in combats with a foreign government. (It was unclear how many were civilians and how many were soldiers.) In a fourth form of anarchic relationships, foreign citizens are in state of anarchy with citizens of other nations. The largest foreign civilian murderer was Osama bin Laden, who allegedly orchestrated the death of 3500 people in part to demonstrate his grievances with the foreign military occupation of the Arabian Peninsula. Interestingly, nuclear-armed nations, which have nearly an equal capability for destruction, have never been in direct conflict. (That may be because the political leaders are in direct harm’s way.)

We can conclude that civilians face the greatest danger from their own government, where the balance of power is so astounding. Equally powerful governments are relatively peaceful toward one another. And civilians face the least danger from other civilians. To be fair, that could be because governments are in place to punish lawbreakers. That effect seems marginal, at best, because most people do not have reasonable access to a functioning judicial system for civil cases, nor do they have much confidence in police apprehending criminals who have victims.

According to the FBI, less than 20 percent of reported burglaries, property crime, theft, car theft, and arson are “cleared.” Keep in mind, that only includes reported crimes, and not all “cleared” cases result in conviction. Police can pin crimes on deceased or incarcerated suspects. Murders are cleared about 60 percent of the time, forcible rape about 40 percent of the time, aggravated assault about 55 percent of the time. Keep in mind, those figures include wrongful convictions based on faulty eye-witness testimony, unimpartial juries, fabricated evidence, and incompetent public defenders.

Citizens have no constitutional right to have their rights protected, which is allegedly the entire purpose of forming a government according to the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson wrote, “That to secure tnhese rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ….” The United States Supreme Court justices have ruled multiple times that federal, state, and local governments have no positive obligation to provide protection from “killers or madmen.” So if police do respond to a 911 call, it is solely out of the good will put upon by social pressures within the community or from commanders conforming to social pressures.

A second reason governments are capable of so much more violence is because those people supporting escalation do not have the full burden of paying for their military adventures, but can channel the benefits of their policies to themselves and their supporters. Basically, the costs can be socialized, and the benefits are privatized — like any other government program.

Successful Anarchism in Practice

The political process is a perfect example of how market anarchism can work even under the most crippling conditions. (I lifted this from Stefan Molyneux‘s video “The Proof of Anarchy.”) It is fairly well known that political contributors and lobbyists are some of the biggest recipients of special treatment by the government. Year after year, the government increases in size and power. Pork-barrel spending and corporate bailouts are never-ending. Upwards of 80 percent of Americans support greater restrictions on campaign finance contributions, so people have an innate sense that those in power are pretty rotten. Yet — even though politicians and political contributors cannot make written agreements, contributors can never have their agreements enforced by a functioning legal system, no one can be made aware of a politician’s broken agreement, the government will violently punish anyone who can be proven to have made such an agreement, and media reporters are paid good money to uncover such agreements — politicians are repeatedly re-elected about 90 percent of the time and lobbyists receive more and more handouts and exemptions from the law. Under the worst market conditions, lobbyist and politicians continue to work harmoniously. If lobbyists were able to publicize broken quid pro quo agreements or have them enforced by a legal system, then lobbyists would have an even greater effect. As it stands, politicians are not forced into compliance with their lobbyists; the only threat to the politician is that the lobbyist will support his or her opponent in the next election. You have the market process flourishing even in the face of significant obstacles.

Building Liberty

As I’ve tried to demonstrate, government cannot totally eliminate anarchism. Cuzan said:

We have shown that anarchy, like matter, never disappears — it only changes form. Anarchy is either market anarchy or political anarchy. Pluralist, decentralized political anarchy is less violent than hierarchical political anarchy. Hence, we have reason to hypothesize that market anarchy could be less violent than political anarchy. Since market anarchy can be shown to outperform political anarchy in efficiency and equity in all other respects, why should we expect anything different now? Wouldn’t we be justified to expect that market anarchy produces less violence in the enforcement of property rights than political anarchy? After all, the market is the best economizer of all — wouldn’t it also economize on violence better than government does, too?

One method capitalizing on the anarchic relationships formally denied to citizens is the practice of agorism, which emphasizes working within black and gray market industries as a way of building alternatives to government-imposed services. In that way, the government — a so-called necessary evil — will no longer be seen as necessary. In time, it will be seen for what it is, just evil.

