We must spend our resources fighting the left/right, not each other

malkusm

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Dec 19, 2007
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Dear members of RPF,

Back in 2008, we were a unified force. These forums were a breeding ground of ideas and collaboration. Moneybombs were organized, meetups were created, the blimp was born, events were planned. Members offered assistance to others in the area in order to help some of the events get off the ground, and to give rides to other members who were interested in volunteering their time and effort to the cause of liberty.

Today, rather than utilize our collective pool of resources to promote liberty and to fight the false left/right paradigm, we are left largely criticizing each other. Whether it's anarchists and minarchists attacking each other in the philosophy forum, or the atheists and the Christians attacking each other in the religion forum, or the constant fight between truthers and others - all of these battles are trivial and are drawing our attention away from the things that all of us can agree on, and the things that we all should be promoting and presenting to an American people in desperate need of the message of liberty.

To that end, I formally pledge right now that I will not post on the forums in order to attack the specifics of another member's specific views. I will recognize that, despite our differences, we can agree that liberty is a noble political goal to pursue, that smaller government is a unifying theme between us, and I will work with that person to bring the message of liberty to others. While I will continue to read and to educate myself, and may develop opinions that clash with other forum members, I recognize that wasting my effort in a vain attempt to convince other well-read individuals with strong convictions in their beliefs is not the most efficient use of my energy. Instead, I will do more outside of the forums to convince people of the "big things": that big government always interferes with markets and is inefficient, that the Fed creates boom and bust cycles, that the left and the right are both big government, that wars are hurting our national security rather than helping.

Sign below if you agree with these sentiments and are willing to take this pledge.
 
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Works for me. Of course if someone is a obvious dumbfuck, I reserve the right to point out it out.
 
Works for me. Of course if someone is a obvious dumbfuck, I reserve the right to point out it out.

Sure, if someone says something that is blatantly anti-liberty, we have an obligation to hammer them on it.

That being said, we shouldn't be hammering each other for thinking that roads should be privatized vs. thinking that it's fine to keep roads in the hands of the state. There are MUCH bigger issues to take care of, and we should be spending our time talking about the big issues with others, not talking about the small issues amongst ourselves.
 
Sure, if someone says something that is blatantly anti-liberty, we have an obligation to hammer them on it.

Herein lies the problem. Liberty without definition is subjective. Everyone here has a belief in liberty, in that liberty and her sister justices scales lean in their favor of their personal definition it seems to me.

That being said, we shouldn't be hammering each other for thinking that roads should be privatized vs. thinking that it's fine to keep roads in the hands of the state. There are MUCH bigger issues to take care of, and we should be spending our time talking about the big issues with others, not talking about the small issues amongst ourselves.

So if we are to continue in this line of thought lets create a definition amongst ourselves of what liberty means. A definition must be created that is representative of all regardless of personal belief.

Don't get me wrong. I agree with your premise. However, we need a definition and an archetype of the concept of liberty to unite behind.

Otherwise, there will be a continuation of breakdown between camps on the lesser issues.
 
Herein lies the problem. Liberty without definition is subjective. Everyone here has a belief in liberty, in that liberty and her sister justices scales lean in their favor of their personal definition it seems to me.



So if we are to continue in this line of thought lets create a definition amongst ourselves of what liberty means. A definition must be created that is representative of all regardless of personal belief.

Don't get me wrong. I agree with your premise. However, we need a definition and an archetype of the concept of liberty to unite behind.

Otherwise, there will be a continuation of breakdown between camps on the lesser issues.

I said in the OP that there is a list of BIG issues that all of us here should be able to get behind and promote to others:

Instead, I will do more outside of the forums to convince people of the "big things": that big government always interferes with markets and is inefficient, that the Fed creates boom and bust cycles, that the left and the right are both big government, that wars are hurting our national security rather than helping.

The point is that any of these issues is more important for us to be fighting about than our religious views, or the minute details of our respective "ideal" governments. We can't get to ANY of those "ideals" without first tackling the big things.
 
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