J.C. Hewitt:No, it's because the act of voting violates the NAP. By rendering legitimacy on the state, you become complicit in its crimes.
No, it's because the act of voting violates the NAP. By rendering legitimacy on the state, you become complicit in its crimes.
You have just made two false claims: Voting initiates violence and democracy causes governments to be "legitimate".
If no one showed up on election day because they were too lazy, would the government dissolve? Would there be any reduction in the amount of government violence? Would officials see this lack of general interest as a set back or an opportunity for mischief? Whether you or I vote or not there will be a President in office.
An institution that initiates force is illegitimate, it doesn't matter if its a monarchy or a democracy. Democrats and republicans argue that democracy legitimizes the state, so we need not object to it. Are they right?
Peace
If no one showed up on election day because they were too lazy, would the government dissolve?
Actually, I think such an unlikely situation would create an incredible panic. As you mention yourself, the state uses democracy as a tool to make its activities appear legitimate, because they can plausibly claim that the political process implies broad consent for its actions. Can you imagine, 0% turnout in a country of 300,000,000+ people? It would be glorious. It would probably make for the most entertaining episode of Meet the Press ever.
When you vote, you're assisting someone's ascent to power.
...democracy causes governments to be "legitimate".
No, I don't think governments are legitimate entities. When you vote, however, you're communicating that you believe that the political process is at least partially legitimate. I'd rather not argue semantics because I think we're in agreement on this particular point.
In Stalin's USSR, you were given a choice between Stalin, Stalin and Stalin. The only sensible, moral response to such a false choice is to laugh at the absurd process and get on with life.
Brainpolice, framing abortion in a statist/anti-statist mentality is ridiculous.
Governments can oppose abortion and governments can defend property(or at least they claim to). Opposing abortion is no more fundamentally statist than opposing stealing is fundamentally statist. Obviously, market anarchist propose defending property through none statist means. And similarly, opposition to abortion can be manifested in an anti-state mentality.
Ron Paul is not an anarchist. How can it be that his support for laws against stealing is a forgivable sin but his anti-abortion stance is unforgiveable? You are not objecting to Ron Paul from on anti-state grounds, you are objecting on cultural grounds.
Your open citizenship is even more absurd! If people want to move to some region on this earth where they can find a willing seller, fine. But citizenship is not a market transaction. Citizenship provides "entitlements" to other people's labor. Why should you endorse increasing the number of entitlements? People have no positive right to citizenship. Paul opposes immigration because he sees that it is effected by government intervention, and he is disliked for it. He proposes a way to end the subsidy(end birthright citizenship) and he is loathed for it. And of course, this is not a statist/anti-statist debate either. Some of the most statist faux-libertarians like Bill Mahr share your sentiments.
Ron Paul's candidacy has a long term benefit of introducing people to anti-statist ideas(He has many), but if he were actually elected he would provide many short term benefits as well. Ending the empire and government racism in the form the drug war, along with many other things that need no congressional approval.
I have done no such thing. Rather, I have claimed that Ron Paul's political position is not consistantly voluntarist, or even not consistantly state's rights, on this particular issue. All one has to do in order to see this is look at his proposals and co-sponsorship of federal laws defining life as beginning at conception (which would, by defacto, illegalize abortion under federal murder laws) as well as his votes to ban partial birth abortions. You can kiss state's rights (not that I support such an abstraction, but it is preferable to federal dictation on such issues) goodbye.
Opposition to abortion can indeed be manifested in an anti-state mentality. Unfortunately, Ron Paul does not approach abortion from a consistantly anti-state mentality.
No, I am objecting to Ron Paul on anti-state grounds. While he uses lofty and evasive rhetoric to avoid admitting it, Ron Paul, in various ways, wishes to use the state to achieve his cultural agenda. I desire no such thing.
Your open citizenship is even more absurd! If people want to move to some region on this earth where they can find a willing seller, fine. But citizenship is not a market transaction. Citizenship provides "entitlements" to other people's labor. Why should you endorse increasing the number of entitlements? People have no positive right to citizenship.
Funny, because it's me critisizing you guys for making use of your citezenship for short-term gains. I never claimed that people have a positive right to citezenship. I have claimed, however, that people who preach against democracy and citezenship while actively making use of both by voting, voting with the purpose of stopping other people from doing the exact same thing, are hypocrits.