Disclaimer: This note is not meant to devalue or discredit the work that has already been done by activists in the GOP. Any action in this liberty movement is much appreciated. It is also worth noting that everything in this note applies to those from the left attempting to use the Democratic Party as well. Myself and many others are merely trying to point out the damage that can be done to the movement if we adopt the “restore the GOP” strategy as our primary means of affecting change in this country.

1. We give up our leverage as the majority maker.

From Chuck Young’s blog [post] “Lessons of the Paul Campaign – r[evol]ution within the reForm“:

“There is a branch of game theory called coalition theory. It ponders questions like the following: if we have 3 groups, with 49, 49, and 2 ‘votes’ respectively, all seeking to win an election with 51 votes total, which of these 3 can be said to have the most ‘power’? And the answer is (drum roll): they all have equal power, because any one of them that wishes to win must make a deal with some other group.

“In this little theoretical truism lies a possible answer to the riddle of how a dedicated and united cadre might wedge and manipulate two bloated, corrupt ‘superpowers’ like the Democratic and Republican parties. What is required isn’t a majority, but rather a minority substantial enough that both powers must continuously bargain with this third group to gain its temporary allegiance. Of course, the two superpowers could always come out in open alliance with each other once and for all — but that in itself would be a victory for the good guys with immense ramifications.

“The difficulties in launching and sustaining a viable third party are well documented; what is called for probably isn’t another political party. Indeed, such a thing would likely be undermined, as have the Libertarian Party, Constitution Party, and similar entities of the left, e.g. the Greens. But while a third party is probably untenable, it’s clearly suicide to remain in this abusive relationship with the Republicans.

“Why? Go back to coalition theory. By trying to ‘reform’ the Republican Party, our movement COMPLETELY SURRENDERS THE LEVERAGE IT HAS AGAINST THE TARGETS OF SAID REFORM. There is a shockingly naive assumption in all this, as the criminal elements in the GOP get away with political murder. It’s believed that somehow they will surrender their authority because they ‘need us.’ Some coalescing may indeed happen, but expecting those who run the GOP to just ‘come around’ to our way of thinking because they’re in the process of getting the crap kicked out of ‘em flies in the face of repeated experience. Most people in 1976 wouldn’t have given the GOP another shot at the presidency for 12 years at least; yet they were right back in the saddle in 1980, with a ‘revolution’ … of sorts.”

2. We will never be able to ignite the mass movement necessary to enact genuine change as we will always be plus-or-minus 50 percent of the voting postulation. We will always be trapped in a reactionary paradigm against the other half of the FALSE left-right paradigm.

Which leads to 3 ….

3. The party in power will inevitably waver on its principles if only to maintain its position as the dominant party.

From “A Disquisition on Government” by John C. Calhoun:

“A written constitution certainly has many and considerable advantages, but it is a great mistake to suppose that the mere insertion of provisions to restrict and limit the power of the government, without investing those for whose protection they are inserted with the means of enforcing their observance will be sufficient to prevent the major and dominant party from abusing its powers. Being the party in possession of the government, they will, from the same constitution of man which makes government necessary to protect society, be in favor of the powers granted by the constitution and opposed to the restrictions intended to limit them …. The minor or weaker party, on the contrary, would take the opposite direction and regard them [the restrictions] as essential to their protection against the dominant party …. But where there are no means by which they could compel the major party to observe the restrictions, the only resort left them would be a strict construction of the constitution …. To this the major party would oppose a liberal construction …. It would be construction against construction — the one to contract and the other to enlarge the powers of the government to the utmost. But of what possible avail could the strict construction of the minor party be, against the liberal construction of the major, when the one would have all the power of the government to carry its construction into effect and the other be deprived of all means of enforcing its construction? In a contest so unequal, the result would not be doubtful. The party in favor of the restrictions would be overpowered …. The end of the contest would be the subversion of the constitution … the restrictions would ultimately be annulled and the government be converted into one of unlimited powers.”

