After I made some anti-political statement on e-mail, I got a reply from a friend. He said, "Doogie for President, Congress and Senate!"
I answered:
Thanks, but no thanks.
The best we can do is ignore politics and spend our energy working, studying, and playing with our close family & friends.
That's what matters. That's what is the answer.
People always ask, "okay, I agree government is evil and we need to get back to the free market, but HOW?"
The answer is, "it's a multi-generational project". We have to build a better tomorrow through our children.
Once a majority (or even a decent-sized minority) of humankind recognizes a mistake, whether moral or practical, it does not and can not go back.
No one will ever again believe that the world is flat (I'm speaking of sane people and the Western world that came out of the Enlightenment).
No one will ever again be able to say "it is proper that a wife obeys every command of her husband, and he should beat her if she disobeys".
No one will ever again treat children as property to be disposed of.
No craftsman will ever again think that it's smart to beat their apprentice about the ears for getting something wrong.
We're only a couple hundred years into these kinds of ideas. The Enlightenment was horribly crushed by the World Wars.
We are just now beginning to see the light again. Barely.
No teacher will ever again try to beat or "spank" knowledge into a kid. The reward / punishment model of child-rearing and education may work okay for training dogs, but we need a "love and intelligence" model for dealing with children. We're barely getting started on that idea.
No one will ever again proclaim that human beings can be bought and sold as property, like cattle. We're still working on that as well; we may not have chattel slavery any more, but taxpayers are "50% slave" because our labor and property gets syphoned off to the warfare / welfare redistributionist state.
These things might still happen, but no one will do it openly. No one will argue for the legitimacy of these wrong-headed ideas.
Once humankind has a "big realization" and starts to discuss it and write books about it, you can figure another couple centuries before the idea spreads throughout the population. So, Laissez Faire ideas (pro-property and anti-coercion) started in 18th century Europe, and Divine Right of Kings was soon thrown in the dustbin of history. But the idea is moving forward in fits and starts. 3 steps forward, 2 steps backward - because so many people are benefitting from the idea of "we need a powerful authoritarian central hierarchy to protect us from thugs on the street and greedy bastards in business". So, we create the world's biggest mafia to protect us from the mafia.
This new idea of a society shaped not by central planners, but by free individuals trading ideas, products, and services has caught fire in some intellectual circles (see here), and is very slowly moving into the general population. (Check out this free mp3 book, "The Market For Liberty" written by a husband & wife team. Very cool.)
It will be another two or three generations before the idea will take hold, and then people will look back at our governments and just shake their heads and say, "how could anyone have believed such things, couldn't they see how obviously wrong-headed this idea was"?
So, we progress very very slowly. It's not inevitable (as Marx theorized), but a few good people can move the ball forward.
We have to stop sending our kids to the state schools. That's one primary step. Teach our children well. Not with carrots and sticks.
We need to learn how to recognize coercion everywhere. And point it out. Even within ourself.
Government is a faulty, fake, lying relationship. And we need to get all of that type of fakeness out of our everyday relationships.
We need to stop using aggression, dominance, threats, and other coercion in our own lives, especially when it comes to children.
The only reason people think government is "normal life" is that they grow up immersed in a sea of coercion and dominance.
Once the world brings forth a generation where most kids are raised with love and intelligence, these kids will grow into adults who do not recognize any dominant social structures like states or gangs. They will trade ideas, goods, and services in a free and non-violent marketplace. Society's "leaders" will be those who have earned respect by being the best and the brightest. We will vote for these "leaders" by purchasing their ideas, products, and services. These leaders of art, industry, and science will write books and give lectures to spread their ideas and opinions, not club people over the head and put them in prison.
Humankind won't be perfect. The world won't be a utopia. But we will be finished with "opinions at the point of the gun". And we will never look back.
Thanks for listening,
Rick Doogie
"The place to improve the world is in one's own heart and head and hands." Robert M. Pirsig
The Story of Your Enslavement - YouTube
Monday, July 29, 2013
Monday, June 24, 2013
Why I am a Voluntaryist
Voluntaryists see all the stupidity of politics on both right and left, but they don't feel the need to hate their neighbors and family for their political beliefs.
