Converting the lefties

[Moriartis]

Hello all,

I recently converted from Lefty-ism and I have had some small success with converting some friends of mine from it as well. I have also had some colossal failures in converting some friends which I am no longer friends with due to the encounters.

I recently had a discussion here on the boards about it and I realized some tactics that actually worked quite well and chipped away(sometimes only marginally) at the dogma of the left in some people I know and I thought I would open up a discussion so that others may possibly benefit from my experience.

To combat the left's propaganda, you must first understand it, obviously. I wanted to be a champion of the left as either an actor or stand up comedian, so I have a really good grasp on how they think. I'm going to list some of their basic religious beliefs. A lot of this will be quite obvious, some of it not so much.

Hatred for Corporations: they see corporations as free market capitalists that want to keep government out of their business so that they can increase poverty and hence their power over the populace. They see corporations as a corrupting influence on government and generally tie all corruption in politics to corporations.

Hatred for Republicans: republicans are rich, white men that want to deny rights/opportunities to women, blacks, gays and any other minority because they hold onto outdated religious/cultural ideas and are generally close minded. therefore, anyone who advocates Capitalism/less government is advocating for the supression of the poor and minorities and is advocating for more corporate control of society.

Democrats are the "good guys": Democrats aren't perfect and all politicians are corrupt, but Democrats are "less" corrupt and are trying to do the right thing. Anything that can be blamed on Republicans instead WILL get blamed on them. Some examples: Democratic Congress votes for war with Iraq, Republican president openly advocates for it. The president gets blamed, congress gets let off the hook. Years later, under a Democratic presidency and a Republican congress, more imperialist foreign policy and police state domestic policy gets enacted, but this time the congress gets blamed and the presidency gets let off the hook. This is also the case with drone strikes, the patriot act, gitmo, etc. The common denominator is that the Democrats are the ones being made excuses for and the Republicans are the ones getting the finger pointed at them. It is worth noting that this is exactly the same but the other way around with Republicans and their justifications for their party, but for our purposes in this conversation it isn't important.

Hatred for Capitalism: Capitalism and Corporatism are the same thing to the left wing. They are unaware that corporations are invented by the state and that all of the problems of corporatism couldn't exist in a stateless society. They confuse the profit motive(i.e. greed) and sometimes money itself with Capitalism. They see the state as the protector of the common man from the predations of the rich. These economic beliefs are all hangovers from Marxism.

Hatred for Bigotry: The left wing despises bigotry, with the notable exception of hating "the rich" or "Republicans". When it comes to social issues, the left wing is very aware of how bullshit collectivism is, which is why they are knows as the champions of trying to defend minorities on social issues. Their clearheadedness ends with the social issues however, because tragically, they don't seem to understand how this applies to economics and aren't consistent with the philosophy. But to be fair, if they were, they'd be Libertarians.

Alright, I think we all get the idea of how they think, so I'll stop beating that thoroughly dead horse.

Now, there are a number of things that I have used in conversation with them that has actually been quite helpful.

First off, I personally believe that all people are inherently rational and that irrational beliefs and world views are only possible due to cognitive dissonance or a lack of knowledge on certain topics. This is of course barring mental trauma due to child abuse.

1. Outrighteous the righteous: A lot of left wing ideology is based on the notion of the oppressed versus the oppressors, another hangover from Marxism. Showing them that you also have a passionate hatred for injustice and oppression from the higher classes while simultaneously explaining that the oppression is coming from and indeed has to come from the government or with considerable government assistance can go a long way in showing them that government regulation is not their friend. That the regulation itself IS the oppression from the ruling class. This takes their compartmentalized beliefs of "rich vs. poor" and "government protects us from the rich" and forces it to sit in a box with "regulation is a tool of the rich", which will challenge their cognitive dissonance.

2. Outpeacing the peaceniks: The actions of the CIA and the FBI go a long way in showing the true colors of the government. Helping them understand that the CIA is a direct reflection of what the president wants because they answer only to him and their actions CAN'T be blamed on the other parts will help them understand how criminal their government really is. There is also considerable hard evidence to back it, so any claims you get of being a "conspiracy theorist" can be easily dismissed with a ten minute visit to www.foia.cia.gov the CIA's own freedom of information act, government run website.

It is very important if you want to use this line of reasoning that you do research on it first, as there are a lot of potential pitfalls. A number of them were overthrown by Republican presidents. The defacto assumption/excuse they will use is to assume it was the policies of Republicans. Familiarize yourself with Mohammed Mossadegh, Patrice Lumumba and Salvatore Allende. Mossadegh and Lumumba were both basically Democrats and would have been upheld to the same esteem as Obama(by Obama supporters) and were killed by Eisenhower(who would today be considered a Democrat, so much so that even Rachel Maddow wrote an article on it) in order to install right wing fascists. Allende, another left wing champion, was taken out by the Nixon administration in 1973. The very important component to this conversation is that these policies, which are literally a direct reflection of the president, DO NOT CHANGE when presidents change. Both Democrats and Republicans are overthrowing the same kind of people and installing the same kind of people. I've attached a link that shows a list of all the US backed coups since 1944. The list never stops. It goes through EVERY ADMINISTRATION, from Roosevelt to Obama.