4. The party will shape the change agents more than the change agents will shape the party.

From Chuck Young’s blog [post] “Lessons of the Paul Campaign – r[evol]ution within the reForm”:

“This brings us to the very disturbing turn Paulism has taken: the invocation of that same ‘Reagan Revolution,’ the ‘Robertson takeover’ and the like, to ‘sell’ Paulism to the GOP ‘conservatives.’ Groups like the Republican Liberty Caucus are even openly equating Ron Paul with Ron Reagan – with REAGAN, super neoconservative, warmongerer extraordinaire, the most profligate spender the nation had ever seen (until the record was broken by a certain successor), a man that sold out so-called conservative principles so profoundly, that Ron Paul himself quit the Republican Party in disgust and ran as the Presidential candidate for the LP in 1988!!!

“What a long, bitter history the movement for LIBERty has when it tries to be ‘conservative!’ And yet, because we’ve convinced ourselves that we’ve nowhere else to go, we find ourselves chanting this mantra: ‘we really are conservatives, we are real conservatives, be a conservative like us.’ And always in this equation of the movement with ‘conservatism,’ ALWAYS, there is a softening of the anti-war, anti-empire stance. And so one wonders, vis a vis this GOP ‘takeover’ – who’s zoomin’ who, hmmm?
The signs are all around the paleocon ‘surge.’ It isn’t only that Ron Paul is being equated with Reagan and Goldwater (can you hear that…? it’s the sound of Rothbard turning over in his grave). We have Bob Barr as the nominee for the LP – Barr, ex-CIA, who voted for the Iraq ‘War’ and the Patriot Act. And the rising star in the LP is Wayne Allen Root – note his initials, ‘WAR,’ and rest assured that ‘peace’ will never be his middle name. It seems the deeper we commit ourselves to this dysfunctional ‘conservative’ assertion, the more we are moved toward the ‘libertarianism’ of Neil Boortz – not the other way around.”

5. The hierarchical structure of the two major parties is easily susceptible to co-option, as only those at the top would need to be compromised in order to steer the party. This is evidenced by the current state of both parties.

Potential solution?

Remain a tight united libertarian cadre which works on single issue coalitions at a local and state level all the while applying the philosophy of liberty in a manner which will cause those of the statist persuasion to appreciate the consistency of libertarianism and question the hypocrisy of their collectivist mindset. Eventually the tight united cadre will grow as those beginning to appreciate liberty more and more will be picked off from the fringe of the parties.

All the while we must begin to build and create parallel institutions based on mutually beneficial voluntary associations so that we may offer an alternative to the people when the current system inevitably collapses. We must be prepared to offer an alternative as our enemies surely will be. [Editor's note: A few edits have been applied to Bush's note to conform to the punctuation style on this site.]

My take is that the Libertarian Party is largely a waste, save as a protest vote or an education tool. Participating in the primary elections of the major parties leverages the most impact from voting, which is still about as equivalent to a suggestion box on a slave plantation. Bush has said he is “beginning to explore the revolutionary possibilities associated with agorism, counter-economics, and the creation of parallel institutions which will rival and compete with the state.” I wholeheartedly agree; we should be spending our time agitating and organizing, not begging the state.

He is also beginning to take some heat from Ron Paul apologists (not all Paul supporters, including myself, are apologists) for questioning Paul’s support of welfare-warfare Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX). For as beneficial as Paul is at spreading the message of liberty, it is just as important that liberty activist hold themselves accountable to at least the same standards by which they hold others. I believe attempts to confine or marginalize different opinions shows a lack of confidence is one’s own ideas. To paraphrase Zeitgeist: The Movie, take truth as the authority, not authority as the truth.

I admit, the video above cracked me up.

On a serious note, I feel sorry for the young man who posted it. The lessons he is learning now will likely be the foundation for his worldview and affect the relationships he has with others. He no doubt has empathy for others who are being bullied at school and wants more than anything for his harassment to stop. He might recognize that school attendance is made compulsory by government and to some degree by his family, so he sees no reasonable escape from his present circumstances. He even said that he has thought about committing suicide, so he must believe his options are severely constrained.

When he matures, he will very likely, if he has not already, carry the same mistaken notions forward with him into society, that there is no feasible means of avoiding morally corrupt people and that therefore an entity must exist that is powerful enough to defend against abusive people. The most readily available candidate for that power is government, so a strong centralized nanny government is key to safety.