Furthermore, my defense of open immigration is not a defense of citezenship, it is simply the observation that rights must consistantly apply to everyone, even non-citezens. It is not an assertion of a positive right to citezenship. Just the same negative rights as everyone else, which includes the freedom to buy a home from a willing seller, take a job from a willing employer and travel across unowned land.
People, including voters, have no positive right to exclude others from property that is not theirs. They only have a right to exclude others from their own private property. "The borders" are not your private property, so please stop treating them as if they are. It is the anti-immigrationists who are making sweeping claims of positive rights and are trying to exercise them.
Paul opposes immigration because he sees that it is effected by government intervention, and he is disliked for it. He proposes a way to end the subsidy(end birthright citizenship) and he is loathed for it. And of course, this is not a statist/anti-statist debate either. Some of the most statist faux-libertarians like Bill Mahr share your sentiments.
Paul proposes much more then an end to birthright citezenship, Paul proposes and supports various measures that are blatantly statist and even expansionist in the name of addressing immigration, such as publicly funded walls and the extended use of paramilitary presence to defend public land. That I why I object to Ron Paul's immigration stance, since it is blatantly unlibertarian in its means. I don't consider Bill Maher to be a libertarian, and Bill Maher most certainly does not share my view on immigration. Bill Maher does not oppose political borders itself. Bill Maher does not believe in private ownership of land. Bill Maher would not be comfortable with the prospect of the freedom of employers to hire immigrants at whatever wage they want.
Ron Paul's candidacy has a long term benefit of introducing people to anti-statist ideas(He has many)
As I have stated in another thread, Ron Paul is not spreading a consistant message of anti-statism, Ron Paul is also spreading a message of constitutionalism, social conservatism and paleoconservatism. Ron Paul is spreading the message that the government can be tamed and used for good, that the constitution can work and that "the republic" can be restored. This is errant romanticist nonsense. He is basically subtly restoring people's faith in the political process and turning anarchists into defacto classical liberals. Ron Paul's canidacy has the long-term downside of setting back the libertarian movement for decades, financially (resource misallocation) and otherwise (ideological confusion over what libertarianism is).
The real "beltway libertarians", in additions to the likes of the Catoites and Friedmanites and Rand-bots, are the Ron Paul crowd, who have gotten themselves knee-deep in Washington politics. The libertarians who are the furthest from "the beltway" are precisely those who take a strong anti-political position.
No one's faith that the political process can work will be restored until the process has been restored. So far the Paul campaign has shown that the ruling class rules with no constitutional restraint and total contempt for the people, which has only been good for anti-statist.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
Brainpolice:Brainpolice, framing abortion in a statist/anti-statist mentality is ridiculous. I have done no such thing. Rather, I have claimed that Ron Paul's political position is not consistantly voluntarist, or even not consistantly state's rights, on this particular issue. All one has to do in order to see this is look at his proposals and co-sponsorship of federal laws defining life as beginning at conception (which would, by defacto, illegalize abortion under federal murder laws) as well as his votes to ban partial birth abortions. You can kiss state's rights (not that I support such an abstraction, but it is preferable to federal dictation on such issues) goodbye.
Brainpolice:social conservatism
Brainpolice:And your predictions strike me as rather naively optimistic. Just admit that the man is not going to get elected. It's that simple. Don't delude yourself into living in a fantasy world where Paul will magically get in the white house by some miracle, in the face of evidence to the contrary.
This statement contracts your reason for opposing to vote. The real reason of why you don't support a candidate is because you don't think supporting is effective of winning the presidency. You unconsciously continue to make excuses for not supporting a candidate.
Once again, no, that is only one reason out of many. I don't think that winning the presidency itself is effective. Ron Paul is unable to fulfill the bulk of his own promises. I don't think that working within the system in general is effective. I don't think that the state can be meaningfully reduced from within. I don't think that a position of political power such as a presidency is capable of bringing about a libertarian society, even a minarchist state. I believe that a minarchist state is a floating abstraction. I believe that Ron Paul's immigration platform contradicts the non-aggression principle and would expand the state in some areas. I don't believe that, in principle, political power can be used to reduce political power, since you are using it by definition (institutionally, this only maintains or even strengthens political power). And I don't trust that the man is entirely honest about his own politicial positions.
