Aristotle vs. Kokesh: Don’t Vote in 2020! Be a Voluntaryist (we’re already winning anyway)
(This article/video is for mainly for those who already understand basic Voluntaryist principle and libertarian property ethic. It may be difficult to grasp for those not yet familiar with Voluntaryist thought, property norms, or the bedrock principle of individual self-ownership, but even so, I hope those readers not yet familiar with these ideas will gain some new and useful insights and knowledge.)
Here’s the video accompaniment to this post. Both this article and the video are meant to complement one another.
A. A plan that, by design, entails the violation of one or more individuals’ self-ownership for the “greater good” is legitmate. We have to be pragmatic.
B. A plan that, by design, entails the violation of even one individual’s self-ownership is illegitimate. Principle must not be violated, or it cannot properly be called principle.
Pick one.
As Aristotle said so many years ago, in so many words:
You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.
I’ll break this down very simply. The law of non-contradiction says that “A is A.” In other words, ice cannot be a liquid at the same time it is solid ice. Pretty easy, right? An orange cannot be an apple to the degree in which it continues to be an orange. A is A and not B. You can’t have your cake in front of you and have eaten all of it at the same time. (Well, I guess unless you ate it and then cut your stomach out...but you get the point) Logic is logic. The end. A is A.
It can thus be logically concluded that a political plan, insofar as it violates Voluntaryist principle (namely, individual self-ownership, the bedrock axiom of the philosophy) cannot be a Voluntaryist plan.
The easiest way to prove that Kokesh’s “platform” is non-compatible with Voluntaryism:
Kokesh will assume “temporary authority” and “ownership” of unowned resources via illegitimate means (political mandate). (Ironically, Kokesh himself has called this means of achieving power, whether for ethical or unethical purposes, illegitimate.) He will use this “authority” to carry out the plans of his platform. One of those plans involves vast acreages of land in the national parks system.
Kokesh will turn national parks into independent, non-profit organizations, open to “the public” (a meaningless term to voluntaryists) via property assignments mandated by himself and his inner circle. This means, in effect, that vast swathes of unowned “public” lands will be, solely by Kokeshian decree, unhomesteadable, even to those local individuals who possess the most direct link to the land, and already are, or wish to, mix their labor with it. Who will direct these non-profits? Well, that is up for Kokesh and his self-appointed “custodians” to decide.
As such, Kokesh’s plan to arbitrarily assign ownership of these vast acreages of land to a board of directors of his choosing, to be “owned” by “the public,” as non-profit organizations, by necessity violates the individual self-ownership of any and all individuals who may wish to homestead these unowned lands, or utilize the land or its resources as private property.
That’s it. Kokesh has contradicted himself twice:
1. In claiming that the electoral process both is, and is not, a legitimate means by which to acquire authority/land/resources.
2. In claiming that his platform is Voluntaryist in nature, in spite of its by-design-necessary violations of Voluntaryist principle.
Aristotle don’t care if someone runs for prez! Aristotle do care if someone says “A is B”! It’s not! A is A.
Myself, I don’t give a good god damn if someone “runs for office.” What I do take issue with is when someone calls an objectively authoritarian plan a Voluntaryist one. There’s no debate here. Doing things which by necessity violate self-ownership and Voluntaryist property norms is not Voluntaryism. A is A. Run as a statist, or a “big L” Libertarian, but don’t pretend to be a Voluntaryist, while promoting this type of platform.
Sadly, it seems anyone who asks specific questions about the platform is dismissed, told to “read the platform again,” or called names in puerile, grade school fashion.
Before I go (before the final point) as a sort of aside, I want to address one rebuttal I am sure will come:
”Adam’s plan would at least be MORE VOLUNTARY than what we have now! Isn’t less oppression better!?
To that I reply:
If there is a game that, when played, swings three large hammers from the ceiling and smashes three people—sometimes the player of the game himself—on the head, and another game that only smashes one or two people on the head, is voluntarily choosing to play the second game really a moral choice? Certainly there are less heads being smashed, but when the games don’t even need to be played, isn’t the only real moral option not to play?
To that my detractors will reply:
”Yes, but if we don’t play, someone will! The hammers are going to fall no matter what!”
And to that I reply:
Yes. As long as people like you keep playing the game.
Kokesh himself has sad that voting for the “lesser evil” is a trap. And yet, that’s exactly what we are being told to do, in being urged to vote for Kokesh’s 2020 platform.
We are already winning. Don’t fuck it up by voting!
Look at this shit!
In 2016, 43 ~ 45% of individuals in America ”did not vote.
This means that the “candidate” who really won, was NOBODY! We are winning! Let’s bring that non-participation percentage up in 2020.
Why pay homage and lend an air of legitimacy to a broken-by-design, irrevocably corrupt, murderous, filthy human destruction machine, called “government” by trying to “change it from the inside” instead of saying “fuck you” to the whole goddamned thing.
*If you want to try and change the Third Reich “from the inside,” be my guest. Me and Aristotle, however, feel sorry for you. A system and electoral process that is foundationally morally illegitimate and evil can not, at the same time, and in the same sense, be foundationally morally legitimate and good.
A is A. A is not B.
~*~
~KafkA
Graham Smith is a Voluntaryist activist, creator, and peaceful parent residing in Niigata City, Japan. Graham runs the "Voluntary Japan" online initiative with a presence here on Steem, as well as DTube and Twitter. (Hit me up so I can stop talking about myself in the third person!)