They will be inherently ignorant as to the character of the people who were assassinated/overthrown and will most likely assume that they were bad men and that the overthrow was somehow justified, just as they do now with drone strikes, so when you educate them on the character of these men, it's important not to attack the left wing ideologies of the leaders but rather to paint them as the crusaders for peace and justice that a left-winger would view them as. If you can get them to see that the government, both Democrat and Republican will call ANYONE a terrorist/communist/anti-american-buzz-word-of-the-day in order to justify killing them for corporate profit, it will be a lot harder for them to justify supporting drone strikes and denying people trials merely because Obama deems it necessary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions

The second part of this is COINTELPRO, brought to my attention by none other than Noam Chomsky. This was a program run by the FBI from 1956-1971, which spans the presidencies of Eisenhower, Johnson and Nixon. It came to light when a small group of political activists suspected the FBI of engaging in black ops against their own people. They took several steps to have the FBI audited and after failing at every step of the way, they took matters into their own hands and broke into FBI headquarters. What they found was incredibly explosive evidence that the FBI was nothing more than the American version of the Nazi Gestapo. They were conducting propaganda, assassinations, intimidations and beatings against anti-war protestors and civil rights movements and most likely had a hand in the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The FBI was also responsible for investigating his murder. The documents discovered were never given ANY mainstream press, with the news media outlets stating that to release that information would be a threat to "national security". This, for me, was a matrix red pill moment. How can we really be a Democracy when the FBI is actively undermining the very concept of Democracy against it's own people? This is a very important piece of information showing the state for the mafia that it is. Martin Luther King Jr's family also took the FBI to civil court over his assassination in 1999 in what should have been an historic case, but was also completely ignored by the media. Their lawyer wrote a book called "An Act of State" detailing the case.

Showing them the cognitive dissonance of being against Republican foreign and police state policy when Democratic foreign and police state policy is virtually identical helps break down those preconceived notions that there is a difference between the parties. Taking their hatred of Republicans and showing them that the Democrats and basically Republicans in disguise is very hard for them to argue against without undermining their own ideology(which they will do).

3. The Against Me Argument: Stef goes into this in great detail in his podcasts, so I won't go into any real depth on it. Suffice it to say, the left wing prides itself on being peaceful, so any time you show them that their ideology is actually incredibly violent it can really shake their foundation. There is a lot of fertile ground here. Showing an anti-war hippie the violence inherent in the system is possibly the best way to get them to give up their Statism. As Stef warns, this is not an argument to break out lightly, so do your research and put some thought into it first.

4. The Cult of Democracy: if you're a statist in America, there's a damn good chance you worship the Constitution and/or the idea of Democracy. The only thing I really "learned" in 12 years in public school was false moral arguments about the superiority of Democracy and how it is the reverse of slavery in that man owns the government and not the other way around.

The best argument I have found against Democracy is the inability to verify votes. Are votes rigged? The default answer should always be "I don't know" until evidence is presented going in either direction. This is very important, the burden of proof is on the person saying that the system IS/ISN'T rigged Assuming one or the other is completely irrational. The evidence for voting being rigged is pretty plentiful. The elections of 2000 and 2004 had massive amounts of claims of voter fraud that were never investigated on a national level, at least not to completion. The primaries of 2008 and 2012 had massive amounts of claims of voter fraud that were also never investigated at all, especially not on a national level. This is more than enough evidence to cast doubt as to the validity of voting.

On the other side of that coin, where is the evidence that it isn't rigged? There isn't any. It is completely impossible to verify votes. It is done in secret by millions of people you can't interview, a large number of whom feel that their secrecy is sacred, so you cannot verify the counts individually even if you tried. It is then counted in secret by people you've never met or programs that were written by people you've never met and cannot verify. It is then compiled by people you've never met and can't verify the identity of and told to you by authority figures that have a vested interest in the total. No matter which way you slice it, it is completely and totally impossible to verify the accuracy of votes. There are too many curtains and too many hands involved to have any clue how accurate it is. To believe in what the authority figures tell you is to assume those in positions of power have no reason to lie. "You know, comrades, that I think in regards to this: I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how: but what is extraordinaritly important is this - who will count the votes and how?" - Stalin.

Add to this the fact that policies don't change when Presidents do(Obama continued every single one of Bush's policies) and the fact that Congress has a single digit approval rating and it becomes pretty obvious that voting is complete bullshit.

Democracy is a complete pipe dream. It is also the bedrock of Socialist ideologies. Showing them this can help to undermine their foundation for their belief system. Or just really piss them off.

Ok, that's all I have for now. I don't know if this will be of any value to anyone, but it's here none the less. If you find any of this to be incorrect or if I've messed up somewhere or you have any other critiques or comments, please let me know. I'm not interested in being right, I'm interested in becoming right, so I am always open to being corrected.

[Magnus]

I have never failed so spectacularly as when I've tried to talk to a lefty about political ideas. 

I don't know why that is. I have a blind spot to whatever motivates them. Which is surprising (and frustrating) to me because in my regular life, I get along great with them -- I'm into weird music and abstract painting and microbrew beer and French movies and all that artsy crap, which are populated by leftists to the tune of about 1,000-to-1.

So I look like I'd be a fellow traveler, but then I say something about how owning a gun is a basic human right, or how freedom of association is at the center of a civilized society. And they soon realize how I feel about taxes, and it all goes downhill extremely quickly. 

It's funny that you mentioned the "voting is bullshit" thing. I hate talking about what I'm writing before I'm done, but the FDR community is a safe place, but I'm about 90% finished working on a book that's all about voter fraud. (I'm probably jinxing it by talking about it.) It's a kind of farce, about a young PR flack who is forced to go on the run with an eccentric crack-pot whose entire job is to rig elections. The crack-pot is trying to blow the whistle on the grand conspiracy, but no one will listen, so their plans keeps backfiring. Anyway, I've had a blast writing it.  I've always assumed that lefties would hate it, but maybe there's hope for it after all! 

[Moriartis]

I have some of the same issues with lefties. I'm a gamer geek and nerd culture is filled with them, so I end up in a lot of similar situations. It's a little worse for me because a couple years ago I was one of them, so the situations are quite awkward.