The fact that he would not make it into the white house anyway is only one more practical reason on top of all of this not to vote for him or throw a single penny his way. It would only mean that when the smoke clears the institution framework of democracy will still be in place, if not strengthened, while no goals have been met. There is nothing contradictary in my reasoning at all. What is contradictary and hypocritical is to banter against democracy and then enthusiastically participate in it. I don't need "excuses" for not supporting a canidate. I have no positive obligation to support any canidate, at least not according to any libertarian theory. Indeed, according to my understanding of libertarian theory, I have no unchosen positive obligations period. You are the one making "excuses" for throwing your principles out the window and becoming a shill for a Washington politician. The Paulians are the real beltway libertarians.
Ron Paul never advocates a federal ban on abortion.
Decieving. He has voted for essentially just that in the case of partial births.
A federal support of abortion is equally statist as a federal ban of abortion.
I never advocated federal support of abortion.
Of course we would prefer federal dictation of a free market.
State's rights is not a free market. It only artificially simulates one in vein.
Ron Paul opposes federal bans on gambling, prostitution, drugs, gay rights, abortion etc. For the abortion issue, federal support of abortion is equally social conservative as a federal ban on abortion. Whether abortion is a social conservative issue is a matter of culture. I agree that abortion is "mostly" a religious issue. But many non-religious persons want pro-life legislation. Just because a "majority" of atheists support abortion legislation, it does not mean that the "majority" can impose views on the "minority" atheists' stance. It is collective and dictatorial to impose federal support of abortion just because a majority of atheists support it. I could not see why you want the federal government to become so powerful in dictating vague subjects such as abortion. I am an atheist and nilihist and I oppose abortion
Once again, I have not advocated any federal action; I would be fine with an overturn of Roe vs. Wade. Ron Paul has supported federal action with regaurd to the abortion issue in subtle and deceptive ways. Pro-life "legislation" is no better then pro-abortion "legislation". I prefer a "no legislation" approach to the issue.
Brainpolice:Ron Paul never advocates a federal ban on abortion. Decieving. He has voted for essentially just that in the case of partial births.
Come Brainpolice, partial birth abortions are simply murder: the baby is half way out and we shove a stick in his/her's head and kill him/her. Partial birth abortions are not consistent with evictionsim. I suggest you read this article by Walter Block.
The atoms tell the atoms so, for I never was or will but atoms forevermore be.
Yours sincerely,
Physiocrat
Stranger:Also known as Cosmopolitans or Giuliani libertarians, they are people who have no ideological objection to political power whatsoever so long as their lifestyle is protected from the costs it would incur in a free society. They are lifestyle-protectionists.
Also known as Cosmopolitans or Giuliani libertarians, they are people who have no ideological objection to political power whatsoever so long as their lifestyle is protected from the costs it would incur in a free society. They are lifestyle-protectionists.
Reason Magazine: We must protect transsexual prostitutes against property owners.
Nothing more needs to be said.
A beltway libertarian is a wonk whose ambition is to make market-based public-policy solutions part of mainstream opinion in Washington. This strategy requires, above all else, showing intellectual deference to the ruling class, its priorities, its official history, its institutions, its heros. It also requires that they participate in the marginalization and even extermination of anyone consistently or radically libertarian than they.
Publisher, Laissez-Faire Books
What's the deal with tarnishing a good word like 'cosmopolitan' by using it as a pejorative label for those establishment libertarians? What...are the truly radical libertarians to be redefined as provincial now by necessary way of contrast? Come on. Please find a different label.
Yours in liberty,Geoffrey Allan Plauché, Ph.D.Adjunct Instructor, Buena Vista UniversityWebmaster, LibertarianStandard.comFounder / Executive Editor, Prometheusreview.com
Cosmopolitans is what they chose to call themselves.
Well, then, we shouldn't let them try to use it as a way of labeling us by way of contrast as provincial, nationalist, or whatever. And we still shoudn't tarnish the word. Call their rightful claim to it into question! Call them establishment libertarians, statists, beltway libertarians, not true cosmopolitans at all. We're the ones who are more consistent defenders of rights and what is the basis of rights but universal human nature. Many of us here are anarchists; is not the true cosmopolitan for bringing down all state borders?
