Anarchy and Dealing With The State
I recently had a birthday, turning [REDACTED] years old, and realized the day before that my drivers license was about to expire. Now as we are all aware, if my license expires, I suddenly lose the ability to operate a vehicle at all, much less maintain my lane and obey traffic rules. Oh, wait. No, it just means I am more likely to have an unpleasant encounter with people in silly blue costumes who work as enforcers for the racket known as "Government."
I will use the definitions employed by Ben Stone of @badquakerdotcom here to try to explain the concept of the State and the government as distinct ideas.
The State is a religious belief. It does not exist any more than the ancient Greco-Roman pantheon of gods. I like to capitalize it the way I capitalize the name of Zeus as part of this distinction.
The government is the collective noun for the group of people who claim to act on the behalf of their god, The State. This is like the priests who claim to speak for Zeus and who maintain "his" temples.
The religious analogy doesn't stop there. National anthems and patriotic songs are hymns. The Pledge of Allegiance is both a loyalty oath and a prayer, and the ballot is likewise a petition—a prayer, in other words—to the State.
Politically, I could be described as an atheist. I do not believe in the State. It has no authority, and neither does the government that claims to represent it. However, the people around me are almost all adherents to this faith to one degree or another, and government agents will act on their faith regardless of its legitimacy. In order to avoid being robbed, kidnapped, or murdered by these religious zealots, it is necessary to compromise and pretend to play along. After all, going to jail or getting killed would be counter-productive to my goal of achieving more personal liberty.
Back to the license issue: don't I want to know that other drivers are competent? Well, yes, but government doesn't do that. It's an extortion racket and control mechanism disguised as a safety program. My car insurance company cares about my skill as a driver for their bottom line. I care for my own personal safety and concern for others. Unlike the library where I work or the fire department, this isn't a case of government monopolizing a useful service. Government just wants my money and a leash around my neck.
So what can be done? I know there are a lot of believers in various "sovereign citizen" systems that claim to trump the government, but none of it really makes any sense. After all, government agents believe first and foremost in their god. Challenges are not tolerated.
Unfortunately, we live in a world where too many people believe fervently in the State. Just now I left a diner where people were all agreeing over breakfast that Bergdahl needed to be assassinated for treason. Our first task is teaching more people the fundamental principles of liberty. Our foremost foes are not politicians or cops, but rather the school curricula, popular culture, and mainstream news. We must scatter the ideas of liberty so those who are open to real freedom can find it.
Some people will never be ready to abandon intellectual junk food, so don't waste your time with them. Instead, try to find the people willing to think, debate, and discuss using reason and evidence.
If you think the best method is to buck the system and risk being sent to jail, do that and be prepared to convert fellow inmates to liberty should that occur. No one else is in a better position to become fully aware of the nature of government and The State.
If you think the best method is to play along just enough to keep outside of prison while staying in the public sphere, do that and spread sedition. Poke at the comfortable bubble of cognitive dissonance people live in but try to ignore.
If you find a sovereign citizen remedy that actually works, by all means do that.
We have a long road ahead of us. Do what is necessary to live in this world of insanity.
See also:
Anarchism Versus Mythology
Anarchy, Chaos, Law, and Order.
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A license is just the government taking your rights away and then selling them back to you.
A license is literally permission to do something that is otherwise illegal by definition.
Interesting that I recently had to go and be extorted, have my photo taken, eyes checked, etc. in order to have another "you can drive" wallet-sized card issued... Boogers!
I loved your discussion here, for the most part. But, I absolutely hate compromising and pretending to play along... :D
I do it, nevertheless, mainly for the sake of peace within my family...
😄😇😄
I can non-ironically and non-sarcastically concur that the struggle is real.
Yes, well, I think you're right in part. It is true that the State does not do its job as it should, and that there is really no guarantee that someone has a license or not. But the legitimacy of the State, I believe, lies in the use of force, and in a social consensus that is between said, most people become agents of defense of the State and its institutions when you argue with them, this is precisely because they have been taught to respect their authority.
The main men who fought for freedom throughout history, did so in a imposed way, human nature requires that some impose on others, if what is desired is freedom, it will only be obtained at the expense of imposing it, it sounds paradoxical, but that is the animal nature, and if it can not be imposed, simply fails.
I don't see anything in nature of things that requires freedom to be imposed on others, that wouldn't be freedom? Real "freedom fighters" don't believe power over others is something that makes free association possible.
What does seem to be obvious in human nature is social organization, or rather individuals forming collectives. Using force is essentially the lowest common denominator of available means to get your ends satisfied; and the masses as history has shown, eventually figure out that the mechanism of State power is very effective at doing this. The main problem against Anarchism is inertia, plain laziness on the part of the majority to be self-aware enough to see how exploitation should be minimized if not eliminated if you want civilization to continue healthily.
Yes, but the liberators did impose freedom by force, in front of those who did not want it to be so. That is, people who want freedom even if they do not use force have to be willing to use it against those who want no freedom, otherwise those who want slavery, authoritarianism or any other determined system will be imposed. If 99% of people want to live in a model of society, but are not willing to use force to establish and defend it, and the remaining 1% are willing to use it, then one way or another will end up imposing one on another . There is never a total consensus on any topic.
I don't deny defense is necessary and elimination of true threats may become a possibility, but I don't think using any kind of aggressive force to establish freedom is right or even truly brings about an environment of actual freedom. There's a difference between defensive and aggressive force. But you're right, this is the accepted domination philosophy which the masses of humanity have been under since the beginning.
Also, isn't it contradictory to believe you have to impose something for it to be free. This is the same argument imperialists have used when they say they are looking to liberate a place and there's always unintended consequences.
Yes, well, what I really say is that it is possible to impose a free society without using force, but there must be the possibility that force can be used, in the enemy's mind there must be the possibility that people they will defend the free society, because if the person who opposes freedom knows that there will be no defense against any threat, then he will take advantage of that. So the force, or the ability to impose, must prevail in the minds of people. It's like the relationship between an Alpha Male and a Beta or Omega.
Bandwagon fallacy. And human nature does not require imposition or aggression.
Analogy: "Everyone knows you need to make an offering to Poseidon to ensure a safe voyage. And the gods demand that some rule while the rest obey."
Well, I do not see it that way, that is, there is always an imposition to my way of seeing. In countries where there is a particular political system and a particular form of government, those that are in favor of the establishment, impose on those who want to change it, no matter that they are a minority, the fact is that the simple fact that one system exists or prevails and another does not, requires a certain imposition, or a certain degree of it.
There is no "imposition of freedom." That's like saying resisting a robber is itself robbery.
No, it's not like saying that resisting a thief is in itself a robbery, I do not see the analogy there. The reality is that we like it or not, the human being is a biological organism, and that does not resist in any circumstance of its nature. Society as a grouping in itself requires the imposition of social individuals on antisocial individuals.
So, for example, if a totalitarian dictator and his army of men impose a totalitarian society to the social body through the use of force or using the threat of using force, the only possible way in which a group of individuals or people in General could implement an open and free society, it would be to impose by force or with the threat of force its model of society.
Society requires zero imposition. Voluntary exchanges and associations work, and they work better than coercion.
I am not saying that a free society is not better and much more prosperous, I say that it requires imposition, not on its citizens, but on those who are oppose to free society. For example, the founding fathers to form a free nation had to use force against the Britannic Empire. Force does not always have to be used, sometimes only the threat of using it is enough.
That's like saying it requires imposition to resist a mugger. That doesn't make any sense.
Nothing in a voluntary society precludes people choosing associations of which I disapprove, provided they leave others alone.