Non-Aggression Principle: A crisis, introspection, and offer of discussion
Those of you that follow me will know that I am an advocate for a long term goal of Anarchism (the classic "no rulers" version) and that I also am a Free Market advocate. This is also often called an Anarcho-Capitalist. For those that do not know me basically what this means is that I would like to see the future push towards the following, but I do not see it happening instantly. It is a distant goal.
- Non-Aggression Principle: Do not initiate aggression, but fully okay with self defense and defense of others nearby
- Voluntary Society - no one can force another to do something against their will as long as the actions of the person do not force/harm another, or their property
- Free Market. Voluntary trade driven by mutually agreed upon contracts and agreements between people.
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That is indeed very idealistic. I get that. You may look at that and say "That is unrealistic" and indeed if we were attempt to do it today with the behavior, education, and mentality of most of the population it would not work. It would end up as the hijacked modern use of the word anarchy which they have intentionally made synonymous with chaos.
This is why I consider it a long term goal. I've chosen to focus on critical thinking as one of the things I can help with. I try to make more people aware that education today does not teach critical thinking, thus it is on us to self educate on these tools. Critical thinking gives you tools that allow you to side step some common mental manipulations that are clearly used regularly upon the masses. It makes propaganda less effective. Yet, for any society to work people need to be able to think. They need to be willing to be themselves, and they need to learn to communicate and interact with people of differing ideas without condemning them based upon emotion, opinion, stereotypes/generalizations, and propaganda and instead use reason and critical thinking.
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That is my goal. It is a long term goal, I do not expect it to be close to being ready before I die. I simply work towards that.
Non-Aggression Principle: A personal crisis
I am a strong advocate of the Non-Aggression Principle. Yet, I have also been paying a lot of attention to events that are going on in the U.S. and even globally.
The NAP indicates I should not be initiating aggression, though self defense is acceptable.
Right now my mental crisis is arising as I watch events that seem to be almost like a large mass enveloping, preparing flanking maneuvers, and cutting off avenues of escape. I sit here in my righteous belief in the Non-Aggression Principle and I typically will not advocate aggression unless it is in my face as that typically is what we define as self defense.
What if there are proverbial cages, walls, and ever compacting political, and other events going on that are increasingly compressing towards me?
Do I initiate self defense when I see them at my door, or coming into my neighborhood?
Do I wait until the avenues through which I might act to stop it are closed?
My concept of NAP that I have been practicing is the NAP as applied to my ideal form of reality that I described earlier. The problem is we do not live in that reality.
There is the concept of hypocrisy. Speak about the NAP, but then advocate violent action today? I have not done that yet.
Yet, that is the crisis. I see things closing in. They have not quite reached my neighborhood, but I see the clear propaganda intentionally lying and manipulating a lot of people.
I see groups such as Antifa that actually do advocate violence to achieve their goal. At the moment the mainstream media is defending Antifa and even supporting their actions. This is a scary thing.
So do I sit still and wait until they come?
This is the NAP Crisis I am currently dealing with. I believe in the NAP, and if we were living in an environment where society was working along those ways then my approach might be realistic. Yet, is that an intelligent/wise stance to take while those that have no problem with violence and force grow, move, and destroy potential ideological allies?
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I know there are a lot of people that believe in the NAP here on Steemit as I do. The question I've been pondering for a couple of days since I watched what happened in Charlottesville in unedited streams, and then I watched how things were spun for days after that is this... Should I be considering self defense as only acting when they are in my face and I can see them in my proximity? From a purely tactical, strategic mindset that is seeming like a very dumb thing to do.
If any of you play RTS games that is kind of like Porcupining without actually building up any defenses, and porcupining even though all the distant defense points are taken out one by one.
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I am starting to think we are actually in a moment where self defense is required, yet it is not against an in your face jerk. By the time they are in my face I suspect it will be too late. So, yes I support the NAP, but reality does not conform to my ideological desires.
This is much like my arguments against SAFE SPACES being where people are intentionally trying to make the world into a fantasy world and ignore reality. Well I believe we can be guilty of ignoring reality as well as we chant NAP this, NAP that.
Does any of this make sense? Any ideas? What do you think?
We all should be peaceful.
We are in 2017, we evolved, we can have a fight with our words!
Which is what I've been doing for years. Yet, I am watching people who are doing more that speaking doing things that impact my life and the life of others and add force.
We can sit in a circle and say peace... Does the horde that is gradually surrounding us with swords and that clearly have no problem with violence care about our peace when they surround us and come upon us sitting there?
Also one of the things they are strongly trying to restrict is free speech. You can't fight with your words if your words are taken away from you.
yes..that's right also... we need to be balanced...
I'm a big fan of Robert Anton Wilson, and it does have to be said I think a lot of his work has influenced me massively in terms of how I deal with the "LAW".