Your book sounds like a good read. As far as wether or not the left will like it, it depends. If you have a lot of material about rigging elections against the right-wing/libertartian candidates, then they may see it as "far-fetched" or some other such nonsense. To them, people on the left would never ever do something like that because it's the evil Capitalists that are against true Democracy. If the material is about rigging elections against the left wing, they will probably eat it up, because it lets them view their political views as the underdog that is battling against evil, which of course is just more "proof" of how correct their views must be.

Everybody generally accepts that election fraud is a very real thing. Why they still support Democracy believing this is completely beyond me, but they do. So for you purposes, just remember this: Those who worship Democracy worship elections. A story about election fraud is always going to be an exciting read for someone who sees elections as sacred, regardless of their political affiliation. Your book idea definitely has the potential to do very well. I hope you share it with us on the forums when you're done with it. Not for free of course. You get that bad boy published and I'll be your first purchase.

[Jeff Techentin]

Wow, that was incredibly well laid out thank you. I really mostly agree with all that you said except I would stress the focus on first principles more. A lot of the anti-statist arguments work really well on lefties who have this idea of themselves being the people standing up for virtue and the weak smashed when you point out how they constantly support evil vile tyrants. However this does not work on Anarcho-syndicalists or Anarcho- Communists.

The focus on first principles really screws with them because they so fundementally break with them. For ex. 

Syndicalist- Wage slavory is evil should be stomped out

Person B- Interesting, lets see what you mean in terms of action. It is evil to agree with another man or woman to volunterily sell his or her labor to that person for a mutually agreed apon price? We should use violence to stop person A from selling his labor for a mutually aggreed upon price to person B because it is evil? 

I have only really argued over the internet with one syndicalist and after argueing for a little bit I brought the conversation to first principles and than running away (we have arugued repeatedly and this is pretty much always how it ends)

I also feel first principles are less intimidating. They are so so simple that it really doesn't seem like such an investment to learn about like it did when I became a libertarian (months of online research to become a confident voluntaryist)

[Alan C.]

Left-liberals tend to have a victimhood mentality and extreme sense of entitlement.

Conservatives tend to be jingoistic nationalists and religious fanatics.

Obviously, I'm generalizing here and these characteristics can apply to both Left-liberals and Conservatives, but I think that my assessment is pretty accurate.

Disabusing people of nonsense is very difficult if they cling to it for irrational reasons.

[STer]

This is a really interesting discussion. I'm not really a lefty or righty and try to take an independent approach.  But here's what I'll say.

In the OP you said that people are only irrational if it's from cognitive dissonance, ignorance or abuse. But, I think are many levels of reasons a person might be irrational about something, ranging from their personality type being more of a feeling-based decision-making type to poor reasoning skills to an organic brain problem (see the research out there about the biological markers of violence/aggression for example). The ironic thing though is that you mention abuse, which is all too common...and then go on to talk about logical arguments.

One of the most powerful things about FDR is Stef's constant reminder that people's political views are quite often just projections of deep personal hurts, some of which may even be unconscious. When that's the case, you aren't likely to change their political views by talking directly about politics. What is needed is healing of the wounds. They're more likely to come to rational views through therapy than any kind of political discussion.

As far as the actual logic of what you said, it's very interesting and worth discussing and there is a lot I could say on it. But I don't think in terms of converting lefties, but just converting people to healthier approaches in general. There's plenty of dysfunction on the left and the right.

[STer]

I'll add this.

You did a great job in the OP of framing the debate looking at it from a person on the right trying to convert someone on the left. You could do the same from the perspective of someone on the left trying to convert someone on the right. And I think you'd find some mirror image stuff. And what it all comes down to, in my experience is:

"There are bad guys, we need the government to protect us from them" vs. "There are bad guys, they end up in the government if we have one so we need to protect ourselves by not having a government"

The thing is both of these have some merit. Neither of these views is completely wrong. It ends up being a strategic question, a consideration of which someone thinks is riskier - the possibility of bad guys run amok with no entity in existence big and strong enough to stop them (notice the parallel to a child with no adults to intervene and help, one being neglected) or the possiblity of the bad guys hijacking the big strong entity (notice the parallel to a child with adults who are the active bad guys in his or her life).

The thing I always come back to is how many children, when neglected or abused in any way, have to rationalize it. They have to lie to themselves because the truth of the situation is unbearable. And I think often years later what you're dealing with is the remnant of this rationalization. To admit their view is wrong would be to give up the entire fantasy that kept them believing they were safe as children.

But it's important to realize this happens on both sides. For some, the rationalization is "My authority figure is good and will protect me" even when it isn't true. For others the rationalization is "I don't need anyone to protect me. I just need to be left alone. I don't have any need for anyone else" when really those needs are deeply unmet and too painful to admit to.

And it's only after you dig through all these layers of defenses that you can even get to the question of what the actual truth of the matter is.

[Moriartis]

@Jeff: Thanks for the input. I have really no experience whatsoever dealing with Anarcho-Syndicalists or Anarcho-Communitsts. The one experience I had was looking up an anarcho-communist podcast to research other viewpoints. It was a group discussion where everyone involved was basically saying that there were no alternatives other than violence. It was a rather terrifying experience, I couldn't make it through the entire podcast. My purposes here were just to educate on some points that can be brought up in conversation with your average left-wing statist that may help some people in their dealings with them. I will definitely keep what you said in mind though if I ever end up in conversation with syndicalists or communists. I think I need to do more research on anarcho-syndicalists, because the entire concept of that just confuses me.[/font]

@Alan: Yeah I agree, that has been my experience with the left and right as well. My time in the Coast Guard I was surrounded by right wingers, so I have quite a bit of exposure to that ideology.[/font]