According to Dr. Charles Whitfield’s heirachy of needs, safety is second only to survival. Comparatively, freedom ranks 19th.

That is the root concern liberty activists must address, I believe. We can tell people all about how government is our greatest abuser (and they might agree), but any call to weaken or abolish nanny government — a so-called necessary evil — is interpreted as a greater threat to their safety. The devil that we know is better than the devil we don’t know, as the saying goes. What we have to communicate is that life offers much more opportunity than was available to them as a child. You are not trapped in abusive relationships. You are free of them the moment you want to be. You don’t have to associate with people who have a history of hurting people. Therefore, it is not necessary for a nanny government to watch over us and “keep ‘protecting’ you by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that,” as Lysander Spooner said.

They wouldn’t be left abandoned to the biggest bully on the block, which incidentally now is the case. Natural law ensures that those bullies would cut their own throats first. The market demand for security would eliminate the remaining stray bullies, and individual compassion would care for the less fortunate. So I don’t resent statists (those who believe individuals exist to serve the well-being of the state); I offer them my sympathy for their burden: believing evil to be “necessary.”

While anarchy may be viewed as a Utopian state, so long as a single individual wishes to undermine the rights of their (sic) neighbor, the response will always be a de facto government. As soon as you have de facto government, you will have those that will advocate that the role of that government extends out into providing services that are viewed to be not efficiently achieved individually.

I think that is a fair point. I like rules, and those rules need some governance to be implemented. If that is called a government or a dispute resolution organization, I don’t mind. It’s like when Frederic Bastiat said just because he does not want the state to raise grain that does not mean he wants to go hungry. I don’t agree it is necessary for a single organization to claim a monopoly by force on the enactment and enforcement of rules that others must follow. That is an imposition of a positive non-consensual obligation on the individual.

The knock that a stateless society is utopian because it is believed neither practical nor achievable is commonplace. Yet, we wouldn’t say that a law against murder is utopian even though no one thinks it could prevent all murders. And if I am at fault for holding grand, immaculate goals for what is possible in this world, that is how I would rather spend my short time on Earth.

Total liberty as a function of society is therefore not achievable and the degree of liberty achievable is reliant on the morality of those that control government’s decisions.

I think the breakdown begins in our meaning of liberty. For me it is simple, the absence of coercion. Hayek and Rothbard differed on the meaning of coercion, but that is a much simpler disagreement than trying to divine the meaning of 200-year-old colloquial phrases in the constitution. When I speak of complete liberty, I don’t mean that everyone in society lives in peace. That is probably unattainable given human history. However, it is the norm that most individuals live a condition of complete liberty with one another every day. I only seek to abolish those institutionalized usurpers of our liberty — when people are ready for it.

Another interesting point raised is who controls the government. I contend that the actual reason for establishing a state is for a tiny minority to impose its will on the majority. I’ll explain my thinking below because it ties into how a stateless society might resolve conflicts between different legal standards, an important point of concern.

“… it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.”

To advance a state of anarchy is to advance that man has another alternative for the protection of life, liberty and property. Time and time again, man has come to the conclusion that only laws will protect and therefore has rightfully rejected anarchy.

No genuine consent can be given, as Lysander Spooner argued and I cited before, just as a payment of taxes and voting is done under duress.

I do think there is another process, the marketplace, which serves as the bridge among differing people. I understand the appeal to moderation, that some government is necessary to protect our liberties. However, just because something has existed for a long time does not mean it is valid. And even if it were valid, there would be no reason for it to be implemented by force unless those who did not agree were using force. Slavery was considered a natural part of the human condition, too, for thousands of years. We wouldn’t say the slaves approved of slavery just because there had always been slaves. I mean, what’s with all the whips and chains? The fact that the majority of people believe something is irrelevant as well. After all, it is no coincidence they support government since most everyone went to the same 12-year indoctrination camps to stunt their imagination and curiosity in favor a deference to authority.