Ultimately, I tend to regard the law as sitting in two camps, one being the common law, that which we regard as pertaining to protecting people and their property from harm or theft.
Then there is the "legal" stuff, which is drafted and enacted by the political psychos who are mostly utterly corrupt sociopaths. I feel that these should be ignored, laughed at, bent, broken and generally treated with contempt. At first they will likely use violence against the individual who embarks on this path, but at a certain point, particularly when the mass no longer recognise the law as "useful" then it generally gets disregarded anyway, and the politicos scramble around trying to look marvellous for being the ones to take it off the statute books.
What I love about the world right now is that it's becoming easier and easier to opt out, and the main way to opt out is economically. Pointless talking about cryptos here, as I'm sure most people get why they are a brilliant idea.
So, my view is that we should invoke the SNAFU principle, a-la- mr Wilson proposed, and simply continually create confusion around the idea of rules. In this way, one can do a little every day, and without being violent at all.
This has been my path. Yet they also use law to shape the education system so the masses seem at times completely unable to use reason and are totally the puppets of emotions and those that can manipulate those eotions.
I could get behind this. Yet I chose clarity instead of confusion. The problem is that this doesn't stop the masses of zombies as they grow. As they gain official endorsement from the propaganda mechanism, and they can attack and it is not hate. Which leaves me wondering, then what is it?
My problem with NAP is that you can find it partly in almost any constitution, at least when it comes to wars "war of aggression" is illegal. However there is always a way to make aggression seem like a preventive defensive measure.
I do see your preventive aggression that you may or may not plan to commit as much more justified than what the states are doing to be fair.
However, one of the biggest goals of the Antifa is to disrupt public order and preferable plunch the country into a civil war. By fighting them with force you would make them much stronger.
I belittle Antifa, but I usually get along with their members. I am a socialist after all.
I would also argue that An-Comms should be very receptive for libertarian ideas. So maybe you can convert them instead of killing them.
I guess it depends on what you actually plan to do, but I am afraid that you are being setup. Your government is only waiting for a civil war to happen so it can complete its final step.
Antifa would not be my target. If I became aggressive unless I was directly in contact with them and defending myself. In that respect my idea of NAP becomes unchanged.
My fight would be with those who fund them, endorse them, and put them on a pedestal as though that keeps their hands clean. Also these are often the people that aim them since Antifa is very tunnel visioned.
Why don't you say that more clearly? :D Of course I am on board exposing and fighting the shadows that seem to misguide the Antifa Comrades. But then I don't see how would you break the NAP? This sounds more like infowars instead of physical war.
I have to wrestle with the idea that I seriously am beginning to think that people taking out (physically) George Soros and other would be puppet masters might end up being a survival strategy. Those that are unaccountable and truly beholden to no nation, or specific people.
That I believe would be against the NAP. I've known strategies that would involve physical approaches for quite some time. It just goes against who I am to give voice to those strategies.
That is where my current mental crisis comes from.
Well, I think it is too early for that. We might have to do something that you anarchos really don't like, we would have to organize... :P I know, I know it only means "no leaders" not "no rules" or "no structure".
Of course you can bend the NAP in the way that you are under attack by state and capital, but I don't think that bending rules is something you would want to do.
There are people after all who have accumulated tons of power and I am not talking about politicians, they are just tools. To expect that they will just loosen their grip without force seems delusional, some of them might be listening to reason but there will be some that do not.
My plan is still to get the military and police on our side, with that the sheer threat of force should be enough to win and their might not even be a single wounded person.
The problem in the U.S. is they heavily weaponized the media. I've watched Trump in the last week give three different speeches. I watched the entire speeches as that is the only way to get the truth about what he says.
The media within hours, days will come out saying he said one thing, and didn't say another and it will be a complete lie.
A lot of people are too lazy to go and look for themselves. It is more convenient to go to their "trusted" news source and be told the news they should believe in a 30 - 60 minute program so they can then carry on with their plans without having to actually verify whether what they heard was true or not.
We still have a number of these. If we were to have a new civil war there are people I care about that I know I would be in opposition to because, this is how they consume their news.
People that go to feminist rallies defending the bhurka when that was something many women fought for the right to not have to wear as part of an actual earlier feminist rally. They believe the narrative simply because their "trusted" source told them they should rather than learning, questioning, and doing any actual research.
These days if they tell you Trump said something you pretty much need to go watch his entire speech yourself as they usually don't actually tell the truth.
The same happened with the Charlottesville event as well. That was why I got so angry. I was not angry after watching 2+ hours of uninterrupted, unpaused footage from the event. I thought it was a mess. Then I saw the news and how it was so FAKE on the event that I actually got pretty angry. I was not angry until I saw the news and since I'd watched unedited footage it made the FAKENESS of the media narrative stick out really badly.