We see the deeper roots of the problem, embedded in world-wide cultural memes. That doesn't absolve anyone of blame for supporting the blood-bath of statism, but we're not interested in assigning guilt to individuals. We're interested in finding solutions we can implement within our circle of influence (not in Lansing or D.C.) In short, "we have met the enemy, and he is us". We can't change the problems of religion and politics without realizing that those things are just effects caused by much more deeply-rooted causes within human culture itself. Culture transmits many truths and falsehoods to each successive generation. The core problem is that culture transmits big ugly lies disguised as sacred unquestionable truths. We are taught by culture that we cannot question anyone's culture. How convenient.
You can't change the memes of culture by waving signs in the street, putting bumper stickers on your car, or writing your congressman. It's much more difficult and intimate than that; you have to change yourself and your small circle of friends who have ears to hear and eyes to see. It's like turning an ocean liner; a small turn of the wheel does a lot in the long run, but yanking the wheel does nothing but cause damage and lock things up. People's opinions are not changed by throwing tons of facts at them. I'm sure you've seen that. Throwing up mountains of facts to oppose someone's political or religious belief system often polarizes and strengthens that person's resolve to hold fast to their assumptions.
Voluntaryists see a day when the social safety net will be vastly improved by getting it out of the hands of politicians who suffer almost no consequences for their stupidity and greed. Voluntaryists also work for the day when there can be no 1% hoarding wealth, because only the state allows this hoarding to go on. It is the politically well-connected who can hoard wealth because their profits are protected from the consequences of stupid and greedy decisions.
For example; Voluntaryists oppose government-enforced copyright and patent laws. Shocking, I know, ... but there are good arguments. We oppose trademark or packaging fraud, and that would surely be prevented much more effectively in non-political courts. But it's no crime to take someone's idea and improve on it. Ideas are not property. Most of the biggest advances in humankind have occurred in times and places where there were no such laws protecting amorphous "intellectual property". (As a result, you can get all kinds of great Voluntaryist literature online for free.)
Profits are neither a good thing or a bad thing. Just as greed is neither a good or bad thing. They are only bad when "corporate law" protects them from liability and loss for doing stupid and evil things. Profits and greed shielded by gov't laws are what drive the US wars which have killed 30 million people since WWII ended. Profits and greed shielded by gov't laws are what cause the bulk of environmental damage. Profits shielded by gov't laws are what cause the super rich to get richer and the middle class to get poorer. Not that there would be no rich people without gov't; it would just be a lot more challenging to be super rich in a free society. Because you would have to compete to provide actual goods and services to the public; there would be no cushy government contracts for military adventurism overseas and political pork-barrel programs at home.
The big mistake of those on the Political Left is that they think profits are evil in and of themselves, and that is proved wrong by our daily experience. It isn't profits that cause evil, what enables evil is profits tied to gov't immunity from loss or prosecution. Corporations are evil only because gov't fiat makes the owners, management, and stockholders NOT liable for damages and losses. They reap profits when all goes well, but only the corporation loses money when things go bad. No politician or corporate stockholder loses his house when he hurts people with his mistakes or greed. They are protected from losing personal assets, and that's what is wrong with politics and greed getting in bed together.
You see the most radical example of this when Lockheed Martin stockholders and management enjoy huge profits while 20-year-olds get maimed and killed overseas. And there you have the problem with those on the Political Right; they claim to be all about families and morality, but they support the military-industrial complex which rips families apart and makes morality impossible. And they complain about gay marriage "wrecking the family". They are knee-deep in the blood of innocents. Although, Obama has also overseen the death of innocent people every day since he was in office, all to support the corporations and bankers who helped put him in office.
You can't change the memes of culture by waving signs in the street, putting bumper stickers on your car, or writing your congressman. It's much more difficult and intimate than that; you have to change yourself and your small circle of friends who have ears to hear and eyes to see. It's like turning an ocean liner; a small turn of the wheel does a lot in the long run, but yanking the wheel does nothing but cause damage and lock things up. People's opinions are not changed by throwing tons of facts at them. I'm sure you've seen that. Throwing up mountains of facts to oppose someone's political or religious belief system often polarizes and strengthens that person's resolve to hold fast to their assumptions.
