How much guilt does the "average statist" have for their beliefs, and how much slack should we cut them?
I've been having an interesting discussion with Jim Henshaw, the former Chair of the Hawaiian LP, recently of regions closer.
He says I "come across as a bit unforgiving at times". And, I can see that. I'm pretty sure this has caused me to lose followers and financial supporters. So, I asked his advice.
"...it throws me a bit when people label [a standard leftist bleeding heart] as the enemy, or as evil, or whatnot. It doesn't comport with my observed reality that someone can be loving and have wonderful intentions and be, from my standpoint, dead wrong. They're not the enemy, they just haven't had their noses rubbed in the consequences of government coercion enough to overcome the programming and cognitive dissonance."
So, I wondered what level of guilt the teen anti-gun activists have. They aren't lawmakers or enforcers, after all, and many people see them as having "wonderful intentions".
His response:
"I'd say the teen anti-gun activists are arguably almost as culpable as the people making policy, since they are stridently expending enormous energy to try to change public opinion and policy."
In his reply, he expressed that he considered there to be degrees of statist guilt. His rankings of statist actions is:
"...on a scale from making policy, to implementing policy, to huge expenditures on a mass scale urging changes in policy, to making contributions in time or money to statists when asked to do so, to voting, to trying to force one's opinions upon individuals they meet in ordinary life, to volunteering opinions only when asked, to quietly keeping one's thoughts to oneself, to thoughtfully considering the point of view of people urging one not to violate the NAP, to thinking the NAP is morally correct but in the action at hand an exception is warranted, to actually consistently living by the NAP to the best of one's abilities and trying to detect where one has a blind spot about the NAP that needs to be fixed ... to you."It was funny, because after I sent him the question, I started thinking how I would answer if I had been asked the same, and that's similar to the conclusion I had reached.
Now, I wouldn't place myself at the end like that, even though that's where I strive to be. I have many flaws. But my whole life has been an attempt to think about the "blind spots" I had. And I've found plenty of them over the years. When I find them, I try to get rid of them, and by doing so, I move closer to the "anarchy" part of the map. That has been the one constant.
But, back on topic, he offered:
"I would distinguish between people who are unaware of the immorality of their actions versus people who are aware of the immorality but persist in doing evil acts."
I try to do this. It's why I insist that people aren't evil; actions are. But, of course, people who keep choosing to commit evil are going to appear evil. And once you've pointed out the evil they are supporting, if they refuse to listen, but continue to promote evil, does their opportunity to claim innocence end? I am not certain.
He shared a couple of specific examples from his own life.
Regarding "taxation":
"I've tried time and time again in political discussions with my GF to show that there is no distinction between taxation and theft, and she just keeps saying they just ARE different and then shutting down the topic when I ask in what way are they different. She can't defend it, but the cognitive dissonance has not reached the point where she will change her mind."
And "borders":
"I've gone a bit out of our way to drive her to where she could see the border into Mexico, and she was horrified at the physical evidence that we live in an open air low security prison. I think I also sowed some seeds of doubt when we headed back to Austin, hit an immigration checkpoint around 100 miles from the border, and I pointed out that we got sent to the cursory single question lane to the left, but that anyone looking latino was almost certainly being sent to the much longer and nastier line to the right, that the federal government was stealing her money to implement racist discriminatory treatment, which I think resonated with her since she's black and had ancestors who were owned by plantation owners."
So she's not ready to accept the reality of what she promotes, but she has been exposed to the horrors and did seem to feel something about them. That's a start, at least.
I'm probably always going to seem unforgiving toward statists, or at least toward any of their acts or views that are statist. I'm much "nicer" in person than online. I have to be considering I'm surrounded by statists every day, as you probably are, too. I don't think I'm obligated to excuse statism any more than I'm obligated to look the other way when someone is being bullied any other way, but... maybe I could be nicer to convince them to stop advocating government violence against non-violent people.
And, on any given topic a person can be either in favor of statism or liberty, with the vast majority of us holding an unexamined jumble of such views -- being nicer might help in filling up each person's "Bucket O' Freedom™", drop by drop.
