I agree with most of what you said but disagree with that last point about voting being okay.
From a utilitarian perspective I get how voting for the lesser evil can be beneficial, if not in reversing course, then at least in slowing down the decline of civilization. The problem is a moral one.
When I vote for someone, I am conferring permission to the politician I voted for to act on my behalf in some capacity or another. For instance, if I vote for Mr. Smith because he promises to build a hospital using taxpayer funds, I'm saying "I support Mr. Smith to build that hospital." Even if I don't agree with all of the stuff he's promising to do, I'm at the very least supporting some of it, and therein lies the moral problem.
I can't morally confer to Mr. Smith the ability to tax someone else to build a hospital, because I don't have the moral ability to levy a tax. In the mythos of democracy, this creates a kind of moral "transmutation" in which rights I don't have somehow get transferred to a politician through the magic of the ballot box. (I made a picture of this a decade ago - https://www.libertarianprepper.com/p/moral-transmutations )
Since all politicians are immoral (you can't run a coercive government in a moral way) I can't support any politician via voting.
If there were a politician who ran on a platform of abolition of the government and accepted no salary, then I suppose that would be morally permissible, but I'm not seeing such options.
Luckily, politics is not the answer to the problems caused by politics, freedom is. I like this quote: "There's a thousand people cutting at the branches of evil to one cutting at the roots. And there's a thousand people cutting at the roots to one planting a new tree."
We need more people planting new trees, that make the existing system simply irrelevant, and then as it collapses under the weight of its own irrationality, and financial and moral bankruptcy, the alternative systems should already be setup (as much as possible) so civilization doesn't collapse with it and so that people have a way to organize and solve problems that isn't just another government.
I have found that there are so few people for whom the purely moral/abstract arguments work. But I am one. Indeed, it is the moral arguments that swayed me to end up where I am now. So I 100% agree with you on all of that. Chances are, the weight of the argument will eventually saturate my moral understanding to the point where I agree and stop (quietly) voting.
I oppose utilitarianism writ large, too. However, there is a lesser-of-two-evils argument to consider here, and it leads to a sincere question: For example, let us take Congressman Ron Paul. He served in this coercive, morally impermissible system. He was faced with choice A and choice B, but probably almost never the truly moral choice C that we would want for him, and for us. So was it better to have him in Congress, and was it better for him to pick the lesser of two evils in A or B, or would it be better for him to never choose because it is not C, or for him not to have been in Congress at all?
I think overall Ron Paul's presence was good - not for political reasons, since as a single voice in the darkness he didn't achieve much legislatively, but in terms of educational reach he did a great job in 2008 of enlightening a lot of people (including myself) to libertarianism and Austrian economics.
If there was another Ron Paul who consistently voted for freedom and rejected his salary, I'd consider voting for him. Unfortunately people like that are very rare.
Agreed, for sure. But I would also like to know your thoughts on my query regarding his choices. Morally, what was better for him to do—or what would you pick in his shoes—A, B, or C?
Sep 14, 2023·edited Sep 14, 2023Liked by Christopher Cook
One other example I thought of was the NRA vs. GOA. The NRA has repeatedly compromised on gun control, sometimes literally writing the text of gun control bills. The problem with evil is that it never accepts a compromise in the long-run, it's always just a temporary delay on their path to total domination. So if you compromise on gun control, eventually you have no guns left.
GOA doesn't compromise or mince words and I think they've been far more effective in the last few years that I've been following them than the NRA was.
Sep 14, 2023·edited Sep 14, 2023Liked by Christopher Cook
I guess from a moral perspective A and B are both unacceptable. From an educational standpoint (which is where I think his true value lay) choosing C and highlighting that A and B are both evil is also valuable.
Picking the lesser of two evils didn't work for him from a utilitarian perspective anyway (as he didn't have enough likeminded congressmen), so for both moral reasons and utilitarian reasons he might as well have stuck to abstentions until option C presented itself (or he could submit option C as a new bill).
There is also a utilitarian argument to be made for having a no-compromise position on something, which is that you have more of an appeal to morality and virtue that way. If you compromise and choose the lesser of two evils, you lose that, and possibly lose credibility in the long-term too. Even if you do manage to slow down the decline of whatever institution you're in, you might be curtailing your own reach to make more meaningful change.
How do we fight an unjust city hall that tramples on your rights and the rights of those in your city especially if a blue city when there's not a lawyer in the county it seems that will stand up for everyone or anyone whose rights were demolished and destroyed?
There are some good lawyers and judges left. Even in the Soviet bloc, there are stories of people, at the end of the day, choosing to act as people rather than automatons of the regime.
