Reject the 'Anarchist' Voters

[calmB4storm]

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This seems to be the classic example of an Ivory Tower philosopher, who opposes something good on the grounds that it's not perfect. He's more interested in maintaining his own ideological purity than he is in supporting someone that could actually help the cause of liberty.

This self-indulgent navel-gazing ignores the fact that any real change is likely to come about precisely because of people like Ron Paul (or, in the words of the author, the "rich white male", as if voting for a poor black woman would be any more or less statist lol). The fact is that the world is not suddenly going to wake up, have an epiphany, and discover how evil the state really is. If they were, they would have done so years ago. Nor is failing to vote going to cause this to happen. People will just assume the low voter turnout is due to laziness, not principled opposition to the state.

No, if anything is going to lead to the ultimate demise of the state, it will be gradual reductions in state power, that allow the people to see that they don't really *need* the state to survive. This is what Ron Paul is fighting for, and this is why he remains our best hope for real change. Rothbard understood this, which is why he advocated not only a radical philosophy, but also practical political action. Unfortunately, many of Rothbard's epigones seem to be too busy lecturing to get down off their soapbox and actually do anything constructive, choosing instead to criticize those who do as "fake anarchists" or "closet statists". If you ask me, the ones who are truly "fake anarchists" are those who talk about how much they love freedom, but scoff at doing anything to promote it.

In case you're wondering, this comes from someone who hasn't voted since '96. Some might say this makes me a hypocrite, but the truth is that there haven't been any candidates that have seemed to be worth voting for. But now, Ron Paul has changed all that. I don't agree with him on every single issue, but that's not the point. The point is that Ron Paul is dedicated to the cause of liberty, and that's a very rare thing these days. Obviously, if you don't want to vote for him, that's your decision to make, and I can respect that. But please, don't insult my intelligence by claiming that a vote for Ron Paul is a vote for statism, because nothing could be further from the truth.

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What he said FTW

[clowntable]

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preventing an action from being performed != forcing an action to be performed

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You're talking in the reference of your morality though.

For example, someone thinks that taking your food and giving it to someone else is moral. He moves to take your food. How are you going to "prevent" his taking your food with taking an action of your own? If in his morality his action is legitimate and your action is not, you are doing the initiation of illegitimate action (from his point of view). Sure, he initiated the illegimtate action from your point of view, but you can't win the morality argument without doing so in the context of your own morality only.

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Wrong. When two parties with opposing moralities collide, the *only* way to resolve the collision and initiate a *morally consistent* interaction is for the two parties to mutually agree. The only other alternative resulting in interaction is for one party's morality to be violently imposed upon the other party (regardless of whether the party imposing has a moral system that says this is allowed!).

If they both chose to not interact, then nobody's morality is violated.

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You are confusing morality and ethics/law.

[clowntable]

Nielsio, can you make it a little more clear so I understand your point.

Let's say there is ACist B who is eligible to vote, would you recommend that B should vote for Ron Paul?
If not what other course of action would you recommend?

[mosdef]

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If they both chose to not interact, then nobody's morality is violated.

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In this case, your morality wouldn't be violated because it is grounded in the sacredness of voluntary interaction. If someone else's morality says it's okay for them to interact with you involuntarily, their morality is violated when you use force to prevent the interaction. I agree, their action looks tremendously immoral for you and everyone that agrees with you, but you can't appeal to your definition of morality as the "correct" morality.

[Nielsio]

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Nielsio, can you make it a little more clear so I understand your point.

Let's say there is ACist B who is eligible to vote, would you recommend that B should vote for Ron Paul?
If not what other course of action would you recommend?

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To me, the democratic process is revolting. It's a puppet show that keeps people asking the wrong questions. In that regard, I think Ron Paul is extremely naive. He keeps pointing out what he thinks is "the purpose of government"; but it seems that the truth of the matter is that only he doesn't know what the purpose of government is.

I think such a naive position is very dangerous. And we see what his presence has done to so many conservatives and minarchist libertarians. All of a sudden they rise up with energy and feel that this is gonna be it, and they start believing in the virtue of the process and the system again.

No, I don't think you should vote. And I also don't think you should unilaterally support someone who has been in politics for over 25 years and still doesn't understand what's going on around him. Or he does understand it but yet he has continued telling himself that he has a valid spot in this circus of lies and deceit.

What I want people to get behind is ideas, NOT people. If Ron Paul speaks good ideas, then that is great. But if, through his actions, people will continue to believe in the system, or even worse, have their beliefs in it strenghtened, then I cannot support that by any means.

[delilah]

On which side will you be wagering on?

[pvn]

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Wrong. When two parties with opposing moralities collide, the *only* way to resolve the collision and initiate a *morally consistent* interaction is for the two parties to mutually agree. The only other alternative resulting in interaction is for one party's morality to be violently imposed upon the other party (regardless of whether the party imposing has a moral system that says this is allowed!).

If they both chose to not interact, then nobody's morality is violated.

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I believe I have the right to rape your wife. I rape her. You try to stop me. We don't agree. You shoot me in the head.

Doesn't seem like its the only way.

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Seems like your resolution met my criterion. So what's another way?

[pvn]

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All it does is turn people away from some quality ideas that anarchists have.

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No doubt, treating positions without respect (when they haven't been proven wrong) reeks of fear that they may be right. Also, it would seem to show that you have little faith in your own beliefs.

That said, you'd be kidding yourself it you didn't think that ACers here and on the interwebs didn't by and large turn many off because of their general attitude. It's a mean game, this politics.

Cody

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The attitude of most statists certainly turns *me* off.

[pvn]

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preventing an action from being performed != forcing an action to be performed

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You're talking in the reference of your morality though.

For example, someone thinks that taking your food and giving it to someone else is moral. He moves to take your food. How are you going to "prevent" his taking your food with taking an action of your own? If in his morality his action is legitimate and your action is not, you are doing the initiation of illegitimate action (from his point of view). Sure, he initiated the illegimtate action from your point of view, but you can't win the morality argument without doing so in the context of your own morality only.

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Wrong. When two parties with opposing moralities collide, the *only* way to resolve the collision and initiate a *morally consistent* interaction is for the two parties to mutually agree. The only other alternative resulting in interaction is for one party's morality to be violently imposed upon the other party (regardless of whether the party imposing has a moral system that says this is allowed!).

If they both chose to not interact, then nobody's morality is violated.

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You are confusing morality and ethics/law.

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Please explain why you think this.

[pvn]

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If they both chose to not interact, then nobody's morality is violated.

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In this case, your morality wouldn't be violated because it is grounded in the sacredness of voluntary interaction. If someone else's morality says it's okay for them to interact with you involuntarily, their morality is violated when you use force to prevent the interaction. I agree, their action looks tremendously immoral for you and everyone that agrees with you, but you can't appeal to your definition of morality as the "correct" morality.

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How does this contradict what I said? If they *choose* to *not* interact, then nobodys morality is violated. You then pull some example where one party chooses TO interact. This can't possibly refute what you quoted.

Like I said, the only other alternative, when there isn't agreement, is for force to be used to impose upon the other party.

If party A initiates force upon an unwilling party, he has no legitimate expectation that the unwilling party will not return force - even if his personal morality says he's justified.