Tyler H

When did the left become government and the right become philosophical anarchists? The state has gone unopposed for the last two hundred years. The right produced an enormous military and the left produced an enormous welfare state while both reduced freedom - and stole the capital to do it from the vestiges of the free market, the remnants of the middle class, and the unborn; not to mention the oppression of the 3rd world to prevent competition (wars, sanctions, propping up dictators, and dumping food under the guise of charity to depress their agricultural market). This is how it's played out, libertarians voting failed to stop it and soon we will see the results when the empire collapses under its own weight as empires are wont to do. It's not about convincing people not to vote; it's about telling people the truth about the fruits of violence. It won't matter what you vote for until enough people are enlightened, at which point maybe voting will make sense, maybe it won't, but right now there's not enough people who reject the initiation of force to make a difference through voting and telling them about Trump instead of the coercive nature of the state is wasted effort and hurts the cause of liberty. This is incredibly simplistic. Calling the near certainty that you will be thrown into a cage with murderers and rapists where you're ability to communicate the ideas of a stateless society to the world will be drastically diminished a "less preferable state" than unknown consequences of the actions of some candidate you will in all likelihood have had no real affect in electing, for which you sacrificed the integrity of your principles and took on responsibility, albeit infinitesimally small, for their crimes is misleading at best. How this is a valid comparison blows my mind.

How do I know what? That no candidate is for reducing state power? You're right, I don't. However, it's historically shown that the candidates that win are not for reducing state power because the state has done nothing but grow. If your question is how do I know that Trump is not for less government? Well his own website is a good source. "I will make our military so big, powerful and strong that no one will mess with us" (Not sure how this is even possible, but hey if he says it...) "I am very pro Israel" (good for producing terrorists) "The New Hampshire drug epidemic must stop. If elected POTUS - I will create borders and the drugs will stop pouring in." (Hmm...sounds like more money going into the drug war - not less) You don't know there isn't. A limitation on your imagination does not reflect a limitation on reality. If you fall back on the initiation of force whenever you can't think of a peaceful solution then there's always an excuse for statism. You made an error in your statement you may want to edit, but I understand your meaning. This is showing to be a common theme throughout this thread on the pro-vote side - you guys are so certain of the outcome of each candidate's presidency. What I am trying to make clear is that you don't know. None of us know. You do not know the future. You do not know what they will decide in situations that cannot possibly be forecast. -Edited to make my points inside the quotes red, for some reason they did not post as intended the first time.-