But of course you are right that the situation is not good.
Make things into national cases. Shine a bright light. Do not go quietly. And get out of blue cities when possible.
There will be injustice. We must keep fighting and not despair.
How do we find these lawyers I need one badly with steel cojones. I've been punished for challenging and pointing out trampling of rights and speaking out against violations and they don't comply with the constitution and its been a subverted process, like many.
Good cooking, Chris, but perhaps not enough to make the ideas morally digestible for Voluntaryists.
I see you inching towards a full Voluntaryist understanding and practice with your to and fros on voting.
Here is perhaps my favorite passage on exiting the lesser/greater evil of governments of any kind:
“When the world becomes free it will not be by the creation of new laws, or the removal of old, or new political leaders, or any election result. It will not be because of a change in government, but because of a change in attitude toward government. Genuine change will come when the state is ignored, not reformed. It will not come when politicians are better, but when they are irrelevant. When state-made law is no longer deemed necessary or important it will not be respected. When it is not respected it will not be enforced because it will not be enforceable. The world can become free of the barbarous relic called the state. The state is a dangerous fiction whose power rests entirely on people’s belief in its necessity, or inevitability. It is not a given that a state must or will always exist. The state, like so many other superstitions now thought to be outrageous, inhumane, and inefficient, can be left in the ash heap of history.” Isaac Morehouse
Enter our "Tumbler of Ideas" tomorrow, U.S. Saturday early PM, for our New Zealand Sunday 9am, Sept 17, Session 46: How Civil Disobedience Safeguards Freedom and Prevents Tyranny
Good quote. Are you referring to my main piece or my discussion with Libertarian Prepper above?
I believe one ought to speak the truth of that quote as loudly as possible. But does that mean that one can ignore the fact that one will lose one's house if one refuses to pay one's property taxes? Changing one's consciousness in the direction of that quote, and helping others to see the light, will push us closer to critical mass. And when that is reached, no involuntary system will be able to remain in place. But in the meantime, there are degrees of civil disobedience, and some of them will cause your life to be ruined by government thugs. I am not quite sure I get what aspect is morally indigestible for voluntaryists?
I was referring to both your article and responses to the comments by your readers.
I do not think you should be a martyr and do something like refuse to pay your taxes and instead go to jail. You are on the Voluntaryist path when you advocate “changing one’s consciousness in the direction of the quote”.
The indigestible refers to your
“I do not believe voting makes a government consensual, but I am aware that it matters who gets elected, so I can still vote for the lesser of two evils.”
And the quote that goes along with the above one
“It is argued (both by anarchists and its detractors) that the act of voting violates the principles that led one to become an anarchist in the first place. I disagree.”
Your words show me you do not understand Voluntaryism as most of us do who call ourselves this.
Principles are everything, they signal your integrity.
It seems your argument for voting is that it can make a difference who gets elected and the act of voting “is not the problem” WHEN you tell yourself you do NOT think voting “makes government consensual”; or “fixes any fundamental problems” or is “the only possible choice available to humankind”.
To me, your thinking/language is unclear and confused; and it is so because I think you know you are contradicting yourself but do not want to recognize that.
I assume you agree with the Voluntaryist premise that since all governments by historical evidence without exception initiate physical force to exist, they are immoral and thus must not be condoned or supported.
Paying the criminal protection racket extortion (tax, etc.) to keep free rather than choosing to go to jail in protest is not condoning or supporting, BUT VOTING IS.
The only time voting can be justified is if you have to go to jail or be fined as in Australia and New Zealand—but there are work arounds for this.
But to VOLUNTARILY vote because you believe it will go some good is validating the right of government to exist—you are adding to its immoral legitimacy by this act and to pretend you are not is double-thinking and contradictory.
I find it interesting how many of those close to being genuine Voluntaryists do their various “rain dances” as they declare they do not believe in the god of government.
So I hope you will rethink your misthinking advocacy of voting.
Join our Philosophy of Responsible Freedom as some there are minarchists and even believers in the two party delusion.
Voting to me is little more than one more way to keep the wolf away from the door. It falls into the same category to me as paying taxes. Without the restraints imposed by our system, the current governor of NY would happily become a full-blown fascist. It actually would make a difference whether she or someone else occupies the office. That's just reality. Paying taxes keeps the police from your door. With the amount of times that NY dems and Hochul have tried to create actual concentration camps in this state, preventing them from gaining more power ALSO keeps the police from the door, albeit in a less direct way.
I won't be telling people how important it is that they vote—how, "This is the most important election of our lifetimes" or anything like that. I won't talk about it as if any of it is good or it is our only way of living. I won't talk about it at all. In fact, neither you nor anyone else, with the exception of my wife and son, will know whether or not I went to any polling place at all. If I vote, it will be very, very quietly.