Voluntaryists see a day when the social safety net will be vastly improved by getting it out of the hands of politicians who suffer almost no consequences for their stupidity and greed. Voluntaryists also work for the day when there can be no 1% hoarding wealth, because only the state allows this hoarding to go on. It is the politically well-connected who can hoard wealth because their profits are protected from the consequences of stupid and greedy decisions.
For example; Voluntaryists oppose government-enforced copyright and patent laws. Shocking, I know, ... but there are good arguments. We oppose trademark or packaging fraud, and that would surely be prevented much more effectively in non-political courts. But it's no crime to take someone's idea and improve on it. Ideas are not property. Most of the biggest advances in humankind have occurred in times and places where there were no such laws protecting amorphous "intellectual property". (As a result, you can get all kinds of great Voluntaryist literature online for free.)
Profits are neither a good thing or a bad thing. Just as greed is neither a good or bad thing. They are only bad when "corporate law" protects them from liability and loss for doing stupid and evil things. Profits and greed shielded by gov't laws are what drive the US wars which have killed 30 million people since WWII ended. Profits and greed shielded by gov't laws are what cause the bulk of environmental damage. Profits shielded by gov't laws are what cause the super rich to get richer and the middle class to get poorer. Not that there would be no rich people without gov't; it would just be a lot more challenging to be super rich in a free society. Because you would have to compete to provide actual goods and services to the public; there would be no cushy government contracts for military adventurism overseas and political pork-barrel programs at home.
The big mistake of those on the Political Left is that they think profits are evil in and of themselves, and that is proved wrong by our daily experience. It isn't profits that cause evil, what enables evil is profits tied to gov't immunity from loss or prosecution. Corporations are evil only because gov't fiat makes the owners, management, and stockholders NOT liable for damages and losses. They reap profits when all goes well, but only the corporation loses money when things go bad. No politician or corporate stockholder loses his house when he hurts people with his mistakes or greed. They are protected from losing personal assets, and that's what is wrong with politics and greed getting in bed together.
You see the most radical example of this when Lockheed Martin stockholders and management enjoy huge profits while 20-year-olds get maimed and killed overseas. And there you have the problem with those on the Political Right; they claim to be all about families and morality, but they support the military-industrial complex which rips families apart and makes morality impossible. And they complain about gay marriage "wrecking the family". They are knee-deep in the blood of innocents. Although, Obama has also overseen the death of innocent people every day since he was in office, all to support the corporations and bankers who helped put him in office.
Saturday, April 27, 2013
If We Get Rid of Government, Will Something More Evil Arise? Pt 1
My son asked me this question, so I tried to answer as briefly as I could. So much for brevity.
You asked one of the ultimate questions about a stateless society. I'm impressed that you didn't go to the more mundane fears that come up when someone brings up the possibility of running society without top-down government; Who would make the roads? Who would take care of the poor? Who would force kids to go to school? What if a foreign army attacks us? Who will protect us from big rich greedy corporations? How could there ever be big cool projects like the International Space Station? What about old people who didn't save for their retirement? How would our property be protected from criminals? What about people without health insurance? Who would run the court system? What about the criminally insane or complete sociopaths?
The easy answer to all those questions is "these things are done by working and caring people, and they will be done with or without government to supposedly organize us". But, more details answers are at websites like The Anarchist Alternative and Libertarianism. My favorite come-back to those questions is, "so, you are assuming that these problems are already being solved as best they can by today's government"?
So kudos to you for asking a most intelligent question. The answer needs a bit of introduction, because you can approach the argument from various logical angles. Most break-room blather probably doesn't care much for the rules of logic, so I'd suggest avoiding that venue for asking questions or giving opinions.
Here's my introduction:
About 6 years ago, I stopped sending out e-mails every day to whoever I thought might be interested in the philosophy of freedom; how to make a better world for our kids and grandkids. I finally realized that people have their life attitude set pretty much in stone by the time they are in their early twenties. Despite all the fantasy stories in movies and books where some evil Scrooge has a life-altering event, that type of personality change is very rare. If someone is not asking skeptical questions about the state-run society already, no amount of e-mails from me are gonna get that person to become curious. People don't usually change their personality or basic attitude toward life because of what happens to them or what facts are presented to them. People only change if they already have an inner skepticism and curiosity.
