A different way

Freedom doesn't seem as though it should be a controversial topic.  Almost everybody claims to support it.  Politicians blather on and on about it.  Troops claim to be defending it at risk of life, limb, and mental health.  There's even a famous statue dedicated to Liberty.  It seems on the surface of things that it's a pretty popular ideal.

So long as you do no more than pay lip service to the words "freedom" and "liberty," nobody bats an eye.  When you dare to dig into the actual ideas behind the words, though...people get indignant.  Defensive.  Angry.  Sometimes even threatening.

 A lot of people will tell you, with great sincerity, that government is a necessary evil.  It has its problems, they say, its inefficiencies and even corruption, but we can't do without it.  Now, you might think that someone who believes something is evil might be intrigued, even excited, at the possibility that evil might not be necessary after all.  You wouldn't expect that many would be keen to rush to the defense of evil.  Shouldn't we desire that there be as little evil as possible in the world?  And yet, invariably, when you suggest that maybe government shouldn't be doing some of the things it has taken upon itself to do, or even that we might do without it entirely, you get not even the most cautious interest, but sneering, harrumphing, outright anger, and a reflexive flurry of defenses of government.

Many people fail to see government as evil at all.  They believe that it feeds and houses the poor, protects the environment, provides so-called "public goods" like roads and electrical grids and law enforcement and so on.  But government always accomplishes its ends through force against unwilling subjects: it confiscates their property to fund its operations and issues edicts regarding what they may, may not, or must do with their bodies and their property.  If they disobey, they are subjected to further confiscation, to forcible imprisonment, and if those measures be resisted, to death at the hands of agents of the state.

If those methods were used by private individuals or organizations, we would have no trouble in declaring them to be evil: theft, extortion, kidnapping, assault, and murder.  Whether or not the property confiscated by "taxation" or the commands of the state are intended to accomplish good, the means are decidedly vicious.  These supporters of government literally believe that good ends can, and more importantly should be accomplished by evil means.  In fact, I would venture to say that they do not believe that these good ends they favor can be effectively accomplished by non-evil, non-violent means. 


There is, I think, a tendency among human beings faced by unpleasant realities to resort to their most primitive instincts, and there are few instincts more primitive than that to meet challenges with force and violence.  In modern times, we dress up those instincts as something we call "politics" and pretend it is the very foundation of civilization.

We flatter ourselves that we are not mere unthinking brutes, but we apply our intellects not to the accomplishment of our ends by peaceful and voluntary cooperation, but instead to the construction of elaborate rationalizations for using force against those who don't share our particular set of values and priorities.  That is not true rationality, but primitive barbarism wrapped up in the trappings of rationality.  Instead of sticking a spear in our neighbor to make him do as we wish, we vote and then send an armed agent of the state to force compliance.  We become more and more willing to use force to impose our will upon our fellow man, because most of us never directly wield it - we keep our hands clean and convince ourselves that we're peaceful.  By and large, we do not squabble like animals, tooth and claw, over scraps of food; no, we are intelligent, and we have used our intelligence to systematize our primitive struggle to dominate and expropriate one another.  We then convince ourselves that the resulting efficiency is the same thing as peace and civility.  Behold, the power of the human mind for self-deception!

Virtually the entirety of political discourse, from the most cordial to the most rancorous, is focused exclusively on the question of who ought to be forced to do what on whose behalf.  Liberals, conservatives, Republicans, Democrats - none question the justness or rightness of some forcing their will on others.  None question that some ought to dominate others.  All sides in the debate accept those propositions implicitly and without examination.  The issues to be decided are only those of who, how much, and for what purposes.

It doesn't have to be that way.  The challenge we face is to reject force and violence, and our primitive instincts, and bring our unique capacity for reason fully to bear on important matters.  Despite what we've been conditioned from birth to believe about government and politics, human society can function without masters.  All necessary things may be accomplished by individuals cooperating voluntarily.  In fact, voluntary cooperation is superior in virtually every way in attaining the goal of human flourishing.  Dissenters may be left free to pursue their own ends, and society won't crumble or grind to a halt.  In fact, they must be left free to do so.  All human progress has come not from consensus and conformity, but from those who dared to break away from the masses and do things a different way.

This blog is dedicated to extolling the virtues of a voluntary society, pondering on how free people can and would accomplish the things now believed possible only through government coercion, and exposing the destructive fallacies of authoritarian statism. 

"We can walk our road together
If our goals are all the same
We can run alone and free
If we pursue a different aim." -- Rush, Hemispheres