No matter how I feel about a particular religion– be it Islam, Christianity, Statism, or the belief in “authority”– your beliefs are your business. As long as you don’t act on those beliefs by archating.
Tag: rulers
Anarchism as Constitutionalism
Trying to refute anarchism by pointing to undesirable instances of anarchy is about as bad an argument as trying to refute Bidinotto’s advocacy of government by pointing to the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. Whether a state is horrendous or decent depends in large part on its constitutional structure; whether an anarchic society is horrendous or decent likewise depends on its constitutional structure.
Free Human Beings Do Not Ask Permission
I am not a political activist. I do not advocate for marches, protests, or the signing of petitions as a means of effecting change. This represents the acknowledgment that political predators have legitimate authority over my life. The host does not concern itself with the opinion of the parasite. Shuffle off and deprive it of nourishment and rest assured, it will perish of it’s own accord.
Doppelganger
It seems that Jefferson was still romantically attached to liberty; but his eyes and his dreams were on the arising French Revolution. He must have assumed he had left the American experiment in good hands. This is the nature of idea men — they are great at founding dreams, but they are terrible at (if not entirely absent during) implementation.
Is the Non-Aggression Principle Self-Negating? You Decide!
A person named Jared emailed me out of the blue about a week ago with the following letter. It contains a request for feedback followed by an argument that the Non-Aggression Principle as made popular by Murray Rothbard was self-negating on the grounds that the creation of private property is an act of aggression. What ensued were several letters back and forth in which we both flesh out the other’s argument and offer our critique. In the end we understood each other better, but alas no consensus was reach.
Why Anarchy?
In the few years since deciding the label “anarchist” most accurately represented my own political philosophy, I’ve learned of other, powerful, confirmatory and congruent philosophies as well, that have helped to grow my own anarchism further outside the political realm. In other words, I may have started as a political anarchist, but ultimately, my own brand of anarchy has stretched beyond solely politics.
Tacit Submission
Do you and I willingly give up our freedom and property for the benefits of living in these United States? Do we tacitly consent to oppression by not moving to another country? Do we tacitly consent to the authority of our governments by not rebelling, by not throwing the tea into Boston harbor? John Locke and many today say “yes”; we tacitly accept the State by paying our taxes, by receiving its benefits (such as property protection!), and by not emigrating. They say we acquiesce in an implicit contract in which we give up freedom or accept compulsion in exchange for other things that we value. This view is dead wrong.
The Law According to the Somalis
Many voluntaryists have looked longingly toward Somalia for evidence of our ideas in practice. But it’s a little tough when that real-world example also happens to be the quintessential image of extreme poverty and feuding warlords for most people. Nonetheless, sometimes an article appears that rightly points out that comparing Somalia to developed nations is a little intellectually dishonest. In fact, Somalia has improved by virtually every measure of standard of living without a state, or when compared to its neighbors that still have a state.
The Relational Anarchist Primer
According to relational anarchists, the better humans connect with each other, the more peace and understanding that will exist between them. The greater the strength of the relationships, the less likely rulers will become necessary or begin to emerge. Anarchism means “without rulers.” And besides being a political assertion, this is a psychological and relational preference. It is apolitical, based on preferred relationship standards. Instead of dispensing violence, these anarchists dispense compassion.
Declaration and Process
It is preposterous to declare first that you will not be ruled by absurd people, by absurd process, and then turn around and embed another absurd set of process, including an arcane method for selecting unaccountable rulers, to destroy your freedom.