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.