Rand Paul Hits The Nail On The Head With Regards To "Your Rights" and the Governments Role In Them.
I don't have much to say here, but I did think this video was short and well worth the watch.
Rand Paul: Government Does Not Give You Rights! - 1:47
I hope you watched it. It is short.
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The very important point you wanted to highlight was served by this video, but the poison pill piggy-backing on that irrefutable truth was the assertion of the "social compact" and implied consent. And of course, we have the matter of this man occupying a position in an inherently invalid and immoral institution. I understand you're trying to lay down a foundation for the uninitiated, but I just had to chime in to make public note of these equally-important issues.
I am all for true anarchy as in no rulers. Yet I view it as a long term goal. It will not work at the moment.
I view reality. The majority of the population does not have the education in critical thinking, or a sense of self responsibility that all people would need in order for anarchy of some form or another to exist.
So while I could talk about Anarchy for a long time I've come to the conclusion that talking about that doesn't really move us closer towards that goal. We need to prepare people before that. Libertartian is a hop skip and a way from minarchist and then from minarchist you could make it into Anarchy.
To go there directly now would be stupid and would result in exactly the stereotypical negative views pushed about the term anarchy.
I do think such a society is possible, but not with the current population and how they are educated and how increasingly unwilling to be responsible for their own choices, compromise with others, respect the rights of others, and the understanding that application of force is a bad thing.
So I aim for things we can do today.
I understand this perspective, and I often find myself struggling with the dilemma of justice vs. practicality. Justice would be to walk up to a statist getting into a voting booth and lambasting him until he's curled up in a ball on the floor crying. Justice would be never letting any statist get a moment's peace until he demonstrates an understanding of - and makes a commitment to - true moral principles. These people are condoning the enslavement of my children, and I'm none-too-fucking-pleased, to put it mildly.
However, I recognize that this is not as likely to succeed, and that a case can be made for other methods. I should qualify this by saying that justice would work if more people did it, and since I believe in living by example, I cannot let go of the idea so readily. But I get where you're coming from overall.
I do feel it's important to personally abide by anarchist principles, even if your teaching method is more of a baby-steps approach. Participating in an immoral system with the goal of coming to a moral outcome is ill-advised, as it amounts to a "can't beat 'em, join 'em" approach in practice, if not in spirit.
The "anarchy by way of minarchy" method is like tapering off rape instead of desisting immediately - yes, it's an improvement, and easier to achieve, but it's still wholly unacceptable. If that's all you can reasonably hope for from others, then so be it, but for those of us who know, we should not meet them halfway when it comes to our own actions.
P.S. Did you watch the debate between Larken and Lauren Southern? If not, I'll link it here - I'd be interested to hear your reaction, since it's extremely relevant to the matter at hand.
Larken Rose vs. Lauren Southern
Yes, I watched it last week or the week before. I think they are both correct to some degree. I do not think what Larken wants would work without a phenomenal amount of death. Then it would work.
I view anarchy and using things like contracts and crowd sourcing as the long term goal. I do not expect to see it in my life as I do not condone deeming it okay for millions (perhaps billions) of people to die in order to try to reach the state I'd like to see humanity reach.
It is not because the ideas are bad. It is because the majority of humans have zero concept of what it would take. Those deaths would be because they have no critical thinking skills, they have no sense of self responsibility, they don't have any concept of the non-aggression principle, etc.
They actually think "Who would build the roads?" is a really good question when the answer is "The same people that do now, because the government doesn't do that. They hire contractors. Why not cut out the middleman?"
There will likely be problems with anarchy/voluntarism that we cannot foresee now. Thus is life. We can "What if" any idea to death. I am a person that likes experimentation and learning from those experiments. I do not like people to take their pet theory and hypothesis and turn it into DOGMA... "It will work, they just didn't do it right that time, or that time, or that time."
My utopia would likely be around the concept of anarcho-capitalism. I sometimes call it voluntarism just to skip the stigma of the words anarchy and capitalism from people that truly don't know the history or meaning of either of those things in their original sense, but only the bastardized propaganda versions of today.
In that argument I do not side completely with Lauren Southern, but I do think what she was saying was closer to realistically achievable than what Larken speaks of.
And by the way. I am a big fan of Larken. I've listened to so much of his stuff that he doesn't really say anything new as far as I am concerned. He is great at red pilling new people, and he should keep at it, but that seems to be realistically his niche.
I will take care of my family, and my property. If I have the means to help other people I will. I will not put my family at risk to help those who are not trying to help themselves. In otherwords, I despise Marxism, Socialism, and Communism. To me those cannot exist in a voluntary society. I personally find Anarcho-Communism to be an oxymoron, and I've debated that before. Communism as far as I am concerned IS a State. Ruled by masses does not change that. I do think communism can work fine at small scales, but it does not scale to large levels well at all.