Well said my friend. Here is something to go along with your article: http://www.internationalman.com/articles/doug-caseys-top-five-reasons-not-to-vote
You got me with Kafka. I was going to bring up Kafka in reference to Steemit a few days ago, but thought the reference might be too obscure. The dispute you discuss here is new to me. I'm sort of an interloper, but did read the post with interest. Of course I don't know enough to offer a valid opinion. However, when I saw Kafka, I had to say something. I've always said (basically to myself), when analyzing Kafka, that K (Trial) should have simply ignored the agents when they showed up at his house. He gives them authority. Same with the Castle. He cedes his autonomy--they don't take it. Once he gets involved with their system, he's lost.
Personally, I don't trust the government. I don't trust anyone to have control of my life. But when no one is "in charge" the weak submit, bullies and the greedy take over.
Anyway, an interesting discussion here. I really enjoyed the winking Kafka.
The kokesh mania to me has seemed odd from day one, now that I hear about this national park plan, and with what I know about the rainbow gathering, which basically tried the same thing, kokesh has to be a cop.
He's just a giant honeypot tarbaby, anything association with him at all will get you on a terror watchlist so you have no rights.
Also, all of the accounts associated with promoting him heavily are ones I found to be in some or another disinformation network.
It is getting to be like anything people try to do, the cops show up first and set up camp then take over the whole thing from the inside, with their resources used to make them look legitimate while beggaring everyone else's ability to acquire their own resources or build their own networks.
I not believe we can win against this much mendacity, but I'm at least not going to be silent about what they are doing as in my opinion it is unconstitutional to establish a secret police and have cops masquerading as all these organizations. Check the comments to my posts where I call them out, they refuse to engage with me at all on the facts, they just call me names.
Any open culture will be destroyed by a power that rules by spies, which is what we have no one earth, a cryptocracy run by spies, a form of government which is unknowable to anyone not on the inside, if even then. Like how fox news becames pro russia in 2017, if you are not on the inside everything you knew about the system could change on a dime, you will never see a part of the decisionmaking process.
Well, I don't agree with you regarding every one of the individuals and organizations you name in some of your posts as being undercover cops or phonies, but you are correct that infiltration does happen, and that it is imperative to be vigilant always.
The Kokesh mania is just that. Mania. And I am sad to see so many getting swept away by it. The truth will always out, though, and those throwing thousands of dollars in donations at this unprincipled, pie-in-the-sky sensationalism will see sooner or later what it is really made of.
I'm just doing what I feel I must in repeating, thousands of times over if I have to, the simple definition of Voluntaryism, and asking that people that don't care about Voluntaryist principle, or are unwilling to even take 5 minutes to discuss it, don't falsely advertise political campaigns under that label.
fair enough, I feel the same way about anarchy, the peace movement, privacy, and a few other things.
I will whitelist you as an actual human for your balanced response and perspective, the number of steemit users on this list is quite, quite short at the moment. But I rejoice for every human I find who isn't one of the mendicants.
mendicant = professional liars, people paid to lie, people who study the truth only as a means to become better liars
Unfortunately, I am not familiar with Voluntaryist thought and all those words. Gonna read the whole post carefully. Thank you!
Maybe my new favorite profile to follow!
The ever-present dilemma for anarchists. To vote or not to vote. I'm glad I have a couple years to decide between the practical fact that there is going to be a government at least for a while and my ideological need for a radical degree of consistency.
@kafkarnachy84, it's a pity that a pot is calling a kettle black, why all these calling of names, highly evil or less, evil all is evil, this will not stop the government from remaining selfish and autocratic.
DO THE BEST YOU CAN DO TO BETTER YOUR LIFE
if you can vote, vote, if you can't vote, relax because the winner of the game is known before the beginning of the game.
I agree with you philosophically, but it's one thing to live in the realm of ideas and another to live in the material world. The material world and those in it do not care about ideology and whether it is wrong or right or anything in-between.
You are taking an ideological stance, which by my definition is rigid. The real world is not rigid. The reality of the world is that things in it are constantly changing. To take an ideological stance is to not engage with what is happening around you and ignore change. It is living in the realm of the mind. This is quite different than the material realm. I'd love for Voluntaryism to manifest, but you don't magically get from point A to point B, as nice as that would be.
I do love a good philosophical analysis though! You did a great job of doing just that.
Sure, the battle for individual liberty and cooperation against tryannical forces that use control instead will always be ongoing. It will sway back and forth along that true left and right scale. The battle is worth fighting though for the side of individual liberty and cooperation. That's not rigid. We know the scale is moving, and we are doing our best to move it towards the good side. :)
First, this is an unsubstantiated claim, and not an argument. Second, the stance I have taken is the most hard-nosed, realistic stance there is. To say that “a few individuals must be harmed” for the “greater good” is the truly presumptive stance made from a mind disconnected with the perils and opportunities of concrete reality.
It’s not a voluntaryist position by definition! nothing about opinion here—that’s the reality.
It doesn’t acknowledge that reality of the smallest minority, which is the individual.
The “ends justifies the means” pie-in-the-sky collectivist utopianism you have describe is indeed unrealistic. I agree you don’t magically get from A to B , because A is A! ;)
Quantum physics suggests that in fact something can be and not be at the same time.
Not really. Those are potentialities, as I understand it. It really doesn't matter though, because the topic dealt with here is much simpler than that and the LNC definitely applies.
You got a 2.52% upvote from @buildawhale courtesy of @kafkanarchy84!
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