If Adam doesn't violate the non-aggression principle in his political campaign, and spreads the message of freedom and self-ownership, he is still a voluntaryist.
His plan, by design, violates it.
You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
If Adam doesn't violate the non-aggression principle in his political campaign, and spreads the message of freedom and self-ownership, he is still a voluntaryist.
His plan, by design, violates it.
How so?
Whose rights is Adam violating by standing on a political platform and spreading the message of freedom? If he got into office, and then started signing off on all kinds of aggressive legislation, that would be a violation of the non-aggression principle.
I don't like the political platform as much as anyone else, but the average statist isn't going to read The Most Dangerous Superstition or delve into the philosophy of anarchism when they get home from work.
They come home, slump into the sofa and flick on the television. That is where Adam could reach them. Provided he isn't forcing people to listen to him at gunpoint; who is he violating?
His platform involves gaining authority and control over other individuals and resources via an illegitimate system (government majority vote).
That’s enough right there. Authority over others, and ownership of land and resources cannot be given by vote legitimately, in a violence-backed electoral process.
A more concrete example is his plan to keep national parks “open to the public.” This is stated directly in his platform. To do this, he, and not the free market, will be assigning ownership of these vast swathes of land to non-profit businesses of his personal choice.
In Voluntaryism, one is always free to homestead unowned lands. In Adam’s plan, they will have to ask permission or simply be refused the right to freely. This is a direct violation of the freedom of movement (use of body/self-ownership) and the freedom to acquire property.
So those are just two of the glaring inconsistencies/problems, as far as Voluntaryism is concerned.
Do you believe his plan gives him any real destructive authority at all? As he described in the discussion with Larken and Jeff, it's the "authority and control" to pick up someone's wallet and give it back to them. That's not destructive and that has nothing to do with voting, it's just moral decency.
You've used this term before. Can you clarify what you mean by it? Voting itself is not violence. What people do with their so called "authority" caused by people's ridiculous belief in voting is the actual violence (wars, bombs, laws for victimless "crimes", etc). I could get 5 people together to vote me king of the world and that doesn't mean I'm committed any violence against any one.
As for homesteading national parks, he directly said in this comment it would be allowed. It seems like you're reading ill intent into a single sentence on the platform when Adam already clarified it for you.
Not analogous in the least. The above is a concrete, one-on-one scenario where the owner is known, and they possess the most direct link to the object.
A more apt analogy for Kokesh’s “plan” would be a man finding a room full of thousands of wallets with no IDs in them, and them “redistributing” them to random people, because “we have to be pragmatic about stopping wallet theft.”
This is a task for the decentralized free market and the laws of property. Not for a politician. What’s more, price calculation and supply and demand cannot function accurately from synthetic, centralized control, even with the best of intentions.
You said it. “Allowed.” Maybe you have misunderstood that as per libertarian property ethic, permission to homestead unowned land is not required.
His vague, non-specific answer was decidedly not a real clarification.
If I need permission from the King to acquire unowned property and move/work freely on it/with it, then it is not Voluntaryism.
OK, you clearly define voting as being inherently violent and an illegitimate means of gaining authority over others, so I'd like to ask the following questions:
If the slave trade was legal and a politician - let's say, Adam - was going to shut down the plantations and free the slaves, would you consider that a violent, imposing act of authority?
If Adam, or some other libertarian politician, wanted votes to release all inmates who had been incarcerated for 'victimless crimes' (most of the prison population), would you consider that an imposing act of authority?
I guess the real question is, how can you enforce freedom onto others? If someone is looking for votes to free innocent people from prison, or to destroy 'the war on drugs', how can any of those things be imposing or authoritarian?
Another question:
If an armed militia stormed Washington tomorrow, killed the politicians, killed the police and fended off the military, all in the name of abolishing government, would you consider that a violent, authoritarian act, or a legitimate means of self-defense? And also, would you prefer to see that (physical rebellion resulting in mass loss of life), rather than someone using a political platform to peacefully spread the message of freedom?
There are only three ways the anarchist/voluntaryist dream is ever going to be realized:
1.) Adam, or someone like Adam, runs for office and wakes up the statists in a political campaign.
2.) An armed militia declares their right to self-defense and sparks a civil war with the police and military, resulting in mass bloodshed and loss of life. If the militia win, they declare that anyone who tries to take the throne to enforce their will on others will be executed, so as to prevent government from ever forming again.
3.) More and more of the masses read books like The Most Dangerous superstition and give up their belief in authority; government eventually fizzles out.
Now, I don't know about you, but I don't have much faith in the masses reading into the philosophy of self-ownership and anarchism anytime soon, so I'd pick option No. 1 as our best bet for a mass awakening, although option No. 2 is also entirely legitimate, albeit much more violent.
OK, you clearly define voting as being inherently violent
If the whole act was simply to free the slaves and nothing else (such a proposition never happens in real government measures, as someone also stands to gain politically, and someone to lose), then yes, I would vote for it. The scenario is unrealistic, but sure.
There are over 260 million corpses piled up behind your "peaceful" politics in the last century alone. Government does not dissolve itself through its own mechanisms. This is common sense.
What the masses read or don't read doesn't change what is right and wrong.