I also like to say that Anarcho-Capitalism is superior anyway, because ancaps could get together and any number of them form a contract to live in a communist enclave which would be voluntary. They just could not force those outside of the contract to also agree with it. So ancap can contain ancom, but you cannot have ancap within ancom.
Yeah, the biggest problem is most certainly the dumbing down and lack of self-responsibility that society has been built upon for so long.
We get so caught up in participation, trying to decide how best to run the world, and acting as though our conversations and opinions have the effect of actually making those changes. We don’t actually think this, of course, but we speak - and even settle on a position - from this perspective.
What I’m getting at is that it’s not about the world out there. If we condone full anarchy, it’s not going to happen overnight, yielding the disastrous results that an immediate shift would cause. It’s about what standard we are going to live by as individuals, and it behooves us to live by the furthest understanding of truth we currently possess. When enough people do so, a free society will come to pass organically in its proper time.
To act from a position short of our full understanding because we suppose that’s the furthest others are likely to meet us is irrational and immoral when seen in this light. Our position does not change the world immediately, so we need not fear that what we condone will come crashing down on an unprepared popuation.
But coming up short of our own full potential is stifling the progress toward what we know to be right, because it makes us a “minus 1” toward the critical mass necessary to make the shift, and fails to foster the progress of others that would otherwise be emboldened and enlightened by our example.
Purist is a fallacious concept, as this is the only position that respects ourselves, our world, and truth itself. It’s the only position that abides by the principle that we must be the change we wish to see in the world. Anything less is just sprinkling in some falsity with your truth, some evil with your good. This could not possibly serve anyone or anything for the better, as truth and good are what serve best, in every instance, by definition.
I have what I think is a final simple response to sum this up.
I pay my taxes even though I don't think I should have to.
That is a tough one, indeed... Knowing that it's wrong is critical - and much to your credit - though of course, there's little practical difference between agreeing or disagreeing if you're willing to pay either way. It's sad that we live in a time when the level of sacrifice required to adhere to moral principles is so heavy.
I hope (and believe) that someday these sacrifices will no longer be necessary. They have truly stolen life out from under us; by adding an anchor of evil to everything such that one may not reach for anything that life has to offer without taking their pestilence in tow.
Thank you for being so patient and engaging me in this conversation. I am thankful that you are sharing pieces of this information and helping others move forward on their path. Enjoy your evening!
You too.
if government give us rights good peoples do good things with this rights but bad persons do bad things with this rights that's why government don't give us rights am i right? my English is not so good but I'll try my best
No the point is you were born with those rights. All governments can do is either protect those rights so other people won't try to take them away or the government can take rights away from you that you were born with.
Government technically has no ability to give you these rights. They were already yours. That was the beauty of the Declaration of Independence.
Government should have NO ability to infringe or take these rights away. That is FORCE. If you want to define evil. FORCE works. If it is not voluntary and you are forced to comply then that is evil.
Also, it is not possible for anyone to do bad things with their rights. Bad things are not included in rights. One man's freedom is naturally limited to the precise point where his actions would violate another person's freedom. I could explain this more clearly, but I don't know if the difference in language would cause a problem. May I ask, what is your native language (or what languages are you fluent in)?
Bring down all governments, end of.
If you do that instantly you'd just have gangs become the new governments.
If you want to do it in a good way it must be done in steps. People need to be self reliant, self responsible, and have a good grasp of critical thinking for that situation to actually work.
That does not describe the majority of the population.
So we should push towards addressing that if that is our actual goal.
To push for it now is not rational or truly thought out.
I personally tend to try to make people start investigating and learning critical thinking since even the courses in college with it in the title tend to do a pretty poor job of actually getting people started in learning critical thinking. It is not something we can master, we can just get better and better at it. It is something I wish children would learn from an early age right beside reading, math, and history.
There in lies the whole problem does it not, that the "state" controls education, and does a very bad job of it.
For instance, in the UK my sister is a teacher, and she has been doing that for 20 years, the liberals in upper power state that spelling, whilst teaching English, is not to be judged, marked down for bad spelling, and effectively not taught, hence children leaving school as adults, and having no knowledge of spelling, welcome to the good old UK.
yes right i watch video sometime i don't know why government not give right.... but hopes government will be give the right's
Government cannot give you the rights. They are already yours. That was the point. The only thing government should do is protect you from people trying to take the rights away from you that you are born with.
oh okay right brother i understand thank you
Government is force when it comes to our rights...
The force to protect our rights or prevent them...
Thank you. That is an excellent video.
The more of your paycheck you give up, the more of a slave you are to the banksters and the corporatists. The bottom 95% shouldn't be paying any taxes. It should be considered a principal of the balance of personal power.