Luke, this response is a bit abbreviated, but all I have time for right now. But I want to at least address a few things here. First of all, there are quite a few things about Adam's campaign in particular that I find dishonest, hypocritical, statist and creepy, which I DIDN'T bring up, because I was sticking to the general principles about "voting for anarchy," which matter to me more than one person's absolutely doomed attempt at a political career.
As my article already said, Ron Paul running for office, and holding office, accomplished damn near nothing, as he said himself. Him stating IDEAS (mostly "statist lite" ideas, but with a lot of good substance) is what did some good, and it did good only because it started a lot of people on journeys that LED PAST THAT.
Did you really just say this about Adam?: "If by some miracle he were to win..." Dude, no. Please tell me you were on some strong hallucinogens when you typed that.
And to wish for, as you put it, a "mainstream dialogue taking place in the political process," is like hoping that the Vatican will have an open chat considering the merits of atheism. The ruling class and its mouthpiece, if
it ever did anything other than ignore Adam's campaign, would be to use it to demonize and ridicule voluntaryism, which would not be difficult.
You also said this: "It's also possible we're missing out on a great opportunity to allow someone to try something whose ideals we know in detail..." Do we know them in detail? Everything I've seen about his
campaign stinks of flip-flopping, compromising sell-out BS and trying to make alliances with all manner of statist political opportunist.
You said: "Again, it's not perfect, but isn't better than doing nothing in the political arena?" No, it is WORSE than doing nothing in that arena. Adding our own clown to the circus is not an improvement, and will do
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to reduce human suffering. Because he has absolutely no chance of winning, and every chance of making the "freedom movement" look like a cult of unprincipled weirdos.
You: "The divide and conquer approach has been used very effectively against all individuals who try to raise awareness against collectivist control. If we continue that process and attack every approach (even if it
might not be our preferred approach) to increase and raise awareness about freedom in the world..."
Again, trying to BECOME the new master, under the promise that he will use the Ring of Power for good, is to LEGITIMIZE collectivist control, and achieve nothing else in the process.
You: "When you say (from my interpretation) a political campaign would have to take everyone from 0 (full Statist) to 100 (full Voluntaryist) in order to be valuable..." I said nothing of the sort, and implied nothing
of the sort. I said voluntaryists should advocate voluntaryism, not slavery lite.
You: "If we become so focused on principles (and so convinced of their absolute perfection) as to lose all pragmatism..." 1 - Fuck pragmatism. Being pragmatic, compromising with statists, and abandoning principles in favor of being "realistic," serves the state. And not freedom. 2 - There's nothing pragmatic about adding our own clown to the circus, when he has ABSOLUTELY NO CHANCE of winning. I don't mean hardly any. I mean none. Zero. Please don't do the embarrassing wishful thinking routine, like Adam is doing, by pretending there is ANY chance he would ever win.