@STer: Very valid points. I definitely think that a lot of the trauma and clinging to unresolved childhood issues will prevent a LOT of progress. Stef definitely makes a lot of points on this and I think he's dead on with it, so I would be remiss to attempt to ignore it. Ultimately I think psychology and therapy will do far more to save this world than politics could ever dream, but I'm trying to add my two cents to the movement regardless of how much worth they may have. My intention with what I was saying was more in terms of how to counter typical arguments that one ends up in without breaking into the psychological aspect of it. In order to free a slave, you must first show them they are a slave. My line of reasoning is just an attempt to show someone how the system really works and not how it appears to work or hypothetically works. If you can shake the foundation of those irrational beliefs, you may get them to start asking questions themselves, which is always good. The idea is to put them into a situation where they have to recognize their cognitive dissonance.[/font]

I'm sure the same can definitely be done from the perspective of the right wing as well. I have a LOT of experience on the left. I watched The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Bill Maher and Michael Moore religiously, so I figure my contribution can be to help people understand that perspective.[/font]

[STer]

Moriartis,

It sounds like you have a good grasp on the whole context of this discussion and where your strengths lie. You definitely did a nice job analyzing the issues from the angle you did it from. A lot of good insight.

[Moriartis]

Thanks, I really appreciate that. I'll be sure to post anything else I run into that I think has any value. I'm also going to try to write some comedy with ancap philosophy in mind. If I can come up with anything that isn't terrible I'll post it somewhere here on the forums.

[Mister Mister]

   I have had some success I think.  Being patient, humble, curious, attentive, finding common ground, etc. are all things that lubricate the suppository so to speak (what a horrible metaphor).  I also used to be a lefty, greatly influenced from a passionate yet (as I now realize) confused U.S. history teacher I had in high school.  I probably get along much better with the modern-day liberal than the typical bloodthirsty neo-conservative.  Still, people are surprised to hear me contradict the typical leftist party line on account of my hippy-like appearance and demeanor.  If I were a successful businessman it would be easier to dismiss me as some radical conservative, for reasons that you outlined very well above.    I do think that the hatred of money must be related to some kind of guilt.  Perhaps irrational environmental beliefs fit in this category too.  Many liberal intellectuals are successful, and seem to think the government could spend their money better than them.  When people say "the rich oughta pay their fair share" I say "fair share of what? war? corporate welfare? debt?"  it's insane.    But I think there is some truth to the idea that you really have to get at the roots of a person's history to understand why they may feel a certain way.  I was talking to an anti-property Marxist, talking in circles around trying to point out the logical contradictions in his thought, until I fished out of him that he grew up with a wealthy family in Georgia whom he obviously dislikes, surrounded by poor blacks.  I said "so you think it would be better for armed men to go to your parents' house take money from them and give it to those poor people."  He replied "yes.  that is justice"...

   Stef's argument about "exposing the gun" is incredibly effective.  Everyone will find some aspect of the federal budget destructive or immoral.  As a vegetarian I bring up the simple idea of meat subsidies.  I don't even have the choice to pay 2% less taxes just because I don't want to pay for other people to eat meat, and yet this is punishable by assault, kidnapping, rape, and murder.  Now apply that to oil subsidies, war, corporate welfare, and they may really see the problem.  My parents were going on about Bush and the war and how horrible it is, and I mentioned/explained that this is impossible without both massive taxation and deficit spending/debt and it had a strong effect on them (not to the extent I'd like, but I'm working on it).

  Also exposing the Fed cartel is incredibly effective, a lot of people are starting to understand this, but there is still a lot of confusion about it.  Many people think that the problem with the Fed is that it is a Private Corporation and therefore it would be better for government to run money directly, either as a gold-silver standard or a fiat currency regulated directly by elected officials - Hah!!  The praxeological definition of money and economy as a spontaneous and unplanned really undermines this I think.  Try appealing to a liberal's distaste for monopolies, and pointing to the monopoly on violence, and being the final arbiter, and creation of currency being the most dangerous monopoly of all.

[Moriartis]

I agree that patience and humility are very important when trying to have a conversation with somebody on those topics. Without thoseit's hard to find any common ground and hence make any progress.

I think that the hatred of money/markets comes from a number of places, including victimhood and an underdog syndrome. The left likes to think of itself as on a cross, martyred for being too good and compassionate for this world(like jesus, the king of socialism, is commonly depicted). Money to them is a representation of greed, selfishness and "the bottom line" that is preventing them from having a utopian society where the only thing that matters is compassion and brotherhood. I think this is strongly driven by local propaganda: news stories, movies, etc. Movies like "In Time", which literally depicts money as lifeforce: when it runs out, you die. They see the marketplace not as a meeting of equals in negotiation but as coercion from those who have versus those who do not. Even when they are the ones with the money, they see having to give up that money to exchange it for goods as coercion and being enslaved, so regardless of whether they are selling, buying or trading, to them it's a form of slavery. Regardless of who is the "haves" and who is the "have nots", they are ALWAYS the "have nots". It really is a life of seeing themselves as eternally oppressed. The noble underdog fighting against the tyranny of the greedy; very appealing to someone who wants life to be easy and wants to feel that they are virtuous for wanting that.

I think ultimately it comes down to them viewing "wants" as "needs". Some examples of this I think are optional items in the marketplace. It is not at all necessary for me to own a cell phone. I WANT to own a cell phone because the cost of having one pales in comparison to how much better it makes my life to actually own one. But if you listen to the rhetoric of the left they seem to think that cell phone companies are murdering their customers with unfair prices and catches, all the while forgetting that you don't actually need to own a cell phone if you really think it's that expensive and isn't worth the price. Obviously they are fine with the price because they keep CHOOSING to pay it. The great irony is that they view things that they choose to pay for as some form of extortion while viewing taxation, which is entirely involuntary as something you have a choice in.

I think this mentality is more common than guilt, although I'm not discounting that guilt is probably a factor too(more with some than others, I imagine).