Curiosity and skepticism are qualities that you are born with, but our culture does its best to trample down child-like curiosity which demands "why"? And "says who"? Parents kill children's curiosity every time they say, "because I said so" or "because God made it that way". In school, kids are taught to memorized the "correct" answers. They are taught What to think, not How to think. Memorization is rewarded, not creativity.
It is not in our culture's best interest to have lots of skeptical questions flying around, demanding proof of society's dictated moral laws; "Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society". "Honor your father and mother". "The policeman is your friend". "We can agree to disagree". "Follow the chain of command". "Politicians are servants of the people". "Voting is a duty and a privilege". "Everyone has a right to their opinion". "We all have an evil side to us". "Government is a necessary evil". "Everything happens for a reason". "There's a thin line between love and hate". "If God did not exist, we would have to invent him". "Many have died so that we can be free". "Ethics are different in different cultures and countries". "Respect your elders".
Some of our cultural dictates are wearing thin; "Children should be seen and not heard". "A woman's place is in the home". "Spare the rod, spoil the child". "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord". "Without religion, there can be no morality". "Slaves, obey your masters".
So there is hope. We can change the world for our great-grandchildren and their families. But, it's like steering an ocean liner. You can reef on the steering wheel and it seems like you're getting nowhere. But the change will happen - very slowly. So, we do the right thing. Not for us, but for the future. We point out the made-up answers and dare to call them "ridiculous".
The biggest thing we can do to make the future world a little happier for our kids and grandkids is to teach them to question everything. The more hard-wired the "truth" seems, the more it needs to be questioned with a careful and skeptical eye. We spend too much time feeding facts to our kids, and not enough time encouraging them to say, "why is that like that?" What causes that"? "Who discovered that fact, and how did they figure that out?"
And, another good point to teach our kids (and remind ourselves and our friends) is that "emotions are important, but emotions are not arguments". Another good starting point is to keep in mind what the 9/11 Truthers, UFOlogists, and Psychic Believers never acknowledge: Evidence is not Proof. One or two strange and suspicious pieces of evidence do not prove anything. Evidence has to be rigorous, and must be high in quantity and quality. Evidence has to be examined and accumulated before it can be said to support "proof". Proof is based on evidence, but that evidence has to be "Good and Plenty".
One more thing that makes for idiotic arguments in the break room; people don't define their words. So, they end up arguing past each other. They are talking about two different things. Any talk about religion or politics is subject to this pitfall. If we talk politics or religion, let's define "god" or "spirit". Let's define "government" or "representative". Let's define "good" and "evil".
So, to sum up part one of my answer to your simple question:
1. I no longer think I can change the world by presenting people with the facts of the matter as I see them.
2. There is a tendency for cultures to resist questions about teachings that are handed down from generation to generation.
3. We are born with curiosity, and we can make the world better by sheltering our children from the social pressure to muffle their inner curiosity, and by reawakening our own curiosity. Curiosity means "no made-up answers like religion and politics gives us".
4. We can and do affect cultural change, but it is very very slow. It's a multi-generational project. The "majority" is never where creative new ideas come from. Cultural and scientific revolutions always are started by very small but dedicated minorities.
5. We can't find the truth of anything by thinking with our emotions. Very few people recognize that their thinking is blocked by emotional baggage from the years of repetitive lessons our culture slams into our brains as we grow up. (In stories and movies, we always know who the bad and good guys are; in real life it's not so easy to recognize good and evil. But it's ideas that count, not who is the villain of the week.)
You asked one of the ultimate questions about a stateless society. I'm impressed that you didn't go to the more mundane fears that come up when someone brings up the possibility of running society without top-down government; Who would make the roads? Who would take care of the poor? Who would force kids to go to school? What if a foreign army attacks us? Who will protect us from big rich greedy corporations? How could there ever be big cool projects like the International Space Station? What about old people who didn't save for their retirement? How would our property be protected from criminals? What about people without health insurance? Who would run the court system? What about the criminally insane or complete sociopaths?
The easy answer to all those questions is "these things are done by working and caring people, and they will be done with or without government to supposedly organize us". But, more details answers are at websites like The Anarchist Alternative and Libertarianism. My favorite come-back to those questions is, "so, you are assuming that these problems are already being solved as best they can by today's government"?