My thoughts in bold. I have a rebuttal to this. I did it in order, but I also expanded on my thoughts at some points. - It is not consistent with the NAP does not mean it is immoral (this is not an argument). Isn't it though? If the non-aggression principle says that intimating force is wrong, then isn't something inconsistent with the NAP equal to something that is initiating force - ergo immoral? If you are saying voting is immoral, you have to show how the literal act of voting is the initiation of force, or otherwise you cannot claim it is immoral to vote, especially if other people are voting. Here is my reasoning (I can't speak for Adam obviously) for claiming voting is immoral: if you vote for a candidate who receives 50 million votes and wins the election you are 1/50 millionth responsible for them being in that position of power. They will inevitably violate the NAP by the nature of the position and you will share that fractional responsibility. If they deport 10 million people then you are 1/5th responsible for forcibly removing someone from their home, tearing them away from their kids, possibly destroying their life. If you and 4 other guys went and did that to someone no one here would quibble over the morality of that action. I do not see a difference, but perhaps someone could provide one I haven't thought of. Now the NAP violations of the candidate you vote for may not be that bad or they may be worse; there may be a war started that kills 10 million people, in which case there are 5 people responsible for each death. There is also technically nothing inconsistent in reality about the term vegitarian, and the act of working at a slaughterhouse, because as far as I understand a vegetarian simply does not eat meat. It's a description of an act (to eat non-meat) or biological a description of a category of animals, but it is not a moral argument. I think this is a valid point, but I think it depends on the motivations of the vegetarian for not eating meat. If he believes that a vegetarian diet is simply the healthier option then sure no problem. If his motivation is the better treatment of animals and that they have feelings and should be treated as humans, and if he only hangs out with other vegetarians and tries to persuade as many people as he can to become vegetarians for the purpose of saving these animals, then you can see how it may discredit him to be employed by the antithesis of what he believes. - You cannot say voting legitimizes an idea in someones head, because that would be literally to believe in magic, if by legitimize you mean "make real or valid." (also this is not an argument) I think you also make a good point here. It may be better when explaining the alternate point of view to specify how participating in voting "legitimizes (makes valid)" the state in people's minds. I think what is meant is that the more people get involved in the political process, i.e. the extent to which they advocate for candidates or help campaign, etc., will match the extent to which the unthinking lemmings will scoff at ever questioning the status quo. If we continue to decry the system as violent and counter productive (see war on poverty, war on terror, war on drugs), then I believe the degree to which that idea grows will be the degree to which people are open to alternative solutions to the state. I guess this is why I'm so passionate about this subject, I think there are more people than ever that are fed up with the system and are ready for new ideas. I have never heard people say "I hate both candidates" as much as they are now. And for the show, which I believe to have the best principles and arguments, to focus energy on a statist solution... I find it disheartening. I think the odds that the state (in its current form) will collapse soon (no matter who is elected) are better than Trump being able to prevent or delay it, so shouldn't all energy be focused on peaceful solutions? - It is not an argument to point out any single (or insignificant group of) vote as meaningless, if voting itself creates a prisoner's dilemma scenario which necessitates that when one person votes, everyone else must vote or else be at a disadvantage in the manifestation of institutionalized aggressive force called 'politics' (which exists whether you vote or not. You cannot say politics has no effect or is one singular mind determining the outcome (unless you have evidence), therefore we all have a very marginal say in the outcome. If you hold yourself to higher standards than your competition, you will lose and become extinct (over time if it happens consistently) Another good point. The tribesman who said "but.... that's just a giant stone chicken..." got set on fire. What we are in now is a kind of state of nature less dangerous than before, but as I argued i think you need to take into consideration the level of moral responsibility you will undertake weighed against the probability of achieving the desired outcome. - You cannot say voting has no effect and also say people are responsible for the effects of their vote. That is a contradiction. It is very important to understand voting and support are just ideas in individual minds, and are not themselves the initiation of force. They are more accurately considered as huge statistical measurements of the effectiveness of competing forms of propaganda, assuming the voting process is executed (i.e. there is not a fraud in counting, given the stated regulations of how votes are counted in the system which may at times be inconsistent, but are generally formed for a purpose of advantaging one form of propaganda over another) I'm glad you pointed this out, great observation. It'd be better to argue from the standpoint of the fractional effect/fractional responsibility as I eluded to above. As in, are you willing to accept the fractional responsibility of someone's death for the fractional effect your vote may have in an election (anywhere from 1 in 5,800 in Ohio to "a better shot of winning the state lottery 6,000 times in a row" in New York). - "Choosing evil" is not a moral argument, because the context of choice changes in a statist society, because force is initiated institutionally in a geographic territory. - No politician is obligated to keep campaign promises, but a politician must dish out effective propaganda or else he faces to lose his position, but in a very volatile and non-linear way (i.e. in revolts which are spontaneous but have built over time, or in coups). - Propaganda can theoretically be judged on consequentialist grounds, and saying that no propaganda is syllogistically better than others is not an argument against the empirical correlations in history that can be interpreted with reason and evidence. If a certain group of people in a statist society can agree on a lot of propaganda, then less force is theoretically being initiated compared to a situation in which there was a state and multicultural or biologically manifest disagreement {such as r/K}, and closer to a free society they will be; according to this mental model. Aggression is more clear in reality when one person and another person passionately disagree on whatever course of action is being proposed (more people would rather give out 5 cents than use of their sex organs in the face of the force). I'm not sure I understand your argument here, would you mind elaborating? When America was founded, a very effective propaganda was inserted into the moral compass of a relatively alike population in terms of race and in high intelligence, and a small state producing the vastest expansion of freedom every in history was produced. A small state - a statist society - is the reason we now have the internet and are immeasurably closer to a free society than they were in practical terms. In their minds at the time, their propaganda resembled something practically more like a free society, even though their conception of government from the view of philosophy is equally as wrong as any other statist propaganda. Philosophy itself deals in 1 and 0s; valid or invalid. But the ways ideas manifest through observable behavior in reality is fundamentally different because of the mind/body dichotomy. If the ideas as they behave in reality create patterns, such as increasing wealth and technology, and these practical effects can disperse information that can potentially increase choice in significant ways, then people in a statist society, not presuming some spontaenous anarchist revelation, can build a base of knowledge over time that will become incredibly consistent, and in the process anarchy will result because propaganda is effectively conquered by empirical invalidation. That's my main argument. I hope it can be of some help if I'm correct or close to correct about at least one point - "Its a desperate act" is not an argument. Thank you for reading I write this all in humility of your rejection if you chose to reject it, or if it is incorrect. Thanks for the post Mtt, let me know what you think of the comments.