I agree completely that exposing the gun is a very explosive argument. My little rant on "outpeacing the peaceniks" is really in reference to that. You show them that their side of the political spectrum is FILLED with violence and coercion(both in practice and philosophically) in ways that they can't counter and at the very least you'll get them to see that they aren't as peace loving as they like to pretend they are.

[Guest darkskyabove]

Thank you all, for such an enlightened thread. Being a relatively new member, I now wish I had read this topic before posting some of my "dig in the heels" crap. At times, my heart is in the right place, but my words come from a lower region.

I'm reminded of a biblical aphorism: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." I don't respond well to someone aggressively attacking my position, why would I think they would fare any better? So, I'm going to try rephrasing the aphorism: "Talk to others as you would have them talk to you."

Being an anarcho-human (did I just invent that!), and devout atheist (I'm not that comfortable with the term atheist, as it ties one to a false dichotomy), I see the need for a separate, but equivalent, level of insight for "converting the righties". And for converting the "fence-riders".

Actually, I'm not so arrogant as to expect "conversion" of anyone. (Yes, I'm arrogant, just not that arrogant![shocked]) I would like to see people examining the current state of affairs, filtered through the lens of history, and making rational decisions based on a reasonably close approximation to the truth. Can you spell P-I-P-E-D-R-E-A-M? Okay, how about seeing people, unfettered by conditioning, making the best choice they know? Well, I tried.

The one thing I have been noticing to have positive effect, and the posts in this thread reinforce the idea, is that people will rarely make a "snap" decision, no matter what the reasons are. I have had more success by allowing my audience to "sleep on it". More often than not, I have been pleasantly surprised by a philosophical "opponent", days, weeks, even months later, suddenly expressing my own arguments as if they were their own. This, of course, requires that I provided the latitude to digest my argument on their own terms. Without the, ever prevalent, pressure of "I'm right", and "you're wrong". I can, in no way, claim to be expert at this form of debate. I am working to improve.

One of the best examples I know of someone who said the right things in the wrong way is Ayn Rand. Though that statement must be reconciled with the fact that Atlas Shrugged has sold more copies than any book but one: the Bible. (Why the Bible is for sale is ironic, to say say the least. And I may not be exact about the sales claim, but it's close.)

Rand's arrogant posture gave room for fallacious attacks. Not to mention her lifestyle; as we all know, you can't be taken seriously unless you're perfect. Even taken on its own, Rand's style of writing cannot be praised as efficient in convincing, as it comes across as an aggressive attack on all we thought we knew. (That's coming from someone who does appreciate WHAT she said.)

And so, I will continue to work on my communication skills.

Stay tuned...

 

[Moriartis]

Darkskyabove.

Thanks for your reply. I'm glad you found the conversation useful.

I wanted to jump in on something you said about dichotomies. I'm assuming with your reference to Atheism and a false dichotomy you are referring to other options, like Agnositicism. Please correct me if I'm wrong on that. I used to consider myself an Agnostic until I ran into Matt Dillahunty from "The Atheist Experience". It's a television show based out of Austin in which Theists can call in and talk with Atheists about God and what have you. Dillahunty makes the case on several occasions that Atheism and Agnosticism are not mutually exclusive. Knowledge and Belief are not the same thing. If someone asks me if I know whether or not there is a God and I say no, that makes me an Agnostic. That does not, however, having anything to do with Atheism, because knowledge is not necessary for belief. There are plenty of people who say that they believe in God and yet they do not know whether or not one actually exists. This would make them an Agnostic Theist. If you say that you know that there is no God, you would be classified a Gnostic Atheist. Think of it as the titles "Uncle" and "Leo". They regard different things and you can be both because they both are in regards to different topics.

The problem of course is that most people you run into are not aware of this distinction and get fuzzy around monickers. I've had someone tell me that I'm not really an Atheist because I will not they were an Agnostic because they believed in a higher power. This confused the hell out of me, so I asked them what they meant by higher power and they said "you know... like mother nature... or something". So they are telling me that they actively believe in something, but they don't know what it is. Anyway, Dillahunty provides a pretty good standard for how he defines the terms that I think is really concrete and a good way of defining them. I would warn you to stay away from his "logic" on ethics though, he's a liberal Democrat and you're going to get a lot of fuzzy definitions on rights and he'll twist himself into a logic pretzel trying to justify his views.

As to the rest of your post, I agree that giving them time to sleep on it really helps. I was trying to explain to a friend of mine the idea of taxation as extortion and was making the case for the universalization of the NAP in regards to supporting government and he was backing himself into a corner saying that if 90% of people want the other 10% dead than the other 10% should die. I brought up that this is a human rights violation and that if he really felt that way, what was his logical reasoning for being against the Nazi holocaust, because 10% of the populace being wiped out because the other 90% want them dead is virtually the same thing. His response was "well that's what ethics is for". I didn't really respond to that because he was getting pretty heated. That was where the conversation ended. A couple months later though, we had a really long conversation about politics and he was much more understanding and able to listen to what I had to say and actually went with me on it. I essentially changed his mind and he wasn't trying to backpedal to justify collectivist nonsense anymore. I was really surprised as I had almost written him off as to close minded and beyond saving. I don't know what it was about the situation that caused him to come around, but amazingly he did. Perhaps it was sitting with the ideas.

Anyway, those are my two cents on what you said. Please keep us informed as to what you're up to and any successes you have. I look forward to hearing about it.

[Guest darkskyabove]

I've been reading a ton of Murray Rothbard and others at mises.org. Combined with my prior soaking in Rand and trying to decipher what "modern" philosophers/economists are saying (not counting Stefan, as I rarely need to decipher), has left me with one glaring question:

Why hasn't the libertarian/anarchist message captured a larger audience?

I have, so far, found one possible answer. The liberty message is applied as if it is absolute. No room for debate. I accept this, but it is not an effective negotiation tactic. Being right is not, necessarily, enough to convince someone. Oh, that it were!