In the U.S. many people still only get that narrative. Doing more takes effort. Our population loves the big easy red button for things.
I don't know how it is in Germany.
Very similar. One of our biggest news-outlets has as a binding rule for their journalists that they "have to honor the transatlantic partnership" which means that they are explicitly censoring any criticism towards the US gov.
I think @lennstar once posted about a case where people were forbidden to film public speeches of politicians in their local parlament. The fine for breaking that new law was set to 250.000€.
Our media narrative about Trump is an exact translation of the things the US media puts out behind him.
The term Lügenpresse (Fake News) has been deemed Nazi-Slang.
So yeah, it is not looking much better in Germany.
This
decapitation strategy
Basically though organizing anything like that today in the traditional sense would be quickly squished by the intelligence apparatus. So it'd need to be approached a little differently and I did some hypothetical mental models of that before. I can think such things, I simply see it as bad to give them life by telling them to other people.
Especially since any WEAPON once unleashed can easily be turned back around on those that unleashed it.
The saying... Live by the sword, die by the sword.
The idea behind full liberty is that each man makes his own decisions. I fully agree that anyone trying to set up a "national revolution" would get rolled up in a heartbeat. I expect that the III% groups are half FBI ;>
Which returns us to a different point...IF LE would sack up and ot it's job, we'd have to put up with some inner city riots for a while, but that the democong and the Deep State would be crushed.
Because we are heaed for that dark ground you discuss one way or another unless things are done in a lawful manner.
The Left will not tolerate loss of power democratically.
Which we are witnessing first hand.
I've known this for decade+. The laws they passed that give them massive powers if they can pass martial law. Civil War wouldn't get very far. They would activate national martial law and that pretty much suspends everything and grants great power. If they can kill Trump before then it would give whomever they have as president truly dictatorial powers.
If they can use killing Trump to trigger it that is even better for them.
Hmmm... how to tell the sheep that they are being fattened ,for the butcher.That the butchers have no problem bombing them into peaceful submission.
Self defense,needs to be an even battle.What we face is Mass population wipe out! publicly declared plans! to do so! By elite powers with deep pockets,and political control to enact there plans! Makes self defense kinda like battling a wild fire by ones self. We need to come together and organize as well as they do and act to stop this BS!!!!
I would love to be able to dream of it being done peacefully, but I am awake enough to know better. They will not give up W/out a fight.
I agree with the NAP in daily life and interaction. But our life is being threatened,and our planet destroyed.When do we get to claim self defense? When can we stand up for our civil rights? and when can we say it is becoming a tyranny?
Namaste!
They watch for organizing. They infiltrate, they eliminate. You are correct we need to do something, but organizing in the traditional sense just puts all the fish in a barrel.
Well lets just wait for the right time. I am sure it will get better if we do nothing.
;-)
Well I know that they infiltrate,monitor,and subvert all resistance!
I am On the List. ...lol..
Maybe I will make it to a FEMMA Camp.
Maybe steemit will save the World. got to have something to hope for! ;-)
namaste
It's a sad state of affairs when it seems to be falling into their trap to either fight them, peacefully resist or comply. I have no answers.
They are well on their way to having removed reason from public discourse and consciousness, so our wise words have no influence on most people.
That has become a concern. I can speak. Yet, if they ignore my speaking, or even make my speaking illegal, then does that stop their actions?
Me believing in the NAP does not I think stop them. We don't live in our idealistic society so our concept of NAP which is designed to work within that environment actually makes us vulnerable in a society that is already vastly corrupted and controlled.
That is at least where I have lately been thinking.
Do I want to work towards that long term goal of getting us to a society where the NAP is the norm? Yes. Completely.
Yet, will that happen if I sit in my NAP bubble while the great amorphous mass gobbles up the allies and the people like me one at a time around the world. Will that happen if I allow them to even make my right to speak illegal, or my right to speak as justification for people to violently attack me with press and government backing if what I say isn't what they want to hear?
I am starting to think I too am living in a little bit of fantasy land.
I am acting as though I already live in the ideological world I would like to see us have. I see the evil ones shaking their head, grinning, and pointing at me and saying "see how easy they make it for us?"
Now I have only recently started to think this way. So I cannot tell you what I can do about it, or if I'll keep thinking this way (I am sure my thoughts will change) but it is a huge concern at the moment.
I guess a lot of it boils down to what constitutes self-defense. Is me taking action to stop them from forcing unjust laws upon me self-defense?
Is me taking action to stop corrupt actors that are pushing propaganda and proven lies (if you bother to investigate) as tools to justify attacks on me, you, and passage of unjust laws self defense?
