RoR: Forum

Rebirth of Reason

Friday, September 17, 2010 - 12:09am

Good luck!

Any attempted non-cooperation will be met with physical force. No way around that.

Friday, September 17, 2010 - 3:53am

Not if that non-cooperation came from as little as 10% of the state's whole population, Bill. The state could never keep up with all those "criminals." Further, an initial effort would certainly embolden many others to follow them. I can easily see 50% of the people flipping the state off.

Friday, September 17, 2010 - 8:15am

I lived in Hawaii for about 6 years and it has some unique problems. The attitude of many of the politicians makes it feel a little like a third world government at times, the levels of corruption may equal those in Louisiana or Chicago, and the citizens tend to be treated more like peasants at times. Or, like natives being 'cared for' by a paternalistic colonial government. But I don't agree with Jim's position as being helpful. What is needed is political education. And I don't agree with his characterization of life in Hawaii as equivalent in any rational way to slavery.

He sets up two arguments. One is his statement that everyone is in a relationship that is "literally and precisely the relationship" of slaveholder-slave. He modifies it to say it is maybe only 50% or so, but that is still an absurd exaggeration that shows no understanding of what real slavery is. Like I said, I lived in the state and worked in the state and had my own business, owned property, came and went, set my own hours, made my own decisions.... I was neither slave nor slaveholder.

Based upon that totally false argument of slavery, he attacks the mechanism of representative government, decrying that "as little as a single-digit percentage of the people residing in their district or state" can effectively elect their representatives who then vote to pass bills with as little as 50.1% of the representatives in favor. Actually, a single-digit can only elect a representative if it is added to over 49 percent. But note that his argument is NOT against a particular number. The validity of any agrument against the violation of individual rights does not rest on numbers. There are no numbers large enough to make that just. He is arguing against representative government.

He remains true to his anarchism - he is still opposed to the "monopoly of force" - so, he still wants force to free to be used by all as if that would be an improvement, as if that were the problem.

He says, "They will not give us our freedom. We must seize it every day, in every way we can." Freedom is the absence of forceful interference with the actions one could otherwise take. It is freedom from force or the threat of force. You don't get freedom by "taking" it from bueracrats who don't have it. You have to create that condition and it is only done by a proper government. It is the bueracrats that will be part of the machinery that creates and maintains freedom, when they do things properly. They are still put there by the politicians and the politicians are NOT slaveholders, because they are elected.

So instead of advising people to abandon the rule of law, to become sneaky criminals who think of themselves a slaves, we should do what we are doing all across the nation. Electing marginally better politicians - making improvements. It is what the Tea Party is doing. It is the best path in today's world to take to get from where we are now to where we want to be.

(Edited by Steve Wolfer on 9/17, 10:04am)

Friday, September 17, 2010 - 9:15pm

Steve,

Cheers.

Friday, September 17, 2010 - 9:50pm

Thanks, Mike.

Sunday, September 19, 2010 - 12:09am

Steve, I wasn't just talking about Hawaii, though the repression is more apparent there than elsewhere.

Let me give some concrete illustrations of what I'm talking about.

A free person owns their body and mind, and all the value they create, and all one's thoughts, and can act however they please so long as they do not harm others. That is 100% freedom.

A complete slave does not own their life or their body, or any of the results of their labor, and can have all of those taken away at any time by those who owns them. North Korea is a pretty good illustration of people who are virtually 100% slaves, despite a few tiny steps away from absolute subjection after that most recent mass starvation killed off a few million of the subjects there.

So, what portions of our lives do we get to act as free people, and what portions are we treated as slaves by our political masters?

Is it freedom when:

The government, using eminent domain, can take any property you own for whatever price they choose to pay and give that property to anyone else?

The government can confiscate some or all potential uses of your property without any compensation, such as by declaring that your property is a wetlands and must be left untouched for the benefit of some obscure rare species living on it? Or by zoning ordinances that require you to obtain permission, which might be denied, if you want to change a building or house you own or tear it down?

The government can conscript you into serving on a jury?

The government limits how much political speech you can engage in using campaign donations, etc.?

Various levels of government take up to 2/3 of your marginal income as taxes?

The government asserts that returning surplus taxes you paid to you is "an expense", thus clearly implying that EVERYTHING you earn belongs to them, and that they may generously choose to give you some portion of it to live on?

The government asserts the principle that anything you own or earn can be seized as taxes, that there is no limit on depredations other than their need to be reelected?

The government asserts that we can only engage in certain professions if we beg for permission to do so, and if the government deigns to issue us the permits to do so after we satisfy its demands, with them holding the power to deny permission altogether, such as acting as a physician or attorney for certain acts we know how to perform but do not have the papers permitting that?

The government absolutely forbids anyone to engage in certain professions, such as selling certain chemicals or selling sexual services?

And so on.

In some activities we are free, so long as we can continue to elect enough politicians who agree to not take that freedom away.

There is no activity or act or possession in which we have 100% inviolable freedom. The U.S. Constitution asserts that there are such areas of our lives, and that those protected areas encompass most of our lives, but the amount of those freedoms that have been taken away by the government, despite the plain wording of that document, show that nothing is safe, everything is just one election away from vanishing without enough politicians willing to defend our freedoms.

In parts of our lives, we are, at least temporarily, free men and women. Those parts of our lives allow us to have a pretty good life, and with the proper mechanisms of denial it possible to block out or to rationalize out those moments when we are reminded that in many parts of our lives we are treated as slaves.

Steve, perhaps you are happier being able to deny that suffer under a partial degree of slavery. But, I do assert it is denial of strong evidence to the contrary to assert "I was neither slave nor slaveholder" without noting that in some aspects of your life that just isn't so.

Sunday, September 19, 2010 - 12:28pm

Jim,

You used these words: "...the slaveholder-slave relationship is literally and precisely the relationship that exists between virtually every elected official and their 'constituents'."

The relationship is not literally or precisely that of slaveholder-slave. If it were I could not have come and gone as I wanted, bought and sold property, employed others, been employed, entered contracts, set my own hours, lived where I wanted, voted as I saw fit, said and wrote what I wanted, met with who I wanted, dressed as I wanted, and so forth. My life is so totally different in every way from that of a slave as to make your claim absurd.

I made the obvious answer to your post - "...instead of advising people to abandon the rule of law, to become sneaky criminals who think of themselves a slaves, we should do what we are doing all across the nation. Electing marginally better politicians - making improvements."

You ignore the obvious fact that our daily lives are made up of far more freedom and far greater respect for property rights that most countries on earth and that we still have all of the effective control as voters that is required to put things right. To say anything different is to ignore what is happening with the tea party movement.

Why won't you admit this is a culture far more in favor of property rights than against? We are substantially in agreement on what laws need to be repealed. But where I advocate political strategies to do that, you see us as slaves and advocate throwing out the rule of law altogether.

You equate jury duty with slavery. You equate campaign contribution limitations with slavery and accuse me of being in denial for not agreeing with an absurd, out of context, irrational judgment of our actual condition. You are in denial of the degree of freedom that exists in your day to day life right now. I have no problem with agreeing with nearly every single law you have mentioned that violates individual rights, or with the need to force our government to live within the constraints of the constitution, but that isn't what you really want.

You are defined more by your anarchist hatred for the rule of law than any of the particulars you argue against - they are just strawman targets you bring up in irrational ways to let you rant against government - that is your form of stealth jihad against government.