My larger point was that it is not a quiet vote that does the damage. The damage is done by fueling the system by advocating for the system. I agree with the moral argument. (Indeed, I think Libertarian Prepper's version of it is quite excellent.) But you could make the same argument regarding paying your taxes: that doing so legitimates the system.
Like, we could run the argument thusly:
Government does not have the moral authority to do the things it does. You do not have the right to do the things that government does. So you certainly do not have the right to delegate an authority (by voting) that neither you or government can morally have.
But then we could make the same argument vis-a-vis paying one's taxes. By giving them money, not only are you legitimating their right to take it, but you are giving them the resources they need to continue their impermissible oppressions upon others.
It all depends on where you frame the argument. Legitimation? BOTH paying and voting do that. Same with empowerment and delegation of authority. The crux of the argument that separates voting from paying taxes on the grounds that the latter involves jail time if you don't do it is roughly this: self-interest. But you can make a self-interest argument for (quietly) voting too.
Where I have chosen to fix the argument is on what one publicly advocates for and talks about. I want people to change their consciousness and come to realize all these moral truths, and to stop believing in the democracy mystique/mythology. If they keep voting (quietly) and paying their taxes until we can actual make structural change, that's fine with me, as long as they have undergone the consciousness shift.
If you have been reading my work for a while, you know I am a full-blown anarcho-whatever. I do not believe ANY form of involuntary governance is morally permissible. To read what I write and have the most important takeaway be that I need to be corrected on this point—to call it "rain dances" and "misthinking"—strikes me as a bit of People's-Front-of-Judea-ism. Focusing on doctrinaire and minor differences helps keep anarchism-writ-large in a place of obscurity and ineffectiveness.
I agree with most of what you said but disagree with that last point about voting being okay.
From a utilitarian perspective I get how voting for the lesser evil can be beneficial, if not in reversing course, then at least in slowing down the decline of civilization. The problem is a moral one.
When I vote for someone, I am conferring permission to the politician I voted for to act on my behalf in some capacity or another. For instance, if I vote for Mr. Smith because he promises to build a hospital using taxpayer funds, I'm saying "I support Mr. Smith to build that hospital." Even if I don't agree with all of the stuff he's promising to do, I'm at the very least supporting some of it, and therein lies the moral problem.
I can't morally confer to Mr. Smith the ability to tax someone else to build a hospital, because I don't have the moral ability to levy a tax. In the mythos of democracy, this creates a kind of moral "transmutation" in which rights I don't have somehow get transferred to a politician through the magic of the ballot box. (I made a picture of this a decade ago - https://www.libertarianprepper.com/p/moral-transmutations )
Since all politicians are immoral (you can't run a coercive government in a moral way) I can't support any politician via voting.
If there were a politician who ran on a platform of abolition of the government and accepted no salary, then I suppose that would be morally permissible, but I'm not seeing such options.
Luckily, politics is not the answer to the problems caused by politics, freedom is. I like this quote: "There's a thousand people cutting at the branches of evil to one cutting at the roots. And there's a thousand people cutting at the roots to one planting a new tree."
We need more people planting new trees, that make the existing system simply irrelevant, and then as it collapses under the weight of its own irrationality, and financial and moral bankruptcy, the alternative systems should already be setup (as much as possible) so civilization doesn't collapse with it and so that people have a way to organize and solve problems that isn't just another government.
I have found that there are so few people for whom the purely moral/abstract arguments work. But I am one. Indeed, it is the moral arguments that swayed me to end up where I am now. So I 100% agree with you on all of that. Chances are, the weight of the argument will eventually saturate my moral understanding to the point where I agree and stop (quietly) voting.
I oppose utilitarianism writ large, too. However, there is a lesser-of-two-evils argument to consider here, and it leads to a sincere question: For example, let us take Congressman Ron Paul. He served in this coercive, morally impermissible system. He was faced with choice A and choice B, but probably almost never the truly moral choice C that we would want for him, and for us. So was it better to have him in Congress, and was it better for him to pick the lesser of two evils in A or B, or would it be better for him to never choose because it is not C, or for him not to have been in Congress at all?
Ron Paul rejected his salary too, right?
I think overall Ron Paul's presence was good - not for political reasons, since as a single voice in the darkness he didn't achieve much legislatively, but in terms of educational reach he did a great job in 2008 of enlightening a lot of people (including myself) to libertarianism and Austrian economics.
If there was another Ron Paul who consistently voted for freedom and rejected his salary, I'd consider voting for him. Unfortunately people like that are very rare.