IrishOutlaw: I don't understand why people would think anarchists and minarchists have a shared goal in mind when we obviously don't. Working together in the poltical arena is NOT working together to meet a different goal, it is working together to implement a minimal state. I don't even support a minimal state. How can the steps I take towards that goal match the steps someone working towards a smaller government EVER be the same?
This is NOT a comment on Ron Paul specifically but if the government does get smaller it becomes more obvious to many people how they can survive without a state at all. The bigger the government is the more alien this concept seems. I would say that it is in the best interests of anarchists to work with minarchists. It is also in the best interests of minarchists to work with anarchists (at least until a state of minarchy is reached.)
I am an eklektarchist not an anarchist.
Educational Pamphlet Mises Group
gplauche: Well, then, we shouldn't let them try to use it as a way of labeling us by way of contrast as provincial, nationalist, or whatever. And we still shoudn't tarnish the word. Call their rightful claim to it into question! Call them establishment libertarians, statists, beltway libertarians, not true cosmopolitans at all. We're the ones who are more consistent defenders of rights and what is the basis of rights but universal human nature. Many of us here are anarchists; is not the true cosmopolitan for bringing down all state borders?
Are you suggesting that debate on such issues should be post-poned until the goals that we agree on are met?
ryanpatgray:but if the government does get smaller
It would be the first government in history to do it as far as I know. The nature of government is to get bigger or as Jefferson said, "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." They never voluntarily get smaller.
ryanpatgray:I would say that it is in the best interests of anarchists to work with minarchists. It is also in the best interests of minarchists to work with anarchists (at least until a state of minarchy is reached.)
What is the minarchist plan for achieving their goal? Try to gain control of the machine and use it to do their bidding. Against the wishes of the citizens at large I might add. People do not want smaller government, if they did the candidate that is talking about getting rid of large portions of it would be the front runner on both sides. They all want the exact same thing the minarchists want, to gain control and use it to do their bidding. Speaking only for myself, I don't want to control it or force anyone else to live how I say they should live. I think people have a right to institute any government they want and I think that is what the political process is about. What I want is to be seperate from that process. I know they don't allow that and will continue to use force against me, no matter which group has control. So why would I add my time or talents to that goal?
Brainpolice: Are you suggesting that debate on such issues should be post-poned until the goals that we agree on are met?
Debate? Debate in and of itself in healthy. For some, it seems to have gone beyond mere debate and entered the realm of childish name calling. Libertarians are few enough in number that we cannot afford to not work together. Whether you work in Auburn, DC, London or wherever we need to work together. Petty name calling accomplishes nothing but alienating potential allies
ryanpatgray: Brainpolice: Are you suggesting that debate on such issues should be post-poned until the goals that we agree on are met? Debate? Debate in and of itself in healthy. For some, it seems to have gone beyond mere debate and entered the realm of childish name calling. Libertarians are few enough in number that we cannot afford to not work together. Whether you work in Auburn, DC, London or wherever we need to work together. Petty name calling accomplishes nothing but alienating potential allies
It's kind of hard to have a rational debate when whenever any libertarian critisizes Ron Paul, they are often knee-jerkedly equated to politically correct neoconservatives or liberals. It seems to me that we are being present with a false "package deal", since it is implied that if you don't support Ron Paul, this inevitably means you must be for war, federal action over decentralization and government-enforced cultural leftism. Or, alternatively, you are presented with a false dychotomy of "defeatism" and "inaction" or supporting the Ron Paul "revolution". And while I don't intend to be engaging in ad hominem attacks, I do not think I am being inaccurate when I characterize the dedicated "paleolibertarians" as being nationalist and conservative, for as far as I can tell this is precisely the type of ideological outlook that they are trumpeting.
There are some people that I do not wish to be allies with, who I think would constitute an inflitration and a watering down of the libertarian creed, causing confusion in the eyes of the lay public as to what libertarianism really stands for. I see no compelling reason to ally with the likes of Pat Buchanan. In fact I find such an alliance counterproductive and rather dangerous. I suppose I am not nearly as "big tent" of a libertarian as someone like Walter Block is. In particular, I find the old libertarian-paleoconservative alliance to be troubling. I don't think that most American libertarians have broken away from the old false paradime of thinking of ourselves as being natural "rightists" in alliance with conservatives in opposition to socialism. I had thought that "Left and Right: The Prospects For Liberty" had cleared that confusion up for libertarians but I suppose not.