Actually let me retract that last statement until I go through Mtt's post. On a cursory glance it seemed pretty well thought out and argued in some points, I do not have time to go through it now, perhaps tonight. I also plan to respond to Anuojat.

No it can't (the same argument be made), no one comes to your house and puts a gun to you're head to vote. The consequences of voting are unknown while the consequences of not paying taxes are known. It requires support of the initiation of force to vote; it does not require the support of the initiation of force to be stolen from. Compliance in the name of self preservation is not support and an argument is yet to be made that voting this time is an act of self preservation aside from an appeal to emotion (fear) or authority (Stef says). If I've missed the evidence or failed to understand, I apologize and kindly ask for reiteration.

I agree except for the part about accepting being ruled because you voted. I'm certainly open to arguments though.

Forgive me if the quote function doesn't work; I am on my phone and the full site works slightly different. First I need to say that an enabler is a pretty specific and serious accusation. en·a·bler iˈnāblər,e-/ noun a person or thing that makes something possible. "the people who run these workshops are crime enablers" a person who encourages or enables negative or self-destructive behavior in another. "he criticized her role as an enabler in her husband's pathological womanizing" Certainly a Hillary presidency is not dependent upon my vote or lack thereof. In fact the term enabler applies more to you than anyone not voting since you are trying to convince people who have a moral complication with voting to do something that does not agree with their conscience or principles. I don't think I would apply that label to you but I thought the distinction was important to point out. Again, their platforms are not their actions and using them as evidence is spurious at best. They are lies to buy votes, not facts. Here lies another false premise, that the right decreases state power. Historical evidence shows that is decidedly not the case. State power just ratchets up, the direction of which is determined by who is in power. Voting is not the only way; withdrawal of support and resources is an example of another option and I'm sure there are other creative ways that could be thought of when violence is taken off the table. If you really think a philosophical revolution is wishful thinking I'm not sure why you're participating on this board. It's kind of the mission statement.