Agreed, for sure. But I would also like to know your thoughts on my query regarding his choices. Morally, what was better for him to do—or what would you pick in his shoes—A, B, or C?
Doing nothing is sometimes the best moral choice.
One other example I thought of was the NRA vs. GOA. The NRA has repeatedly compromised on gun control, sometimes literally writing the text of gun control bills. The problem with evil is that it never accepts a compromise in the long-run, it's always just a temporary delay on their path to total domination. So if you compromise on gun control, eventually you have no guns left.
GOA doesn't compromise or mince words and I think they've been far more effective in the last few years that I've been following them than the NRA was.
This is an excellent point as well, one that I will take to heart. Thank you for adding your wisdom here.
The NRA has also been going downhill in other ways, from what I can see. The perils of being too big for too long, perhaps…
I guess from a moral perspective A and B are both unacceptable. From an educational standpoint (which is where I think his true value lay) choosing C and highlighting that A and B are both evil is also valuable.
Picking the lesser of two evils didn't work for him from a utilitarian perspective anyway (as he didn't have enough likeminded congressmen), so for both moral reasons and utilitarian reasons he might as well have stuck to abstentions until option C presented itself (or he could submit option C as a new bill).
There is also a utilitarian argument to be made for having a no-compromise position on something, which is that you have more of an appeal to morality and virtue that way. If you compromise and choose the lesser of two evils, you lose that, and possibly lose credibility in the long-term too. Even if you do manage to slow down the decline of whatever institution you're in, you might be curtailing your own reach to make more meaningful change.
I will be giving all of this a great deal of thought. Thank you. I also really like the chart you made!
Thanks! Let me know what conclusions you come to.
How do we fight an unjust city hall that tramples on your rights and the rights of those in your city especially if a blue city when there's not a lawyer in the county it seems that will stand up for everyone or anyone whose rights were demolished and destroyed?
There are some good lawyers and judges left. Even in the Soviet bloc, there are stories of people, at the end of the day, choosing to act as people rather than automatons of the regime.
But of course you are right that the situation is not good.
Make things into national cases. Shine a bright light. Do not go quietly. And get out of blue cities when possible.
There will be injustice. We must keep fighting and not despair.
How do we find these lawyers I need one badly with steel cojones. I've been punished for challenging and pointing out trampling of rights and speaking out against violations and they don't comply with the constitution and its been a subverted process, like many.
Tell the story on your Subtack, share it in notes, get others to share it, and then see if anyone connects you to anyone. Ask directly.
Of course, do not reveal anything that would compromise a case…
Good cooking, Chris, but perhaps not enough to make the ideas morally digestible for Voluntaryists.
I see you inching towards a full Voluntaryist understanding and practice with your to and fros on voting.
Here is perhaps my favorite passage on exiting the lesser/greater evil of governments of any kind:
“When the world becomes free it will not be by the creation of new laws, or the removal of old, or new political leaders, or any election result. It will not be because of a change in government, but because of a change in attitude toward government. Genuine change will come when the state is ignored, not reformed. It will not come when politicians are better, but when they are irrelevant. When state-made law is no longer deemed necessary or important it will not be respected. When it is not respected it will not be enforced because it will not be enforceable. The world can become free of the barbarous relic called the state. The state is a dangerous fiction whose power rests entirely on people’s belief in its necessity, or inevitability. It is not a given that a state must or will always exist. The state, like so many other superstitions now thought to be outrageous, inhumane, and inefficient, can be left in the ash heap of history.” Isaac Morehouse
Enter our "Tumbler of Ideas" tomorrow, U.S. Saturday early PM, for our New Zealand Sunday 9am, Sept 17, Session 46: How Civil Disobedience Safeguards Freedom and Prevents Tyranny
https://responsiblyfree.substack.com/p/the-philosophy-of-responsible-freedom-b0b
Get free, stay safe.
Good quote. Are you referring to my main piece or my discussion with Libertarian Prepper above?
I believe one ought to speak the truth of that quote as loudly as possible. But does that mean that one can ignore the fact that one will lose one's house if one refuses to pay one's property taxes? Changing one's consciousness in the direction of that quote, and helping others to see the light, will push us closer to critical mass. And when that is reached, no involuntary system will be able to remain in place. But in the meantime, there are degrees of civil disobedience, and some of them will cause your life to be ruined by government thugs. I am not quite sure I get what aspect is morally indigestible for voluntaryists?
Sorry for delay in responding.
I was referring to both your article and responses to the comments by your readers.
I do not think you should be a martyr and do something like refuse to pay your taxes and instead go to jail. You are on the Voluntaryist path when you advocate “changing one’s consciousness in the direction of the quote”.