On the other hand, some people aren't going to respond to coddling and need a figurative slap in the face to snap them into the reality of what it is they promote. Maybe this blog isn't the place for those who want to be coddled (despite their Bucket O' Freedom™ being as shot full of holes as a beat-up rusty bucket in the desert that has been used for target practice with an unregistered machine gun).
What do you think?
They are guilty by default. That isn't really in question. The question is of appropriate ethical response to statism.
ReplyDeleteGovernment is a group of people organizing to hire someone to say magic words at religious ceremonies and write on paper what the people who hired them want everyone within a claimed territory is supposed to be and do, then hiring an army of people in funny clothes with weapons to make everyone within said territory obey what the paper says or be punished with up to and including being murdered for noncompliance.
That is the definition of a terrorist organization or violent gang. It's simply wrong, unequivocally and unquestionably so. Whatever their reasons for conspiring to violate everyone, they are. And the right to defense is applicable irrespective of why. You have an absolute right to defend yourself against violence of any kind by any and all means necessary or available. And since they insist on terms of deadly force, deadly force is appropriate and necessary.
You have an absolute right to walk up to any statist who's gang claims you/family as a subject or your home/property as jurisdiction and kill them dead. You have an absolute right to use any amount of deadly force to attack the state or anything that facilitates it and it's evil.
Government is evil, fundamentally wrong, a violent gang. The right to defense applies. The logical utilitarian 'reptilian' answer is simple, sound, rightful, retaliatory and destructive, arguably necessary.
But is that the BEST answer? ...maybe.
As Anarchists/Libertarians, we value life and rights, responsibility, ethics, and understand the ultimate goal as a harmonious peaceful coexistence. Thus we are inherently obligated to weigh things out accordingly.
And most of us are reformed statists. We know we're just regular people like the statists and were brainwashed from birth to accept systematic violence as normal default and necessary. We all know the difference because we used to be the statists we despise. And we all know that if you present someone with enough truth/reality/"Red Pill", that at some point, something is going to click in their head and they will thus evolve from that point on. We tell ourselves that the right thing to do is use peaceful methods such as reason and truth and what is right. We take the time to define and refine ideas and arguments and ponder whether statists are victims or violators, whether or not they are subject to judgement. As Anarchists, we are rationalizing peace and ethics as an answer to belligerent systematic violence on a global scale via our entire species.
This is where ethics of Anarchist/Libertarians seeds cognitive dissonance, (...the antithesis of statists who's cognitive dissonance is seeded from justifying violence). It's kind of stupid.
It is not our responsibility to coddle those who violate us, nor is it effective.
The problem, the reality of it, is that they have already effectively enslaved the entire planet, they vastly outnumber everyone else, and they are inclined to violate you for your anarchism.
The answer is to kill them all, to exterminate the vast majority of humanity as is necessary to 'reset'. Anything less than about 4-6 billion people is insufficient.
I don't have an arsenal of WMD's. If I did, I would not be here typing, I would have already used every one of them in whatever way would kill the most people and break the most important/relevant things.
I don't know about you people, but I am tired of living in a world whereby I am not allowed to be a human, where my natural normal rightful existence is criminalized, where I cannot bring children into the world for the ethical dilemma of subjecting them to a life of serfdom.
Fuck this planet and everyone on it if they are going to insist on abusing our existence in such a gross and egregious manner.
Kill them all. Let god sort them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7aGAIWe3uE
ReplyDelete[Verse 1]
When you were young and your heart was an open book
You used to say live and let live
(You know you did, you know you did, you know you did)
But if this ever changing world in which we're living
Makes you give in and cry
[Chorus]
Say live and let die
(Live and let die)
Live and let die
(Live and let die)
[Verse 2]
What does it matter to you?
