Worst, except for all the other ways?

(Previously posted to Patreon)

"Slavery is the worst way to get the cotton picked, except for all the others." ~ Average Nice Guy 1850s

Just because you can't imagine something better is no excuse to keep doing the wrong thing. If your method violates life, liberty, or property, it is wrong. You shouldn't do it even if you think it's the best possible way. The "lesser of two evils". Not getting the cotton picked would have been economically disastrous. Having slaves pick it was still evil.

 Picking cotton by hand was hard labor. My grandmother did it when she was young, and I remember her descriptions of how it hurt to be stooped over, dragging a heavy bag slowly through the field for hours and hours. And the raw, bleeding fingers which resulted. Yet, she and her sisters did it. More or less voluntarily. It would have been evil of them to force others to do the work for them even if it would have meant their own starvation and my non-existence (imagine how happy that thought would make some people!).

 After slavery was (sort of) abolished, cotton still got picked. Better ways were invented, even if people in some places, such as my grandmother's family on the Llano Estacado of the Texas panhandle, couldn't afford technology, and lived as people had lived over a hundred years before.

 Sometimes you have to first stop committing evil before there's incentive for average "nice people" to go ahead and consider better options.

 "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."~ Winston S. Churchill

 And so it is with poor old Winnie's delusion.

 There are better ways to govern. None of them involve mob rule or forming a State. One particularly better way involves the Covenant of Unanimous Consent. It doesn't matter if you like democracy, or can't imagine forcing people to do what you want without it. Maybe your mindset is backward. Democracy is wrong, in part because governing others is wrong, no matter how you go about it. And, in spite of Churchill's assertion, there is at least one much better way. Try it.

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Instead of doing wrong, just don't

(If you use Steemit, please go there and upvote this post.)

You don't need an alternative to doing the wrong thing. Just don't do the wrong thing.

Just because you aren't sure what to do instead of doing the wrong thing is no excuse to keep doing the wrong thing.

It doesn't matter if you don't know what to do instead of "taxing" people. "Taxation" is theft. It is wrong. Don't do it any more for any reason.

It doesn't matter if you don't understand who will stop bad guys from preying on the innocent if you don't have police. Having police- financed by theft, enforcing "laws" which are mostly evil, and who are almost entirely unaccountable- is wrong. Period. You have to stop, no matter what you fear might happen without them.

It doesn't matter if you don't know how children will get educated without "public" schools. It is wrong to finance schools with theft. It is wrong to hold homes and property hostage to pay for schools and teachers. It is wrong to keep kids prisoners with "compulsory attendance laws", and to subject them to sexual molestation in the name of "random drug tests". It is wrong. It is wrong to put a criminal organization in the position where it can brainwash kids into believing it isn't a criminal organization, but is synonymous with society. Just don't do it, because it is wrong.

It doesn't matter if you don't understand where roads, justice, protection, safety, libraries, parks, etc. will come from if you don't allow a State- a "government"- to provide them by robbing and attacking your neighbors. Providing them through a State- in other words through theft and aggression- is wrong.

To stop doing wrong is more important than having an alternative fully worked out before you stop doing wrong. Stop doing wrong first, and allow people the freedom to solve the problems voluntarily.

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If you get any value from my writing, consider rewarding me with your financial support commensurate with the value you receive. You can also do that with zero cost to yourself by upvoting my posts on Steemit. This blog is in its 10th year now. If you believe I have contributed anything to the conversation regarding liberty during these ten years, and believe I have more to contribute, help me keep writing without the fear of saying something to get fired over. I really, desperately could use some more help; please don't depend on the same people always helping out.