My comments in bold. No candidate is for reducing state power; if they are for blocking state power it is only for blocking it in one area in order to expand it in another. As far as "the lesser of two evils" argument, that is not exclusive to this election. You do not know that it will be much worse under Hillary - don't get me wrong it will be bad, but you cannot know how much worse, if at all worse, it will be than Trump. Moving on to Trump's record I'm not sure what you are talking about here. Trump has never been a politician so he has never had to back legislation in the moment against the pressures of power brokers and lobbyists. A soundbite on Fox News or CNN with the luxury of hindsight surely cannot count. Lifeboat scenario that isn't exactly analogous, but I'll bite. I doubt someone in the position of the gunman is so noble as to abide by your decision. You can tell the psycho "shoot her toe" and he could blow her brains out anyways. He's the one with the gun, he's the one willing to use force against peaceful people, he's the one that doesn't really give a wet fart what you want. He just wants to show everyone his power by making you play the game. Trump can't solve these problems. The state can't solve these problems. Violence never solves problems. You can demand compliance with your boot on someone's neck, but you have to keep it there forever. The moment you lift it up and look away you've got a larger problem. I'm curious why this post was down voted? I usually reserve down votes for objectionable material since they lead to censorship (I understand others may not view it this way); I would like to know if there was anything I said in there that would fall into that category so I can correct my thinking or communication skills and apologize if necessary.

Very courageous Andrew!

While I believe in a free society people congregating for the sole purpose of deciding how they will initiate force to achieve their ends will be dealt with like any other gang of criminals, such an action at this time would severely discredit the philosophical movement we are trying to effect. Highly inadvisable.

My comments in bold.

I agree, I mentioned it in the original thread (post #45) but I'll reiterate here for those who haven't read through it. The problem with this trolley is that we don't know what the lever will do: it could kill the one, it could kill the five, or it could blow up the trolley killing everyone on board. I think the best we can do in this situation is call attention to the danger those on the tracks are in and make clear that the blame lies on the negligent people responsible for the trolley and the criminal who tied up people and put them on the tracks in order to lure people into killing the one man. I believe the best course of action is abstention. I don't think "literally no time" is an accurate reflection of our current predicament. Either voting reflects the will of the people or it does not (personally, I'm highly skeptical of electronic voting machines provided by people who invest millions in a candidate). If voting does not reflect the will of the people then obviously there is no reason to abandon principles and lend your support to the atrocities the state will commit under the next president by voting. If it does reflect the will of the people and if the situation is as dire and urgent as claimed by those in the pro-vote camp, then Hillary will win by such a landslide that the few votes that would have been generated by this community's efforts will not make a difference anyway. In which case there is no reason to sign onto the legitimacy of the state by voting. If it does reflect the will of the people and the election can be swayed, then it cannot be claimed that the situation is that imminent and disastrous. In which case there is no reason to abnegate principles by voting. All of this energy wasted on Trump and Hillary when, as far as I know, there has never been such a distaste for both candidates in the history of the country. Such fertile ground for showing people a new way and the opportunity is squandered on steering them right back towards the state.

Voting is an admission by the voter that they think problems with society can and should be solved by pointing guns at people; the intent of the voter and the identity of the candidate is irrelevant. I don't particularly care for the argument for effect in this debate but I'll offer up the fact that the American state has only grown since it's inception as evidence. Assuming defensive voting is voting to prevent the initiation of force used against you, and as the state grows it increases its ability and perceived legitimacy to initiate force against you, then I would say at the very least it has not worked. The libertarian party has been involved in the political system for 45 years and very few people have any idea who Gary Johnson is let alone what libertarians stand for. Pouring money, effort and support into the political system at the cost of everything else that could have been done with those resources can arguably be labeled counter productive. Regardless of the effect, I'm arguing against voting on the basis of morality. You can see these arguments in the original thread or for an eloquent summation you can listen to this statement by Wendy McElroy starting at ~40 minute mark. I really recommend people listen to that; it only takes a few minutes for her to argue the point and it is quite convincing.

I think we should focus less on hero worship and more on being heroes ourselves.

Well then I'm confused why you quoted me and not them. The straw man applied to you misrepresenting my argument not anything you said afterward, which, I admit, I could have redacted from my quote of you in order to be more precise as to what I was referring.

First let me say dude, BRA-VO! That took courage and you should be immensely proud of yourself. I tip my hat to you. For more just and well deserved praise along with what I think is some good advice to keep in mind when confronting abusers here is a call I listened to recently. The relevant material starts ~32 min. in.