Are the statists wrong? That's obvious to me. But to people who have spent their lives accepting the statist agenda, and being reinforced by peers and mainstream media, what my side is presenting is not just about changing the way they think about current issues. It requires a re-evaluation of their entire lives. If they accept my reasoning, then they have been wrong for X number of years. This is not to be taken lightly.

A plenitude of information has been available for over 200 years explaining the errors of state power (all of which is possibly coming to an ugly fruition), yet still most do not listen. Why not?

It seems a bit to hasty to blame it all on conditioning: they went to state schools, are flooded with statist propaganda, etc. I know with absolute certainty it is possible to break the mold: I did it! But that's not producing results.

Are we in a "state" of emergency? YES!

But, attacking people's long-held beliefs tends to be counter-productive. They just get defensive.

I guess I'm just repeating what I wrote prior, but I tried to come up with a few, simple guidelines in "converting" the un-convertable.

1. Never attack. Easier said than done. To a rational person, irrational arguments are like a side of beef dangling in front of a hungry lion. If you bite, you will not have convinced them; merely attempted to place yourself in an arbitrary, superior position, from their point of view.

2. Stick to simple, moral arguments. Quoting Mark Twain (popularly attributed to Benjamin Disraeli), "There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics." Statistics are rarely, if ever, convincing. They seem to be more in the "preaching to the choir" category. As to the Argument From Effect, I'll, gladly, defer to Stefan; he has done a magnificent job of both using it, and recognizing its inadequacies. Even the "slippery slope" that is happening before our very eyes has little impact on the obstinate. Welfare was meant to cure poverty. How's that working? Most important: watch for the eye-glaze of incomprehension/indifference. That's a clue that I've said too much, too soon.

3. Give your opponent room to process. Present your case, and allow the jury to deliberate. As I stated before, it is amazing to witness a person, wholly unwilling to bend under direct confrontation, return to the subject at a later date, essentially espousing your argument as if it was their own.

I have attempted to keep this list as short, and simple, as possible. I am far, far from expert in conciliatory communication. Expansion of this idea is surely warranted, and probably has been, I just haven't researched it that much; mostly going by gut here.

PS: I am a Devout Atheist. Being an oxymoron, I define it as 110% Atheist. Not sure how that fits into anyone's "categories".

[STer]

 

I wanted to jump in on something you said about dichotomies. I'm assuming with your reference to Atheism and a false dichotomy you are referring to other options, like Agnositicism. Please correct me if I'm wrong on that. I used to consider myself an Agnostic until I ran into Matt Dillahunty from "The Atheist Experience". It's a television show based out of Austin in which Theists can call in and talk with Atheists about God and what have you. Dillahunty makes the case on several occasions that Atheism and Agnosticism are not mutually exclusive. Knowledge and Belief are not the same thing. If someone asks me if I know whether or not there is a God and I say no, that makes me an Agnostic. That does not, however, having anything to do with Atheism, because knowledge is not necessary for belief. There are plenty of people who say that they believe in God and yet they do not know whether or not one actually exists. This would make them an Agnostic Theist. If you say that you know that there is no God, you would be classified a Gnostic Atheist. Think of it as the titles "Uncle" and "Leo". They regard different things and you can be both because they both are in regards to different topics.

The problem of course is that most people you run into are not aware of this distinction and get fuzzy around monickers. I've had someone tell me that I'm not really an Atheist because I will not they were an Agnostic because they believed in a higher power. This confused the hell out of me, so I asked them what they meant by higher power and they said "you know... like mother nature... or something". So they are telling me that they actively believe in something, but they don't know what it is. Anyway, Dillahunty provides a pretty good standard for how he defines the terms that I think is really concrete and a good way of defining them. I would warn you to stay away from his "logic" on ethics though, he's a liberal Democrat and you're going to get a lot of fuzzy definitions on rights and he'll twist himself into a logic pretzel trying to justify his views.

 

This is yet another example of why I keep saying it's a distraction to keep using these terms - agnostic and atheist, for instance - that are more confusing than helpful. Whatever their accurate meaning may be, that accurate meaning is so seldom understood that using the terms confuses the debate more than facilitating it. And it's all unnecessary if we just skip the labels and go right to the numbers/probabilities.

This was discussed ad nauseum in this thread starting with this post.

[STer]

 

Why hasn't the libertarian/anarchist message captured a larger audience?

 

I think I can give some insight on this since I consider myself very interested in philosophy, decently versed in libertarian thought along with many other schools, open to seeing the value of some of libertarian thought, yet not actually a libertarian, per se.

I think it's important to start with something Stefan brings up all the time. People's views of politics are often projections of their own deepest personal concerns and wounds. Those who felt violated by authorities as children sometimes grow up to be militantly against authority. I am sure that describes many on this site. If authorities hurt you and restricted you in the past, you grow up to disdain authority and value and focus on liberty and freedom which you felt the lack of keenly.

But this only describes some people. There are others on the other side, for example. Imagine you grow up neglected. Your parents don't violate you. Instead they basically ignore you and don't take care of you. You have all the liberty you want. In fact, too much liberty. You may not grow up craving liberty. You grow up craving someone to hold you, to care for you, to be in it with you. You crave guidance because you were forced to make your own decisions before you were ready to do that. A person like this just doesn't have the hair trigger about being oppressed and restricted and lacking freedom. So why would the liberty argument impact them? They don't interpret authorities as bullies who are forcing them to do things they don't want. They interpret them as a welcome outside force of guidance that they lacked and craved just as much as you crave freedom.

There are, of course, many shades of gray in here. But I think it's hugely misguided to think that everyone will or even should value "liberty" more highly than anything else.  Life is full of a balance between liberty and a desire for support. For various reasons, some people wind up craving liberty almost completely. Others grow up desperate for connection and support and not that concerned about being "free." Others fall along the spectrum.

