If you face an organized threat you probably need to organize (in some way) against it.
The state isn't a real solution. You can't protect property rights by violating property rights. You can't save liberty by destroying liberty. You can't protect your children from warlords by enslaving them to a warlord.
That the state has convinced so many people otherwise is scary.
Yes, an organized threat will kill you if you don't kill it, or scare them into staying away. Organization doesn't imply archation unless you are trapped in a statist mindset.
Government might look like organization, but it's really not. Organization is voluntary; government is coercive.
If you have to become the same as the bad guy to survive, what value is there in your survival? It would be just as well if your opponent survived instead. When it's archator vs archator I don't cheer for either side.
Now, if it's my survival we're talking about... Yes, I might become a bad guy to survive, but I'm not going to pretend it was the right thing to do. I have no illusions about the fact that if I violate rights because I believe I "need" to I still did wrong. Ethically, I'm the equivalent of the one who is threatening me. There's no net gain, except for me, personally. If I'm being selfish, that's OK with me. But there's no sense in pretending society is in any way better off due to my survival and my enemy's demise in that case.
re: "...might become a bad guy to survive"
ReplyDeleteDefending against archation cannot make one "a bad guy".
Proactively DEFENDING AGAINST ARCHATION is moral.
... whether in a group or as individuals.
organized is more effective.
Militia: Voluntary association of civil organizations for mutual defense is moral. and America was founded on those principles. But now "the state" works hard to prevent such fundamental rights. hmmmm.
same as the redcoats in 1775: statists assault civilians to try and take away their cannons which are needed for defense against archation.
Deletestatists hate empowered communities capable of providing for themselves.
statists need dependent slaves; powerless to question, to think, to organize.
same story throughout history.
I agree. But joining with the state is an act of archation even if you are fighting against other archation. Two wrongs... and all that. Organizing is OK; joining a state or behaving in a state-like manner (non-voluntarily, with "taxes" and other property rights violations, etc.) is not.
Deletepaying taxes enables the state to archate.
ReplyDeleteyet, we pay (at gun point), to survive.
same with helping a state fight against other more ominous archation.
to defend. to strike down the most pressing evil.
[ and then address lesser evils once the imminent threats have been dealt with ]
to survive.
to do nothing, is
Deletea) suicidal
b) places control over our life onto others, slave masters, who may or may not choose to do with our lives as they wish
helping and enabling the lesser of two evils is necessary.
philosophically "impure". but 100% necessary for survival.
living in a protected bubble if one is able to ignore brutal reality of most of human existence.
It's interesting how you equate not doing the wrong thing with "doing nothing". Why is that?
DeleteIf you believe something is a more ominous source of archation-- a more pressing evil-- than the state, you've been tricked by the state.
I would like for you to lay out exactly what you advocate doing. Coherently and in full. I sometimes think I've got the gist of it, but then you'll say something else which doesn't fit what I thought you were advocating, and I'd like to understand. I'm willing to give you a platform for a guest post on this blog if you can do so.