When you got a job to do
You got to do it well
You got to give the other fellow hell
[Verse 1]
You used to say live and let live
(You know you did, you know you did, you know you did)
But if this ever changing world in which we're living
Makes you give in and cry
[Chorus]
Say live and let die
(Live and let die)
Live and let die
(Live and let die)
I agree with this statement above. "I would distinguish between people who are unaware of the immorality of their actions versus people who are aware of the immorality but persist in doing evil acts."
ReplyDeleteWe are all sinners and most of were at one time "statists" but we changed and so can others.
As for "Mr. Kill them all" comment, I see no difference between his position and that of the statists. He would kill millions of innocent people to fulfil his personal goals. In my opinion, that is pure evil.
Get thee behind me Statist.
Tahn
"As for "Mr. Kill them all" comment, I see no difference between his position and that of the statists. He would kill millions of innocent people to fulfil his personal goals. In my opinion, that is pure evil."
DeleteYou are an idiot who cannot identify the root dynamic of the reasoning. The difference is that killing billions of violent thugs is defense.
You don't like to think of gramma and aunt Besty or the clueless totally hot average american/european/chinese/russian/etc sweetheart as violent thugs. And no one else does either. But they nonetheless organize to violate people in mass. They are still guilty of material support and organizing to commit genocide and a myriad of other crimes of the state. The right to defense still applies to them, however unpalatable that may be.
"We are all sinners and most of were at one time "statists" but we changed and so can others."
Ain't nothin' changed. People have always been selfish violent territorial barbaric idiots. They are just more organized in the modern era. You are naive to think that anything is going to change any time soon or in any effective manner as to actually correct it. At best, billions will die, the whole world will be wrecked all to hell, and what is left of humanity will be free for another couple of thousand years before they fuck it up again.
"I agree with this statement above. "I would distinguish between people who are unaware of the immorality of their actions versus people who are aware of the immorality but persist in doing evil acts."
Granted, that is a very considerate and reasonable position. But it does not negate the right to defense. If a dog that has been trained to attack is ordered to attack you, do you submit and be mauled because it doesn't know better? Do you try to reason with it? Do you tell it to sit and be a good boy?
No, you kill it.
Re this: "As for "Mr. Kill them all" comment, I see no difference between his position and that of the statists. He would kill millions of innocent people to fulfil his personal goals. In my opinion, that is pure evil."
DeleteActually, he or she is advocating murdering BILLIONS of people, virtually everyone on the planet:
"The answer is to kill them all, to exterminate the vast majority of humanity as is necessary to 'reset'. Anything less than about 4-6 billion people is insufficient."
Their post has this weird disconnect -- it gives a reasonably accurate description of government: "Government is a group of people organizing to hire someone to say magic words at religious ceremonies and write on paper what the people who hired them want everyone within a claimed territory is supposed to be and do, then hiring an army of people in funny clothes with weapons to make everyone within said territory obey what the paper says or be punished with up to and including being murdered for noncompliance."
... then it goes on to claim that the non-statist position is to effectively become a collectivist dictator who murders roughly 1,000 times as many people as Hitler did.
It is a horrifying vision rife with cognitive dissonance. It is the antithesis of the NAP. It states (state-ists?) that government is a bunch of individuals who each make the unfounded claim that they have the right to essentially fractionally enslave everyone in a claimed geographic area, and that we have to right to act in self-defense -- then claims that that right to self-defense should consist of not just fractionally enslaving most everyone, but actually murdering them, and not just in a defined and limit geographic area, but in the entire world -- that is, to become the most terrifying psychopathic totalitarian dictator that has ever existed.
By his or her own logic, pretty much every individual on the planet has the self-defense right to hunt this would-be dictator down and murder them, because they posted some intemperate words on a blog.
Of course, words aren't actions, and such an initiation of aggression on our part would violate the Non-Aggression Principle, since posting offensive language isn't aggression. So, the rest of us who understand the meaning of the words "self defense" aren't going to try to harm this individual, so long as that individual simply confines themselves to exercising their right to free speech. They're free to continue to spout their hateful rhetoric -- as long as Kent tolerantly choses to not ban this individual from his blog, even though he'd be perfectly within his rights to do so as the owner of the blog.