The indigestible refers to your
“I do not believe voting makes a government consensual, but I am aware that it matters who gets elected, so I can still vote for the lesser of two evils.”
And the quote that goes along with the above one
“It is argued (both by anarchists and its detractors) that the act of voting violates the principles that led one to become an anarchist in the first place. I disagree.”
Your words show me you do not understand Voluntaryism as most of us do who call ourselves this.
Principles are everything, they signal your integrity.
It seems your argument for voting is that it can make a difference who gets elected and the act of voting “is not the problem” WHEN you tell yourself you do NOT think voting “makes government consensual”; or “fixes any fundamental problems” or is “the only possible choice available to humankind”.
To me, your thinking/language is unclear and confused; and it is so because I think you know you are contradicting yourself but do not want to recognize that.
I assume you agree with the Voluntaryist premise that since all governments by historical evidence without exception initiate physical force to exist, they are immoral and thus must not be condoned or supported.
Paying the criminal protection racket extortion (tax, etc.) to keep free rather than choosing to go to jail in protest is not condoning or supporting, BUT VOTING IS.
The only time voting can be justified is if you have to go to jail or be fined as in Australia and New Zealand—but there are work arounds for this.
But to VOLUNTARILY vote because you believe it will go some good is validating the right of government to exist—you are adding to its immoral legitimacy by this act and to pretend you are not is double-thinking and contradictory.
I find it interesting how many of those close to being genuine Voluntaryists do their various “rain dances” as they declare they do not believe in the god of government.
So I hope you will rethink your misthinking advocacy of voting.
Join our Philosophy of Responsible Freedom as some there are minarchists and even believers in the two party delusion.
https://responsiblyfree.substack.com/p/the-philosophy-of-responsible-freedom
And you can keep chewing gum while eschewing (nice) voting.
Get free, stay safe, hope to see you this weekend for Session 47.The Psychology of Power – How to Dethrone Tyrants
As you can see, I generally agree on the moral calculus here, and I would hardly call anything I have said "advocacy" for voting: https://christophercook.substack.com/p/should-you-vote
Voting to me is little more than one more way to keep the wolf away from the door. It falls into the same category to me as paying taxes. Without the restraints imposed by our system, the current governor of NY would happily become a full-blown fascist. It actually would make a difference whether she or someone else occupies the office. That's just reality. Paying taxes keeps the police from your door. With the amount of times that NY dems and Hochul have tried to create actual concentration camps in this state, preventing them from gaining more power ALSO keeps the police from the door, albeit in a less direct way.
I won't be telling people how important it is that they vote—how, "This is the most important election of our lifetimes" or anything like that. I won't talk about it as if any of it is good or it is our only way of living. I won't talk about it at all. In fact, neither you nor anyone else, with the exception of my wife and son, will know whether or not I went to any polling place at all. If I vote, it will be very, very quietly.
My larger point was that it is not a quiet vote that does the damage. The damage is done by fueling the system by advocating for the system. I agree with the moral argument. (Indeed, I think Libertarian Prepper's version of it is quite excellent.) But you could make the same argument regarding paying your taxes: that doing so legitimates the system.
Like, we could run the argument thusly:
Government does not have the moral authority to do the things it does. You do not have the right to do the things that government does. So you certainly do not have the right to delegate an authority (by voting) that neither you or government can morally have.
But then we could make the same argument vis-a-vis paying one's taxes. By giving them money, not only are you legitimating their right to take it, but you are giving them the resources they need to continue their impermissible oppressions upon others.
It all depends on where you frame the argument. Legitimation? BOTH paying and voting do that. Same with empowerment and delegation of authority. The crux of the argument that separates voting from paying taxes on the grounds that the latter involves jail time if you don't do it is roughly this: self-interest. But you can make a self-interest argument for (quietly) voting too.
Where I have chosen to fix the argument is on what one publicly advocates for and talks about. I want people to change their consciousness and come to realize all these moral truths, and to stop believing in the democracy mystique/mythology. If they keep voting (quietly) and paying their taxes until we can actual make structural change, that's fine with me, as long as they have undergone the consciousness shift.
If you have been reading my work for a while, you know I am a full-blown anarcho-whatever. I do not believe ANY form of involuntary governance is morally permissible. To read what I write and have the most important takeaway be that I need to be corrected on this point—to call it "rain dances" and "misthinking"—strikes me as a bit of People's-Front-of-Judea-ism. Focusing on doctrinaire and minor differences helps keep anarchism-writ-large in a place of obscurity and ineffectiveness.
Thank you for the cross, and for the kind words. Rock on!