Yesterday I listened to a podcast by Marc Stevens of the No State Project, a round-table discussion about voluntary society and the legitimation of force. What all the panelists were able to agree on is that there are two choices:
a) either admit that you authorize violence against your peers,
b) or admit that it is high-time to dissolve the state.
I wholeheartedly agree with this dichotomy, and am calling out to all who might be persuaded as well. If this idea is too far out, bear with me a minute and we'll bring it around. Consider these premises:
1. The only form of government recognized as lawful is a representative one.
2. Representation requires mutual consent
3. Consent must be freely given and not a result of coercion, duress, violence, or undue influence from misinformed agents, representatives, or officers.
4. The right to elect a government necessarily implies the right to elect to not have a government. If we only have the option to choose our master, we are nothing more than slaves with a limited choice of masters.
5. Free humans have no masters. I am a free man and seek no master.
6. Anyone seeking to master me will have to use coercion, duress, undue influence, and eventually violence.
If you think, still, that this is too far out there, consider this: by voting, paying taxes, living in uninformed complacency, everyone who does so is authorizing violence against those who don't want to, for example, pay taxes, vote, or be bludgeoned and caged for growing and smoking plants, etc.
The old adage, 'if you don't vote you can't complain' is antithetical to the more correct statement that 'if you vote you are legitimizing violence against me.'
Some will retort, oh, but, hey-now, what about reforming the system? "We do indeed already have a representational system," "Surely we can achieve some minimal level of government that is agreeable to all," "I'm not personally inflicting violence on you," etc...
The system cannot be reformed as it is not representational, never has been, and has no potential to ever be so. Even if 98 percent of a population is represented, generally, the marginalized minority will be oppressed. Even if there were such little government, taxation and statute enforcement, etc., to satisfy that majority, rule by majority is a sanction of violence against the minority; and yes, to identify with the majority is to be personally involved in inflicting that violence.
Here is the call: to all who wish to live an unruly life, neither ruling or ruled, say yea!
to get it started...
ReplyDeleteYEA!
Choice A, please. I admit. I would authorize violence against my peers in certain cases. However, "force them to follow your beliefs?" Beliefs I don't care about, I find them to be irrelevant, internal processes. It is actions which can cause harm.
ReplyDeleteAbout anarchy and 'absolute individual independence': It is logically impossible. There will always, by human nature, be people more than happy to exert their violence on others, often in an organized way. And you won't have any choice in the matter except by escalating the violence yet more. You'd have a hard time convincing every person ever to be born to voluntarily not be violent.
About democracy: Adjusting the system to represent the majority with a good degree of accuracy, while not oppressing the minority, is a matter of great debate. Specifically as great a debate as defining oppression.
Personally, I like my government direct democracy by default, 'representative' only where the voters find that helpful. And voters can vote for more government action or less, even situation-dependently.