Guest post by Carl Watner. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, April 2000. Hans Sherrer, a subscriber to The Voluntaryist, sent me an essay entitled “Voting Is An Act of Violence,” which began with the statement “Voting is the most violent act someone can commit in his lifetime.” How true is this? First, let us define our…
Tag: aggression
Ben Speers
“Toward Freedom” is an Everything-Voluntary.com series sharing personal stories about the journey toward freedom. Archived stories can be found here. Submit your story to the editor. A lot of people go through life without ever questioning things, but I’ve always identified with Socrates’ sentiment that the unexamined life isn’t worth living. In the realm of…
Open Systems vs. Closed Systems
Guest post by Joseph Dejan. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, February 1987. To the academic question of more or less government, we may find more useful to compare the political structure with the voluntary system. To sustain life and maximize his well-being, organized human efforts are mandatory. Individually, man may survive, but complete independence requires…
The Search for Peace
Guest post by Lorne Strider. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, January 1987. If we look about us in the world today, it soon becomes apparent that only governments are capable of the large scale regimentation and taxation necessary to conscript, train, arm, feed and clothe armies. Only governments with powers of coercive taxation can amass…
Animal Rights and Voluntaryism, a Solution
A Facebook groupee shared this article he wrote on the NAP and animal rights. I responded with what I believe is the voluntaryist solution. How about… when animals are capable of adopting the non-aggression principle for not only their own species, but toward others, then perhaps we can start including them?Further, consider proportionality and powers.…
Button Pushing or Abdication: Which?
Guest post by Carl Watner. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, August 1985. For an earlier article on this topic, with a different perspective, at Everything-Voluntary.com, see this post. In Detroit on April 29,1946, Leonard Read gave a speech to the Midwestern Conference of the Controllers Institute of America. The address, which was titled “I’d Push…
10 Reasons Not to Hit Your Child
Guest post by Drs. Sears. 1. Hitting Models Hitting There is a classic story about the mother who believed in spanking as a necessary part of discipline until one day she observed her three- year-old daughter hitting her one-year-old son. When confronted, her daughter said, “I’m just playing mommy.” This mother never spanked another child.Children…
Voluntaryism Transcends Anarchism
Post by Skyler J. Collins: I wanted to share some thoughts I’ve had, and some ways that my mind has compartmentalized concepts and ideas relating to voluntaryism. Watch a video exploration of these ideas here. In my humble opinion, voluntaryism is more than just a political philosophy, as I explained in the introduction of my…
A Voluntaryist Approach to Abortion
I wrote this as a response in a Facebook discussion. I thought I’d share it here. There’re two ways to approach libertarianism: 1) legal philosophy, and 2) political philosophy. 1) is *what* laws should be made, and 2) is *how* those laws should be made. Liberty, hence libertarians, hence the non-aggression and self-ownership principles, demand…
An Agorist Manifesto in 95 Theses
Guest post by Human Advancement. Suitable for nailing to an appropriate door near you… agora (1) – n. A place of congregation, an ancient Greek marketplace.agora (2) – n. A market free of forceable regulation, taxation, and government(The) Agora – The aggregate of all such markets of any size.95 Theses 1. Free, unregulated, untaxed, and…