Writes Ben Speers: I don’t want to “fix” government. I would rather get rid of it entirely, and the first step in that direction is withdrawing my consent. For example, I refuse to consent to being ruled by either Candidate A or Candidate B (or C or D, etc.). I also refuse to cooperate in…
Tag: libertarian
Why I Detest the State
Guest post by Clem Johnson. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, February, 1987. About a year before he died, Albert Einstein wrote this warning: “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophies.” In paraphrase, such a statement could describe even dire consequences: “From tribalism…
The Proper Role of Government and Electoral Politics
Send him mail. “One Voluntaryist’s Perspective” is an original weekly column appearing every Monday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by the founder and editor Skyler J. Collins. Archived columns can be found here. OVP-only RSS feed available here. This column was originally intended to give my perspective on current events, but I think I’ll modify it somewhat. I’d…
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…
Living Slavery And All That
Guest post by Alan P. Koontz. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, August 1985. In various forums, at least since the birth of the [Libertarian Party], Murray Rothbard has invoked what he calls the “slavery analogy,” to point up the morality of political voting. The question is: Does the slavery analogy really help in this way?…
The Subsidy of History
Guest post by Kevin Carson. A considerable number of libertarian commentators have remarked on the sheer scale of subsidies and protections to big business, on their structural importance to the existing form of corporate capitalism, and on the close inter-meshing of corporate and state interests in the present state capitalist economy. We pay less attention,…
Unlimited Voluntary Exchanges
Guest post by R. C. Hoiles. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, August 1985. In a talk before the Exchange Club of Santa Ana on voluntaryism, I used the subject voluntaryism rather than libertarianism because I do not believe there is as much confusion about voluntaryism as there is about libertarianism. Libertarianism has become distorted to…
A Shift in the American Mind
Guest post by Geoffrey Pike. I have detected a shift in the American mind and it is a good thing. I see more and more people awakening to the fact that government is not there to look after people. I see more people realizing that these ongoing wars are ridiculous, unnecessary, and quite harmful. I…
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…
The Johnson Dilemma
I’ve always been an open-minded guy. That’s how I discovered libertarianism during my very shameful, neoconservative past self. I have never been that offended or threatened over alternative viewpoints or what American society considers horrible. That strength was proven during the famous “Kony 2012” campaign. I remember very specifically people telling me that I didn’t…