The political process has failed. Time to embark on a much more effective path to liberty.

Matt what happened with our delegates was not the political process working the way it was supposed to and you know it (and if you want to argue with me I suggest you have a long talk with Morton Backwell). Just stop, alright. Eventually things will work themselves out after some time but, as the song goes, our supporters "want to be mad for a while" and they have a right to be.

If Rand were smart, he could win a lot of these people back to his side if acknowledges this anger instead of giving a speech of 15 minutes of pro-Romney pablum. I'm not saying he should attack Romney but it would be advisable to remind the convention if the party wants to succeed it needs to be a party of inclusion rather than exclusion.
 
It's a nice idea. and quite appealing on the face of it (I'm a an-cap/voluntaryist and have an almost Rockwellian loathing of politics & the State).

But just eschewing all involvement of any kind in politics & the State and doing & thinking the sorts of happy, hopeful things this article describes is, well ... fantastically naive.

We may want to just quit politics & live free (I certainly do), but I doubt very much that the State is going to respect our wishes.

They are NOT just going to leave us be to do all those wonderful things, and anyone who thinks they will is deluded.

Pretending that politics & the State don't exist will accomplish nothing. They DO exist (more's the pity) and without active, determined opposition, they WILL have their way, sooner rather than later.

It does no good to say of thieves & murderers that they are bad & nasty people and that you don't want anything to do with them.

You may rest assured that they *very much* want something to do with YOU.
 
Occam's Banana said:
It's a nice idea. and quite appealing on the face of it (I'm a an-cap/voluntaryist and have an almost Rockwellian loathing of politics & the State).

But just eschewing all involvement of any kind in politics & the State and doing & thinking the sorts of happy, hopeful things this article describes is, well ... fantastically naive.

We may want to just quit politics & live free (I certainly do), but I doubt very much that the State is going to respect our wishes.

They are NOT just going to leave us be to do all those wonderful things, and anyone who thinks they will is deluded.

Pretending that politics & the State don't exist will accomplish nothing. They DO exist (more's the pity) and without active, determined opposition, they WILL have their way, sooner rather than later.

It does no good to say of thieves & murderers that they are bad & nasty people and that you don't want anything to do with them.

You may rest assured that they *very much* want something to do with YOU.
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You don't have to be involved in the sham process to defend yourself. You can always work on getting off the grid and simply withdraw consent. And educating people helps, too.

Short of a violent revolution or total collapse, the State isn't going to go away or play fair because of your involvement in The System.
 
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While it is true that their is no evidence to suggest the political process will work nationally, there is evidence which suggests that it works in at least 1 state. Who knows, maybe the successes in New Hampshire are repeatable? Maybe the successes can be copied in other states? We don't know until people in NH continue doing what they are doing. We don't know about other states until people in those states start spending more time studying and copying the NH efforts.
 
To figure out specifically what scarce resources the nation state currently builds and centralizes its power on, imagine the absence of the state. What resources or sectors of the economy immediately come to mind? Who would build the roads? Transportation. Who would provide school for the children? Education. Who would settle disputes? Judicial system. Who would protect against aggressors? Defense. Etc. Once you’ve identified these often state-monopolized resources, begin to brainstorm about how you could, by the nature of the capitalist process, make the resource more abundant and/or offer competition by providing it better and cheaper. Most of us spend our days complaining of the utter incompetence and ridiculously wasteful nature of the state… but from the perspective of an entrepreneur desiring to undermine a monopoly, that attribute in your competition couldn’t provide a better opportunity!

His Conclusion:
The whole prospect compelled me to re-examine the efficacy of the political process as a means to liberty, and I’m beginning to think that this state sanctioned mechanism for change may not actually be the most appropriate means for our desired end. Perhaps it’s time to rethink all this- to demote on our priority list the stopgap measures of the political process and to begin fervently pouring our talents, energies and monies into a ‘targeted capitalism’, if you will. Liberty lovers everywhere intentionally targeting state-monopolized resources and disintegrating those monopolies through the capitalist process. These means are by nature decentralizing and can be pursued while completely disregarding the will of power. Enough of this pleading with our oppressors not to oppress us so much! Let’s stop being depressed victims of the state and instead start imagining all the endless opportunities its incompetencies create! In the process, we can be around people we like, create wealth by offering real value for the masses, live adventurously, with a clean conscience, and most importantly, live free
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This is basically the meat of this argument and it's just so terribly flawed imo...

Basically... he's saying we need to start creating businesses where the state already has inefficient government run monopolies and then subvert the monopolies with our better businesses thus reducing the power of the state more and more outside of the political process.