I don't think I said you were talking about the government and I don't think I said the government is the only danger; this is a straw man argument. I would have to argue that this course of action will have specific moral ramifications for people involved in this community. I want them to be aware of the counter arguments before making that decision.

I'll reply in the new thread here

If you haven't seen this I think the point that Comey could have come out said "no charges" and walked off but instead said "guilty, guilty, guilty, no charges" has the stench of sneaky, backhanded, passive aggressive, subliminal message politics all over it. He very well could be setting up pins for someone else to knock down. Pure conjecture of course.

Maybe, I don't know. I am hesitant to think enough has been done since there are so few people who even know what real liberty is. Stef is coming up on half a million subscribers, but I think the FDR Trump coverage where Stef withholds criticism attracts a lot of Trump supporters who are muddying the waters in being able to tell how many philosophically-minded free thinkers are out there. I think the videos on race will attract people who can think but also attract people who can't and just have their own bigoted opinions. I guess what I'm saying is that there are so few of us and probably even fewer than we realize. Do you mean allies in philosophical principles or are you talking about the enemy of my enemy is my friend, i.e. making a deal with the devil to postpone Armageddon? I think we need allies who are as dedicated to freedom and voluntarism as we are and a lot of them. I do not think we can make common cause with people who are the antithesis of what we advocate. I've created a new topic on voting to continue this conversation here

This post has been created to continue the discourse from this thread in order for the title to more accurately reflect the content that developed.

When I read this I felt some anger and frustration. I took some time to think about it before replying. I think my initial inference was that you were telling us to shut down the conversation, which I think would justify those feelings. However I think now you are simply suggesting that we continue this discussion in a new thread - as in pack it up and take it with us somewhere else (with a less inflammatory topic title perhaps) since the person who started this thread obviously has nothing to say, is that correct?

Agreed, I excluded self government in my use of the word. I will not give them sanction to initiate force. This is just my opinion here but I do not think so, there are too many supporters for Trump for there not to be another candidate to represent those voices in the future. Even so, if Hillary wins she will only be interested in her own legacy. She will not want anything to tarnish her presidency so I don't see her doing anything outrageous. If there is a collapse with her at the wheel I think it will help the cause of freedom while a collapse with Trump "in charge" will be the final nail in the coffin for any semblance of free market western principles in the eyes of the meandering "independent" zombie cattle who float back and forth from democrat to republican every 8 years potentially pushing us further into despotism. This was one of the arguments against voting for Ron Paul; the collapse was presumed imminent and it would've happened no matter who was president and if Ron Paul was in.... *BAM* goodbye laissez-faire. I think there is another collapse coming and from what I understand it is going to be the worst yet unless there is some major capital creating or capital saving innovation to pump some blood back into this corpse of a country.

You didn't quote me but I am assuming from the flow of the thread that you were directing this towards me, correct me if I am wrong. I agree, but I feel I should clarify that just because you are being shot at or aggressed against doesn't mean you are at war. In relation to my prior post, I am arguing against a statement that I am literally at war and literally do not know it. Irrespective of the literal translation of the word war, I am aware of the dangers we advocates of freedom face. I agree with your post, but if it is meant to imply at the end that I do not acknowledge these dangers or I am arguing against them then I have to object. What I am arguing is that voting is sticking your toe into the stinking cesspool of immorality inevitably sending out ripples you cannot control. Ripples that will affect real human beings. Ripples that will end lives. We do not know what Trump will do but we do know that politicians do nothing to decrease government power and anything to increase it. The points you outlined have been and are the reasons why we should not vote and therefore not participate in violence without any real evidence it will do anything to protect us. Evidence without which a checkbox in the voting booth will be the voters receipt for a small share of responsibility in the wars that are started and the innocent people imprisoned, forcefully removed from their homes, starved or killed because of that president's actions. Actions which most likely will not be all that different from one ruler to another; so what is the point of signing up for that responsibility no matter how small?