As for me, I've said my piece, so I'm going to just shun this individual from now on, ignore their posts, not feed the troll.
Jim Henshaw
Mr. Henshaw,
DeleteWhat 'logic' are YOU using?
I recognize government for what it is; A great big well organized violent gang, then apply the same principles of NAP to it as it would any other violent gang actively violating people. The answer is the same.
Statists, for whatever reasons, ARE, have been and probably will for many years to come, violate people by the million/billions.
Non-aggression, as I understand it, means not hiring people in funny clothes with weapons to coerce/murder/cage your neighbors. It means not hiring men who dress like trees and rocks to shoot bombs at children thousands of miles away. Statism is synonymous with aggression, it IS aggression. Their victims have a right to defense, no?
What is the difference between an individual like Kent hiring someone to boss you around with a gun and steal from you or kill you, and a nice old lady who worships a magic cloth and gets together with her neighbors to hire a man in funny clothes who says magic words to boss you around with a gun and steal from or cage you or kill you?
How does NAP apply? Is hiring someone who says magic words wears funny clothes with weapons to boss people around, harass them, steal from and/or cage or murder them somehow NOT aggression?
"By his or her own logic, pretty much every individual on the planet has the self-defense right to hunt this would-be dictator down and murder them, because they posted some intemperate words on a blog."
That's not my logic, but rather your gross distortion thereof. I'm not the threat. I don't vote or organize to violate anyone. I have a generally passive stance unless provoked or abused in some way. If I am a threat to something, it is in defense, because I have been threatened abused or violated or something.
The rest of you who understands the meaning of defense does not include you, obviously. You fail (or at least appear as such) to recognize that violence comes in more forms than physical force, or understand what justifies rightful defense.
A good example is theft. It is a form of violence that often relies on stealth or fraudulence as opposed to physical force. It is still abusive, a violation of rights, violence.
You are rightful to do whatever necessary as to prevent your property from being stolen. You are also rightful to do whatever necessary to retrieve your property or restitution.
By your 'logic', the person who has their property stolen does not have a right to their property, therefor does not have a right to defense thereof and should be shamed.
That basically makes you a fucking idiot who does not understand what rights are or the nature of things like statism.
"Their victims have a right to defense, no?"
Delete- The victims absolutely do have the right to defense. However, you can't kill innocent people along with the aggressors or you become the thing you're fighting. If "kill them all" includes children who haven't voted or paid taxes, you're doing the same thing the police do when they arrest someone for speeding. Punishing people based on potential crimes is wrong.
"What is the difference between an individual like Kent hiring someone to boss you around with a gun and steal from you or kill you, and a nice old lady who worships a magic cloth and gets together with her neighbors to hire a man in funny clothes who says magic words to boss you around with a gun and steal from or cage you or kill you?"
- There is no difference. There is, however, a difference between those that vote and those that do not. Non-voting civilians are not hiring the government to harm innocent people. Since only approximately 60% of US "citizens" vote, that leaves 40% or so who aren't involved in the hiring of thugs. Killing those people would be wrong.
"How does NAP apply? Is hiring someone who says magic words wears funny clothes with weapons to boss people around, harass them, steal from and/or cage or murder them somehow NOT aggression?"
- The NAP does apply to those that vote for, write and enforce laws. All of those behaviors are aggression. But unlike statists, we cannot excuse "collateral damage". Those that have not harmed anyone MUST be left unharmed or we are no better than the state.
As I understand it, your proposal is "kill them all, let god sort them out." How do you justify killing innocents (children, voluntaryists) along with the guilty? Furthermore, even if you succeeded, what makes you think the survivors wouldn't immediately form a new government?
"But unlike statists, we cannot excuse "collateral damage". Those that have not harmed anyone MUST be left unharmed or we are no better than the state."
Delete...the root ethical dilemma.
Here is my reasoning as to how to resolve said dilemma; Fuck 'em - not my problem. My problem is defense. The solution means collateral damage - So be it. I am not going to prioritize their welfare over mine.