1st- the example he gives with water and oxygen... "people will fight over water because it's scarce and because of the scarcity power gravitates towards it and because oxygen is so abundant no one would ever fight for it." Basically if we could make water not scarce through our own creativity then the state would have no motivation to control it and you could apply this example to anything and everything...

The problem with this is they would just jump to the next scarcest thing and the next scarest thing and the next and on and on and on it goes you'd never be able to outrun them because they'd force the entire country to pay massive taxes and even if the people refused they'd just take it from their savings through inflation. They'd always have more capital, more man-power, and more bureaucrats on their side.

They would always be one step ahead in the scarcity department and this process would prove just a futile as he thinks politics are.

I'm not saying HE SHOULDN'T do this but i'm just saying if you're going to argue what's feasible and what isn't for real change i'd rather try to recruit voters than outrun something like the American State. I find it more likely the voters would eventually come around...

2nd- These things are already monopolies for a reason... let's say you're actually successful, do you seriously think an omnipotent state would just allow that? Absolutely not... you'd be shut down or blacklisted or killed or WHATEVER the fact is these things are already a monopoly for a reason.

Am I to get this straight that he's claiming politics is a waste of time but that starting a business in a field where you can't even legally do so isn't? Even if you could start a business in X or Y and even if you decentralized X or Y from the government they're not going to allow such a thing. EVER. You're once again more likely to take your case directly to the people.

3rd- The defeatist attitude has to stop.

We got shit on. Big time, no doubt about it, but toughen up, straighten out, and get over it. It's done and it sucks but there's no going back. If we had a majority we could have done something but we didn't. We built up a foundation and we'll build upon it later, if that's not good enough for some of you i'm sorry but if you seriously expected the GOP scumfucks to go quietly or cleanly then you were sorely mistaken.

If you defeatists had been alive 235 years ago fighting with Washington you all would have given up at Valley Forge or refused to jump into the Christmas waters of the Delaware River.

This God damn country wasn't built by a bunch of fucking defeatists.

Do you really want to take your country back or just cry from the fringe about how unfair our minority has been treated?
If you actually want to do something then get involved politically at your own local level and DO SOMETHING about it. Even the smallest victories in the smallest of places count because they will go towards advancing your own self and community and also because if the masses started to accumulate, doing the same things, these little changes would all add up, eventually we could take the party back and make the real change we wanted.

Will they shit on us? Yes
Will they cheat us? Yes
Will they stop at nothing? Yes

Get over it!
All great intellectual revolutions are shit on at first and they take serious amounts of time to take hold. They don't happen over night, but if Ron Paul could accomplish all of this basically by himself are you people really going to run now? After everything he did by himself you're going to lose hope now? Now! RIGHT NOW!? REALLY? After everything he's been through and how far he came on his own you're going to turn your back on 2+million people because you don't think that's enough to win? Are you pussies kidding me?

The chance for success is greater now than it ever has been before.
For the sake of our numbers, and our numbers only, stay united in the GOP and drive these sick disgusting bastards out of our Grand Party and take your fucking country back! If we all fight as hard as Ron did our movement's time will come in the same way his own moment came.

Hate on this view all you want, No one can promise you success in the timely fashion you'd like it but this I promise you... if you run away to your holes or your worthless 3rd parties you'll just be letting these bastards win and everything Ron did, everything we've done, will then truly be for nothing.

You don't stop fighting just as your side starts winning, and make no mistake, we are winning the big picture.

The GOP elite know it and it scares the absolute hell out of them, don't give them what they want by running away and giving up. They shit all over us yesterday because that's exactly what they want you to do!

The biggest problem with this country today is not any one particular issue, or person, or party, or idea, the biggest problem with this country today is everyone gives up way too damn easily, the ass-backward illogical fight for liberty and freedom that used to make this country so great has been replaced with intelligent apathy.

Fuck that, fuck your apathy, and fuck any one who gives up, don't stop fighting, ever!

And... if it just so happens that at the end of it all that somehow we do lose then so what? Who cares? History would prove us correct anyway long after we're dead.
What ever happened to fighting for what was right instead of what would win?
 
NoOneButPaul said:
Fuck that, fuck your apathy, and fuck any one who gives up, don't stop fighting, ever!
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Let's respect one another and allow people to follow each path of the r3volution they want to. It's about being effective, and if you are forced down a certain path, I can promise you apathy will prevail - kinda the opposite of your intention.
 