IrishOutlaw: It would be the first government in history to do it as far as I know. The nature of government is to get bigger or as Jefferson said, "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." They never voluntarily get smaller.
IrishOutlaw: "What is the minarchist plan for achieving their goal? Try to gain control of the machine and use it to do their bidding. Against the wishes of the citizens at large I might add."
IrishOutlaw: They all want the exact same thing the minarchists want, to gain control and use it to do their bidding.
IrishOutlaw:I think people have a right to institute any government they want and I think that is what the political process is about. What I want is to be separate from that process.
Brainpolice: It's kind of hard to have a rational debate when whenever any libertarian critisizes Ron Paul, they are often knee-jerkedly equated to politically correct neoconservatives or liberals.
Brainpolice: And while I don't intend to be engaging in ad hominem attacks, I do not think I am being inaccurate when I characterize the dedicated "paleolibertarians" as being nationalist and conservative, for as far as I can tell this is precisely the type of ideological outlook that they are trumpeting.
Brainpolice: I see no compelling reason to ally with the likes of Pat Buchanan. In fact I find such an alliance counterproductive and rather dangerous.
Brainpolice: In particular, I find the old libertarian-paleoconservative alliance to be troubling.
Pat Buchanan is not a libertarian. He does not even claim to be
I know. The question is, then, why did Lew Rockwell and Murray Rothbard ally with him so strongly in the late 80's and 90's? Because as far as I can tell, Pat Buchannan's brand of "paleoconservatism" is quasi-fascist. This was much more then a few single-issue alliances. This was (and is) a "united front" between libertarians, paleocons and national socialists (and honestly I find very little distinction between the later two). Surely a desire to cut taxes and opposition to public education is not sufficient to constitute a meaningful broad alliance. Why do so many libertarians still form a "united front" with these people?
Brainpolice:I know. The question is, then, why did Lew Rockwell and Murray Rothbard ally with him so strongly in the late 80's and 90's?
As far as I know, the reason Rockwell and Rothbard supported Buchanan was for his foreign policy views, and that they tried and failed to turn him away from trade protectionism. Buchanan was the most influential supporter of non-interventionism at the time, so it was strategic more than anything, I suppose. I can see the logic in allying with other groups on similar issues, although I do worry that it could lead to taking one step forward (in this case foreign policy) and two steps back (in this case trade protectionism and homophobic laws).
britainland: Brainpolice:I know. The question is, then, why did Lew Rockwell and Murray Rothbard ally with him so strongly in the late 80's and 90's? As far as I know, the reason Rockwell and Rothbard supported Buchanan was for his foreign policy views, and that they tried and failed to turn him away from trade protectionism. Buchanan was the most influential supporter of non-interventionism at the time, so it was strategic more than anything, I suppose. I can see the logic in allying with other groups on similar issues, although I do worry that it could lead to taking one step forward (in this case foreign policy) and two steps back (in this case trade protectionism and homophobic laws).
That makes sense. But as you seem to suggest yourself, sometimes the baggage that comes with it is counterproductive. It may threaten to pull the libertarian movement towards those other tendencies. In fact I already view the libertarian movement as drifting towards paleoconservative tendencies.
No one at the Mises Institute has used the term paleolibertarian in 15 years. The original point of it was to emphasize the Old Right origins of american libertarianism, particularly its antiwar and decentralist elements. It had NOTHING to do with nationalism, for goodness sake. As for Buchanan, there was briefly promise there, but nothing came of it. Big deal. As for alliances, the only "libertarians" who write for Chronciles these days all come from the Cato Institute.
Any other myths I can clear up?
jtucker: No one at the Mises Institute has used the term paleolibertarian in 15 years. The original point of it was to emphasize the Old Right origins of american libertarianism, particularly its antiwar and decentralist elements. It had NOTHING to do with nationalism, for goodness sake. As for Buchanan, there was briefly promise there, but nothing came of it. Big deal. As for alliances, the only "libertarians" who write for Chronciles these days all come from the Cato Institute. Any other myths I can clear up?
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/
J.C. Hewitt: http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/
Thanks,
As long as I have been in the libertarian movement this is the first time I have ever heard of this publication.
Strange, I don't recall ever defending Roe vs. Wade.