I know this is just a hypothetical thought exercise, but I use rules of engagement whereby I am typically not going to use force until absolutely necessary, as a last resort after all reasonable and peaceful means are exhausted, until there is no other option available. The reason for that is so when the time comes to actually use force, I already know that I did everything I could to avoid it, and thus do not have to question myself and/or if I am rightful or feel guilty about it. If/when it gets to that point, I usually don't change my mind or hold back.
If I get my hands on enough WMD's to kill billions of people, I am not going to hesitate, nor am I going to feel guilty or waste time with anything that doesn't kill at least 4 billion.
Here is another way to look at it;
DeleteResponsibility is on government for the 40% of nonvoters the same way a combatant is for using a civilian as a body shield.
Government forces them into that position. It is government's terms, by force. Government claims representation of all by force and based on demand of the voters. It acts on their behalf whether they agree or not, and in doing so takes full responsibility.
"Here is my reasoning as to how to resolve said dilemma; Fuck 'em - not my problem."
Delete- That's also their reasoning. They believe that letting us opt out would lead to mass defection and the collapse of their defensive system, so instead they force us into their system without caring about the collateral damage.
"I know ... or hold back."
- I absolutely agree!
"If I get my hands on enough WMD's to kill billions of people, I am not going to hesitate..."
- Assuming you did, how would the world be any better off afterwards? There's still going to be a 95-99% majority of statists among the survivors, and I can't think of any way to explain the mass casualties that doesn't lead to them immediately forming a new state.
"Responsibility is on government for the 40% of nonvoters"
- That logic might apply if you were specifically targeting the assets of the aggressors and taking steps to minimize collateral damage. However, blindly killing half the planet doesn't qualify. That's like ending a hostage situation by carpet bombing the entire block.
"That's also their reasoning. They believe that letting us opt out would lead to mass defection and the collapse of their defensive system, so instead they force us into their system without caring about the collateral damage."
DeleteAgain, my problem is defense. My life and rights are being violated, thus defense applies. That is non-negotiable, a constant. You want to argue exception in that there is no feasible means of executing a mass casualty attack of statists(the only real effective means of answering the threat of statism) without killing the non-statists who are not guilty, and therefore not subject to defense.
I do not disagree that they do not deserve to be killed. I posit that it does not negate my right to defense, and that it is government who forces those terms by claiming their 'authority' according to things like geography, and therefore accepting responsibility.
It is principally no different than a combatant using a civilian as a body shield. Who's fault is it that anyone is being put into that situation? Does it negate the right to defense?
" "If I get my hands on enough WMD's to kill billions of people, I am not going to hesitate..."
Delete- Assuming you did, how would the world be any better off afterwards? There's still going to be a 95-99% majority of statists among the survivors, and I can't think of any way to explain the mass casualties that doesn't lead to them immediately forming a new state."
The benefit would be a dysfunctional state unable to operate in the same capacity as to enslave the entire species on behalf of a few and make such destructive war$ and otherwise violate everyone. That is why I say that it isn't worth anything less than what would kill at least 4 billion. Ideally, the goal would be more like 6-7 billion and whatever facilities can be destroyed.
The logic is simple; incapacitate it by whatever means necessary, which means WMD's.
Let them form their puny little governments afterward. As long as they leave me alone, I don't care. In another however many years when it gets too big for it's breeches, kill them all again.
Too bad people are stupid, otherwise you could simply explain it to them.
" "Responsibility is on government for the 40% of nonvoters"
ReplyDelete- That logic might apply if you were specifically targeting the assets of the aggressors and taking steps to minimize collateral damage. However, blindly killing half the planet doesn't qualify. That's like ending a hostage situation by carpet bombing the entire block. "
That isn't exactly an accurate equivalent. It is more like a violent religious cult on a space station who have recruited and enslaved everyone, won't allow people to escape, and are consolidating with other like-minded space stations.
Lick boots or figure out how to kill everyone.