So kudos to you for asking a most intelligent question. The answer needs a bit of introduction, because you can approach the argument from various logical angles. Most break-room blather probably doesn't care much for the rules of logic, so I'd suggest avoiding that venue for asking questions or giving opinions.
Here's my introduction:
About 6 years ago, I stopped sending out e-mails every day to whoever I thought might be interested in the philosophy of freedom; how to make a better world for our kids and grandkids. I finally realized that people have their life attitude set pretty much in stone by the time they are in their early twenties. Despite all the fantasy stories in movies and books where some evil Scrooge has a life-altering event, that type of personality change is very rare. If someone is not asking skeptical questions about the state-run society already, no amount of e-mails from me are gonna get that person to become curious. People don't usually change their personality or basic attitude toward life because of what happens to them or what facts are presented to them. People only change if they already have an inner skepticism and curiosity.
Curiosity and skepticism are qualities that you are born with, but our culture does its best to trample down child-like curiosity which demands "why"? And "says who"? Parents kill children's curiosity every time they say, "because I said so" or "because God made it that way". In school, kids are taught to memorized the "correct" answers. They are taught What to think, not How to think. Memorization is rewarded, not creativity.
It is not in our culture's best interest to have lots of skeptical questions flying around, demanding proof of society's dictated moral laws; "Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society". "Honor your father and mother". "The policeman is your friend". "We can agree to disagree". "Follow the chain of command". "Politicians are servants of the people". "Voting is a duty and a privilege". "Everyone has a right to their opinion". "We all have an evil side to us". "Government is a necessary evil". "Everything happens for a reason". "There's a thin line between love and hate". "If God did not exist, we would have to invent him". "Many have died so that we can be free". "Ethics are different in different cultures and countries". "Respect your elders".
Some of our cultural dictates are wearing thin; "Children should be seen and not heard". "A woman's place is in the home". "Spare the rod, spoil the child". "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord". "Without religion, there can be no morality". "Slaves, obey your masters".
So there is hope. We can change the world for our great-grandchildren and their families. But, it's like steering an ocean liner. You can reef on the steering wheel and it seems like you're getting nowhere. But the change will happen - very slowly. So, we do the right thing. Not for us, but for the future. We point out the made-up answers and dare to call them "ridiculous".
The biggest thing we can do to make the future world a little happier for our kids and grandkids is to teach them to question everything. The more hard-wired the "truth" seems, the more it needs to be questioned with a careful and skeptical eye. We spend too much time feeding facts to our kids, and not enough time encouraging them to say, "why is that like that?" What causes that"? "Who discovered that fact, and how did they figure that out?"
And, another good point to teach our kids (and remind ourselves and our friends) is that "emotions are important, but emotions are not arguments". Another good starting point is to keep in mind what the 9/11 Truthers, UFOlogists, and Psychic Believers never acknowledge: Evidence is not Proof. One or two strange and suspicious pieces of evidence do not prove anything. Evidence has to be rigorous, and must be high in quantity and quality. Evidence has to be examined and accumulated before it can be said to support "proof". Proof is based on evidence, but that evidence has to be "Good and Plenty".
One more thing that makes for idiotic arguments in the break room; people don't define their words. So, they end up arguing past each other. They are talking about two different things. Any talk about religion or politics is subject to this pitfall. If we talk politics or religion, let's define "god" or "spirit". Let's define "government" or "representative". Let's define "good" and "evil".
So, to sum up part one of my answer to your simple question:
1. I no longer think I can change the world by presenting people with the facts of the matter as I see them.
2. There is a tendency for cultures to resist questions about teachings that are handed down from generation to generation.
3. We are born with curiosity, and we can make the world better by sheltering our children from the social pressure to muffle their inner curiosity, and by reawakening our own curiosity. Curiosity means "no made-up answers like religion and politics gives us".
4. We can and do affect cultural change, but it is very very slow. It's a multi-generational project. The "majority" is never where creative new ideas come from. Cultural and scientific revolutions always are started by very small but dedicated minorities.
5. We can't find the truth of anything by thinking with our emotions. Very few people recognize that their thinking is blocked by emotional baggage from the years of repetitive lessons our culture slams into our brains as we grow up. (In stories and movies, we always know who the bad and good guys are; in real life it's not so easy to recognize good and evil. But it's ideas that count, not who is the villain of the week.)
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