Better yet, I don’t understand how it is accurate to say that the majority of people believe laws are necessary to protect them. There are laws to prohibit stealing, to take property by force or the threat thereof. But some are given an exemption to steal and call it taxation. Max Stirner said, “The State’s behavior is violence, and it calls its violence ‘law’; that of the individual, ‘crime.’ ” If laws are our means of protection, then why are those with grossest history of abuses not governed by them? The state conclude that stealing is both morally necessary and emphatically evil. The state is hypocrisy, for it allows a tiny minority to steal but punishes the masses for the same behavior.

If that is the way people choose to live, saying morality is relative and not universal, who am I to say they shouldn’t? But the state is about imposing one set of values over others. If the argument is that might makes right, then I don’t understand how a state is necessary either. The costs of maintaining the state and checking its growth is terribly expensive and a waste of resources to impose it by force if most everyone supports it. The state is actually composed of a number of special interests minorities seeking to impose their own values on others. They could never exercise control without it. Bastiat said as much: “The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.” The foolhardy thing is that everyone thinks they are getting the best of everyone else.

Libertarians are also a tiny minority, so why haven’t they gotten their way? First, for libertarians to gain control that would mean that everyone else would have to relinquish theirs. Liberals would have to give up their economic planning schemes and social welfare experiments. Conservatives would have to stop imposing their own cultural preferences on everyone. So there is a lot of resistance to libertarianism. Second, most importantly, strict libertarians have no power to lend to others. Electoral politics works like a buddy system, where enough people support each other’s projects to get them all passed. Strict (principled) libertarians aren’t willing to do this, so they never get traction. That is why electoral libertarianism, even with all the evident failures of government, has made no material progress as the state marches on. Libertarianism proper has made measured progress, meanwhile, in the areas of education and circumventing the controls of government.

A Possible Solution for Conflicting Legal Norms in a Stateless Society

It is important to recall that under today’s conditions, the state subsidizes aggression with taxes on consensual behavior like earning an income or trading goods. For example, wars are very costly and they are financed with money from income taxes or through Federal Reserve debt. If only the neo-cons who supported the Iraq war had to pay for it, they might have a little more humble and judicious foreign policy. However, they get to shift the costs on everyone else, including future taxpayers. That is why you see a steady escalation in the size of government. Only a few thousand might benefit from a post office in rural Kansas, but legislators work in concert to support each other’s projects and everyone pays for them. Then, they are left to create subsidiary laws to finance their plunder and restrict competitors.

The way I imagine a stateless society functioning is that people would join dispute resolution organizations (DROs) for their protection and see to it that their contracts are honored. You might even have after-the-fact DROs that provide assistance only once coercion has occurred. One concern is that people might contract with DROs that are really aggressive. They hunt down people with little or no evidence of guilt, go after political enemies, and cause general mayhem in the community. Basically, they would act like every other government.

The important point to remember is that DRO policies are just some means to an end. Each policy provides a cost and benefit of implementing. If you’ve got a bunch of extraneous policies that you want to impose, then someone has to be paid to enforce them. In a stateless society, people who want to practice aggression will face the full expense of that decision. An additional burden of enforcing excessive or aggressive policies is going to the lack of reciprocal relationships with other DROs willing to enforce them. The reason e-mail is a valuable services is because service providers have adopted the same protocol standards necessary to transmit messages across servers. So the more people who use it, the more value the service provides — like how credit cards can dispense cash around the world in local currencies. This could be true for dispute resolution. If a DRO is so burdensome that other DROs are unwilling to deal with it, then its customers are limited to confidently trading with the number of people in the same DRO. This will not immediately dissuade all DROs from implementing highly onerous regulations, but the price mechanism will limit their reach. A framework to this could be reputation rating services and insurance providers. There really is no telling with the dynamism of the market system. How this might come about is up for debate. Might it come about by supplanting the government policing apparatus, as agorism prescribes? Or might it come about through the gradual dissolution of government as its credibility is shattered? A lot of it is speculation, which is necessary to evolve beyond institutionalized coercion.

It makes sense to assume that most people don’t favor using open violence against others, so they would not support DROs that did either. If I am assuming wrong, then a government won’t help because those same people who favor aggression will most likely control it. In fact, it would be worse because the victims would in some way be forced to fund their own oppression. It’s an easy trap to be caught in. If we can’t think of a way to resolve conflicts consensually, then we need immaculate violence to obliterate conflicts. The truth is we don’t need it, no more than slaves needed their masters.