Keith and stuff said:
While it is true that their is no evidence to suggest the political process will work nationally, there is evidence which suggests that it works in at least 1 state. Who knows, maybe the successes in New Hampshire are repeatable? Maybe the successes can be copied in other states? We don't know until people in NH continue doing what they are doing. We don't know about other states until people in those states start spending more time studying and copying the NH efforts.
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I enjoy hearing about what is going in Hew Hampshire and will definitely consider moving up there in the future, but calling the project a total success is just not true until they actually secede from the U.S.
 
heavenlyboy34 said:
You don't have to be involved in the sham process to defend yourself. You can always work on getting off the grid and simply withdraw consent. And educating people helps, too.

Short of a violent revolution or total collapse, the State isn't going to go away or play fair because of your involvement in The System.
Click to expand...

Re-reading my previous post, I did quite a poor job of stating the essence of my objection to the OP article's thesis. So here's my "do over":

I agree completely with everything you say here. (Well, I do have one minor & irrelevant quibble: besides violent revolution or total collapse, it is also conceivable that the State might "wither away" as a consequence of sufficiently wide-spread withdrawal of consent. While this is possible, I don't think it is very likely - or, at least, it is not nearly as likely as revolution or collapse).

And it is fine for any individual - as a matter of personal taste, temperament &/or desire - to eschew political action of any kind and to reject any (voluntary) involvement in or with the State.

But the OP article's thesis is that "you" (in the general sense) should "quit politics" because there is little or nothing of value to be gained or done by voluntarily involving oneself with the State.

That is simply & demonstrable false, and as proof of this I offer into evidence Exhibit A: Ron Paul.

If Ron Paul had read the OP article & accepted its thesis, he would never have entered politics - and this would very much have been to the detriment of the liberty movement. The liberty movement is *much* better off (than it otherwise would have been) for Ron Paul having voluntarily involved himself in politics & the State.

Thus is the OP article's thesis disproven. (And if anyone wants to make the objection: yes, OK, I admit my "proof" is not technically "demonstrable", since it depends upon the use of counterfactuals - which can be neither proven nor disproven - but c'mon ...).

The "system" deserves to be actively opposed - from both within & without. It is good & proper to *en*courage people to "spread the word", "go off the grid", "withdraw consent", etc. But it is unwise & foolish to *dis*courage people from political action & involvement in the state in order to protect & defend themselves & others from the depredations of the State.

The State is, by its essence & nature, inherently & inescapably corrupt. Any attempt to employ political action as a "positive" tool for achieving a truly peaceful, just & prosperous society is doomed to fail. Nevertheless, it *is* legitimate to use political action as a "negative" means to slow (or, in some areas, to stop or even decrease) the growth of the State.

Engaging in ("negative") political action cannot achieve anything permanent or enduring vis-a-vis human liberty, but it *is* a legitimate mode of "rearguard" action (not to mention the educational & promotional benefits - in regards to which, I refer the reader to Ron Paul as an example). And at this particular point in history, it is a very important & significant one as well, in that to the extent that it staves off revolution or collapse for some while longer (or, at least, makes more people aware of the possibility of revolution or collapse), it provides those engaging in truly "positive" but non-political action (promoters, educators, agorists, etc.) with more time (or "conversion" prospects).

At this point in time, our numbers, although growing, are not nearly sufficient to our purpose. Political action (in the mode which I have described above) is a critical element. Inveighing against this sort of involvement with the State - because political action is allegedly "impractical" - is both factually incorrect & counter-productive.
 
Government "services" do not exist because of the scarcity of free market options, governments create scarcities by their interventions. I can create a business right now that offers unskilled labor for $4/hour making unskilled labor pretty abundant, but my customers and I would all be thrown in jail for striking this voluntary agreement. Government has a monopoly on roads. Should I take one by force or just continuously offer to buy one until I find a government that wants to sell? I've actually had many ideas on how to offer improved educational services to parents in my community, but they all violate current State law -- more jail time for entering this protected market.

I don't blame you for wanting to drop out of politics. I have to admit that I don't enjoy every moment of my participation. But while you develop new businesses, other people need to work within the system. This is the only way to reach a non-catastrophic, peaceful reduction of government interference. Waiting for the withering-away (collapse) will be very messy.
 
Matt Collins said:
The political process has not failed, it's working exactly the way it is supposed to.
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No it isn't working the way it is suppose to work or Ron Paul would have been nominated from the floor and gave his 15 minute unedited speech to the nation. That is not working! Who hired you to work for the Ron Paul campaign, Ron Paul or Jesse Benton?
 
I really have to wonder sometimes if the Republican establishment owns Lew. Of course I don't I'm joking, he's always thought involvement, best I can tell, is a waste of time.

The hard truth is that we are making roads. We are taking over. They want you to leave and knew that emotion wins more people then logic. Some of you can give into emotion and leave all mad. I'm going to stick around and be a pain in their ass.
 
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