Personally, I try to have a balanced approach. I see a lot of value in libertarian arguments to keep us from going too far to one extreme. But I also feel some of that other side too.

The problem is this idea that libertarianism is "right" and it's too bad that being right isn't enough to convince people. How can it be "right" when it involves values and people don't all share the same values? It's simply the case that not everyone values freedom and liberty the most. And I haven't even gotten into all the levels of why that is, just some of them. And most of all I'm not sure it would even be healthy if everyone in society valued freedom above all.

You have to understand that the libertarian groups draw a certain type of personality - very individualistic, very enthused about making one's own choices. The porcupine symbol describes them. Well not everyone has a porcupine personality. Do you expect that everyone truly has the quills underneath and is just not letting them out? Or do you think maybe the porcupines are just a certain % of society and another large % have a different personality and temperament and set of values?

[STer]

 

This is yet another example of why I keep saying it's a distraction to keep using these terms - agnostic and atheist, for instance - that are more confusing than helpful. Whatever their accurate meaning may be, that accurate meaning is so seldom understood that using the terms confuses the debate more than facilitating it. And it's all unnecessary if we just skip the labels and go right to the numbers/probabilities.

This was discussed ad nauseum in this thread starting with this post.

 

Sorry wrong link. I meant this post.

[Moriartis]

STer,

I completely agree that people have different values, but I don't think that justifies saying libertarian ideas are not "right". If anything, it shows how important it is that people have those liberties to begin with. If someone has a desire to be controlled or comforted or cared for, that is their prerogative and I would never take away their right to make that choice for themselves. The issue is when they try to force these preferences on others by creating systems that take away the right to choose for others.

I think that is the libertarian position in a nutshell and It seems it's the only rationally consistent way to organize a society.

In terms of how one goes about convincing someone that this is the morally correct view, I agree that approaching it from a "live and let live" perspective isn't going to be very convincing to some people, especially if their upbringing psychologically conditioned them to feel the opposite. I think the big difference is that the libertarian ideas are the ONLY ideas that are not actively forcing their opinions on others, which gives everyone the ability to make those decisions for themselves. It's just a matter of finding the best way to convince that person that this actually is better for everybody and morally correct. Obviously that argument will be different for each person.

The important distinction is that theories on social organization are not merely "opinions" and "preferences", they can be tested. We can apply reason, logic and evidence to see if those theories bear fruit. The problem is, all of the theories that apply force and try to maintain order through coercion have all produced massive human rights violations, misery and economic devastation. Therefore it is very easy to conclude that the only morally, rationally consistent way to organize society is to not allow coercion to be socially accepted in the first place.

[Moriartis]

As far as why libertarian ideas have not "caught on", I think the answer is actually pretty obvious. State institutions do not benefit from liberty. People who become imbedded with state institutions do not benefit from liberty. It is in the best interest of the state and anyone living off of it's crimes to encourage people to eschew and abhore liberty.

The only thing I was really taught in 12 years of public school was to love "my country" and "democracy" and various other collectivist, anti-liberty nonsense. It stands to reason that these institutions being state institutions that happen to be teaching people to love the state is not a coincidence. The predations of the state have been grabbing children by the throat and indoctrinating them for 100 or so years in this country.

With an ever-increasing state that has more and more influence with more and more people becoming dependent on it, it seems obvious, to me at least, that this trend of seeing liberty as chaos and slavery as order should be expected to continue under our current social conditions.

Or to put it really simply: Public Education

[masonman]

I think the most telling sign to me that a big part of statist thought is projection (the rest just being propaganda that rides upon those early childhood experiences) is that of the people I bring up freedom and voluntary interaction to, maybe 1 out of 4 respond politely and with curiousity, the other 3 quickly turn to frustration and anger and looking at me like I had just said "Hitler did nothing wrong." Its just like a religious debate, no, it IS a religious debate. Religious debates only come to any reasonable conclusion when your opponent has already started asking questions himself. A statist will cling to his grand faith in statism no matter how calm or rational you are, unless he already feels some skepticism. To tell a statist or a deeply religious person that their beliefs are irrational is to tell them that all the ideas and concepts and beliefs - that have been ingrained into them by all the people they love and all the people that love them - are all lies. Most people can't handle that, and most people will do ANYTHING to avoid having to think about that. In some ways that anger is understandable, it makes sense why its happening, even if its irrational. I remember when I was a Freshman in high school and still hard core conservative and people would bring up Iraq and I would feel real anger and frustration at them even though I didn't really have a lot of facts behind my defense. Its like what was said on the 3/24/13 Sunday Call in Show: "Politics is an arena where people go to be angry." If you watch any people within the standard political views "debate" with each other you can watch this happen. Its just a scream fest at some point. It wasn't until I moved more towards voluntaryist/libertarian ideas that I actually didn't feel that anger (though I still feel plenty of frustration at some people's responses and clear inability to think rationally). I didn't feel like they were "insulting my president" etc. etc. anymore.

[Moriartis]

Masonkiller

I couldn't agree more with your post. After I defected from liberalism and started trying to point out logical inconsistencies to my liberal friends when they would post some pro-Obama nonsense on facebook I was attacked pretty visciously for it and it reminded me of several years beforehand when I would try to have conversations with Christians. There was just so much anger and weak rhetorical excuses to back points.

I, of course, used to get the exact same way when I was a liberal. Liberals are trained to react emotionally to certain cues. If someone's viewpoint can be associated with some form of bigotry or selfishness, then you are conditioned to respond to it with vitriol and disgust even if their point doesn't actually have anything to do with bigorty and selfishness.

It definitely goes back to projection. Any correct philosophy doesn't run away from facts and respond to curiosity or challenges to it's thinking with hatred and rage. This is the exact way I see Christians/Liberals/Conservatives respond to any differing views.