The strength of the Constitution (sic) lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in this defense are the constitutional rights secure.

Can anyone imagine saying something like that about any sector of society other than government?

The strength of the movie industry is in every submitizen’s determination to support it. Only if every single person feels duty bound to support the movie industry can we expect to get the products we want and the entertainment it promises.

Of course not. If we didn’t like their products we wouldn’t give them business. More than anything, it just goes to show how ineffective government is at protecting liberties and how silly the idea of a constitution is if the very organization it is meant to restrain is given a monopoly on interpreting it and discretion when enforcing it. From personal experience, I have observed that many in the liberty movement are pro-market and believe government as it now exists (individually nonconsensual and territorially monopolistic) is necessary for the free market to function. What does that say about the market if that were true? Government “asks” that we surrender fundamental liberties for the common good. The police, military, and judicial system are all run by the government. I wondered if it has ever crossed their minds why a socialist-like organization is needed to defend the free market.

Since the founding of the current constitution, it was believed that private interests in each of the branches of the government would keep any one branch from becoming too powerful. Instead, what has happened is that each branch has coordinated together to seize more and more power simultaneously. It must be frustrating that the government designed to be the most protective of individual rights has become the most dangerous threat to those rights in the history of civilization, a government powerful enough to destroy the world many times over with its thermonuclear weapons. George Washington probably owes George III a belated apology.

Now, I would be thrilled to return to constitutional government (my interpretation of constitutional government), and someday we might. I’d insist on going further and remove the parasite entirely. That will take changing people’s ideas of how society might function in a stateless society. That can be achieved simultaneously with the shrinkage of the state by undermining its legitimacy so that people no longer believe it is necessary. That is as simple as mocking it when people in government make some boneheaded mistake (When aren’t they?), offering better competing products and services, and educating others of the value of liberty and peace.

That’s all. I assure you that it will be worth the effort.

The Campaign for Liberty, Tea Party, and 9/12 movements have organized around the idea gaining back our freedom and nation by getting the right people elected to national, state, a local positions.

My question is: As long as the unelected global elites control the power, wealth, and the system, how is electing or unelecting anyone going to make a difference? We’ve been playing this game for decades with nothing but loss after loss of liberty. … Suppose we actually did get Ron Paul as President, and had numerous victories in local elections, how much power will they really have within the global elite’s system? How many of our new representatives will be easily turned with bribes, black mail, and threats? How effective could they be against the onslaught of media propaganda against them?

Instead of blaming the messenger, I think the concern is genuine, though I don’t know anything about a “global elite.” The people who support violence against me live in my neighborhood. In any case, I responded.

I feel that voting for people to represent your interests is one of the least effective means of achieving political success. It is always a lagging indicator of political opinion. The voting myth states that to have political influence, you must delegate it away. The alternative, I think, is to represent yourself and your interests.

Some refer to it as “direct action.” Taking direct action, rather than relying on a middleman to solve problems, has many advantages. You become familiar with the resources around you, building de facto institutions and learning your own capabilities or strengths.

Some specific examples of direct action are passing out flyers about issues that concern you rather than waiting on the media to give it attention. When someone raises money for a charity instead of asking a politician for tax dollars, that is direct action. When someone starts a book club rather than attending a government classroom for an education, that is taking action. One method of direct action, agorism, seeks to build alternative institutions that deligitimize the state’s interference in that area of the marketplace.

Direct action does not spend time fighting over platforms or building a consensus, wasting time and money. Different groups can operate independently without the need for confrontation, unless their goals really are diametrically opposed. Direct action can be taken whenever you see fit.

These two methods of activism can be applied together. Think of all the hours wasted debating on who to vote for, what platform proposal to adopt, which bylaw to strike. Yet, voting itself takes just a few minutes.

We can spend an hour a year voting and the rest of our time taking action. If you’re interested, you might want to check out DFW ALL for other ideas.

The state bureaucrat excuses their tyranny by claiming to protect the common good.

Of course, the real reason for the law is to protect the priveleged existing cab companies. They wouldn’t want to have their prices undercut by increased compitition. I would suspect that someone responding to a CraigsList ad would not be under those assumptions anyways. Caveat emptor, buyer beware.