To Die in a Shootout with The State

Giving your car keys to a car-jacker in order to avoid getting a bullet through your brain does not equate to condoning and approving of car-jacking. Likewise, going along with various commands and/or demands of a heavily armed ruling class out of self-preservation does not equate to approving of or advocating such state aggression.

If you ask me, this is so damn obvious that it shouldn’t really need explaining. However, some people like to declare that you can’t be a “real anarchist” if you do anything to cooperate with the threats of the state. And I’ve seen both devout statists AND self-described anarchists making this logically bogus argument.

If someone advocates non-aggression and a stateless society, he is an anarchist, even if, out of fear, or cowardice, or whatever you want to call it, he currently goes along with a lot of authoritarian controls that he recognizes as unjust and illegitimate. All of the following (and much more than could be added) are, therefore, logically crappy arguments:

“You’re not a real anarchist if you…
1) pay taxes.
2) have a driver’s license.
3) drive on government roads.
4) having a social security number.
5) got a marriage license.”

For an anarchist to “practice what he preaches” does NOT require him to die in a shootout with mercenaries of the state. It only requires that he not commit or advocate the exercise of political “authority” over his fellow man.

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Larken Rose is an anarchist author best known for challenging the IRS to answer questions about the federal tax liability of citizens, and being put in prison with no questions answered. He is the author of The Most Dangerous Superstition.