Right now a big part of my mind is working on that problem. What do I consider self defense?
That resonates very much with me. I think we live in an unfortunate time (as others have I guess) where faced with an existential threat, principled behaviour may not always be a luxury we can afford. I hope though that we are not somehow ultimately reduced to the kind of behaviour we despise.
Yes, I haven't stated what I think I should do. I don't know that yet. I am still trying to work that out myself.
Hello @dwinblood.
I have been a quite dogmatic Rothbardian Ancap once and probably would have defended the NAP in many situations. But with more thinking and reading I came to the conclusion that the NAP is way too fuzzy to count as an axiom that is underlying a social philosophy.
If you want to say every aggression against life and property is illegimate, you have to find a definition of aggression and property first. And if this definition is binding for everyone you are again in legal positivism and statism.
The NAP is not the basis but the result of human interaction, it is optional. I can correspond with it or not, like I can agree with every other man-made law.
Therefore Max Stirner gets to the point:
"As human right is always something given, it always in reality reduces to the right which men give, i.e. “concede", to eachother. If the right to existence is conceded to new-born children, then they have the right; if it is not conceded to them, as was the case among the Spartans and ancient Romans, then they do not have it. For only society can give or concede it to them; they themselves cannot take it, or give it to themselves. It will be objected, the children had nevertheless “by nature” the right to exist; only the Spartans refused recognition to this right. But then they simply had no right to this recognition — no more than they had to recognition of their life by the wild beasts to which they were thrown."
Good response. Some food for thought.
In times like these, using the NAP is the only way to morally justify our actions. Anyone who claims to have authority over others is the problem and the only way we can resolve this conflict is by standing our ground and only acting out of necessity.
Which is how I have been thinking until recently. Recently I've started seeing that the necessity may be here. If we wait until they are on our doorstep, we wait until they have made even speaking illegal, etc then how do you stand your ground at that point?
We stand on our doorstep in righteous indignity and talk about how we've always taken the "higher path" and they kill us just the same.
Can we use the NAP? Yes. Can we expect NAP to work if we let them pick off other people that are protesting and using words one by one so there are no allies left?
I am very strong believer in the NAP. Yet, I have had sudden strategic and tactical thoughts.
I've done the "put myself in other people's shoes" and I've observed what they are doing. I've thought about what they already seem to justify. I've watched lies be not only accepted but the norm.
Will the fact you or I stood on our door and only acted when they were physically there be remembered or make a difference?
If the NAP justifies self defense. My thought now is that in many ways we ARE under attack. We cannot ignore this. Is not stripping away your rights and making your words illegal an attack?
I agree. I do believe we are under attack at the moment and the time to act is now or never. The fake news and fake science narrative are clearly aimed to silence the critical thinkers who aren't conforming to the status quo.
That was my fear. I realized that sitting still and only considering the NAP the way I have been for a long time makes me idle and vulnerable at a time I should be thinking about how to ACT and stop it as a form of self defense.
If you wait until they are on your doorstep; they will be better armed than you, better organized than you, and there will be more of them. That is one thing their ideology is based upon. obedience in hivemind
As a strategy, peaceful resistance seems much more promising to me than lowering us to their standard and throw our principles over board, just to become like them... If nobody attacks you physically, 'defending' yourself is a bit like the bush doctrine about preemptive strikes... ('But, but, they were just about to do something horrible, so we had to annihilate them')
https://steemit.com/politics/@stevescoins/what-happens-when-we-indulge-ourselves-in-peace-for-our-time-utopian-fantasy
Well said...
I like to see it as scales. You can put your weight on one side, the side of sound morals, or the side of initiation of force. Do not underestimate the power of your choice. Once a boy asked his grandfather what life was all about and the grandfather answered: there are two dogs inside all of us. One is friendly and true, the other is afraid and viscous. These two dogs fight until one of them wins. The boy asked: which one will win? The grandfather answered: the one you feed.
When we choose violence, we feed the wrong dog and that would be the real tragedy. It is all about your choices. Forget about what others do, luckily it's their problem and they will have to deal with the consequences.
I think your most important fight should be to regain your sense of power. I know that it can be easy to be swept away by the constant barrage of bad news, but you always have choices if you wish to live a peaceful, ancap life.
Whether something is against the NAP should be of lesser concern right now.
How to even begin to gauge what is a violation of NAP in this twisted society? My thinking is that George Soros is daily initiating aggression against people of Europe, U.S. and Asia - killing that guy might seem a violation of the NAP, but he is daily violating rights of many people, inciting unrest and violence, and causing untold hardship for thousands...all the while protected and untouchable by law enforcement.
The real question in that regard would be - does removing a chess piece change the game, or will an alternate step in, even worse than the one before?
We cannot really know. In some case we can guess, but generally we won't know.