If I had to theorize why this happens, I think it's a matter of degrees of frustration. As a voluntarist, I've already ripped apart and shredded every belief I've ever had, so challenges to those beliefs don't frustrate me that much. Dealing with someone who is being irrational is quite frustrating, but I'm so used to being relatively alone in my belief system that it's something I've come to accept in others, so the frustration turns into amazement and sometimes humor.

Statism, on the other hand, is such an indefensible position that when someone comes up with a huge flaw in the ideology it must be incredibly frustrating to those who haven't done the research trying to refute the evidence. I see this all the time when point out to Obama voters that he's even more pro-war than Bush was. They instantly switch to anger because they have no way of refuting it. So I think in a sense you can use the time frame in which they switch to anger and vitriol as a measure of how flawed their ideology probably is.

[STer]

 

STer,

I completely agree that people have different values, but I don't think that justifies saying libertarian ideas are not "right". If anything, it shows how important it is that people have those liberties to begin with. If someone has a desire to be controlled or comforted or cared for, that is their prerogative and I would never take away their right to make that choice for themselves. The issue is when they try to force these preferences on others by creating systems that take away the right to choose for others.

 

Libertarian values may be optimal for creating a particular kind of society that some people value. But if others don't value that kind of society, they won't find it right. Furthermore, there are plenty of people who genuinely feel that people do have more obligations and responsibilities to others than Libertarians believe they do. And if they were raised in a neglectful environment you can see why they might feel that even more strongly.

 

I think the big difference is that the libertarian ideas are the ONLY ideas that are not actively forcing their opinions on others, which gives everyone the ability to make those decisions for themselves.

 

But many of these people are not as individualistic as you. They don't see the total freedom of the individual as the highest goal. They see people as a blend of individual and connected and with responsibilities to both levels. What you interpret as glorious individual freedom they may interpret as reckless negligence because they have different values.

 

The important distinction is that theories on social organization are not merely "opinions" and "preferences", they can be tested.

 

They can be tested to find out which one brings about a particular outcome more effectively. But people disagree on which outcome they want. Libertarians want to maximize individual freedom (with some limits). Many other people do not want to maximize individual freedom. Some want to maximize interdependence and effectiveness of systems as a whole. Others want to find some nice balance point between individual freedom and responsibility.

 

The problem is, all of the theories that apply force and try to maintain order through coercion have all produced massive human rights violations, misery and economic devastation. Therefore it is very easy to conclude that the only morally, rationally consistent way to organize society is to not allow coercion to be socially accepted in the first place.

 

People who grew up neglected, for example, are keenly aware that misery and devastation can come not only from coercion but from abandonment. Some may be more worried about abandonment than coercion. Others may be worried about both.

[STer]

 

As far as why libertarian ideas have not "caught on", I think the answer is actually pretty obvious. State institutions do not benefit from liberty. People who become imbedded with state institutions do not benefit from liberty. It is in the best interest of the state and anyone living off of it's crimes to encourage people to eschew and abhore liberty.

The only thing I was really taught in 12 years of public school was to love "my country" and "democracy" and various other collectivist, anti-liberty nonsense. It stands to reason that these institutions being state institutions that happen to be teaching people to love the state is not a coincidence. The predations of the state have been grabbing children by the throat and indoctrinating them for 100 or so years in this country.

With an ever-increasing state that has more and more influence with more and more people becoming dependent on it, it seems obvious, to me at least, that this trend of seeing liberty as chaos and slavery as order should be expected to continue under our current social conditions.

Or to put it really simply: Public Education

 

Was your education really that extreme? First of all, did you not even learn to read and write and do basic math in school?

Second, I don't know about you, but even in public school I learned a number of things that didn't reflect well on states. Of course there was plenty of bad stuff about non-American states. But even as far as the US, we learned about things like the internment of the Japanese, the corruption involved in Watergate and so on. Surely it wasn't a nonstop lovefest about the government like in North Korea? Just trying to see if your experience was more extreme than mine or if there is a little more nuance here than was stated.

[STer]

 

I think the most telling sign to me that a big part of statist thought is projection (the rest just being propaganda that rides upon those early childhood experiences) is that of the people I bring up freedom and voluntary interaction to, maybe 1 out of 4 respond politely and with curiousity, the other 3 quickly turn to frustration and anger and looking at me like I had just said "Hitler did nothing wrong." Its just like a religious debate, no, it IS a religious debate. Religious debates only come to any reasonable conclusion when your opponent has already started asking questions himself. A statist will cling to his grand faith in statism no matter how calm or rational you are, unless he already feels some skepticism.

To tell a statist or a deeply religious person that their beliefs are irrational is to tell them that all the ideas and concepts and beliefs - that have been ingrained into them by all the people they love and all the people that love them - are all lies. Most people can't handle that, and most people will do ANYTHING to avoid having to think about that. In some ways that anger is understandable, it makes sense why its happening, even if its irrational.

I remember when I was a Freshman in high school and still hard core conservative and people would bring up Iraq and I would feel real anger and frustration at them even though I didn't really have a lot of facts behind my defense. Its like what was said on the 3/24/13 Sunday Call in Show: "Politics is an arena where people go to be angry." If you watch any people within the standard political views "debate" with each other you can watch this happen. Its just a scream fest at some point. It wasn't until I moved more towards voluntaryist/libertarian ideas that I actually didn't feel that anger (though I still feel plenty of frustration at some people's responses and clear inability to think rationally). I didn't feel like they were "insulting my president" etc. etc. anymore.

 

Leaving out the particular political stance you're taking, I think you make a really important overall point about how people respond to discussions. No matter how rational your argument, the deeper message of telling someone they're wrong is "You can't trust your own perceptions." Agreeing with you means not just admitting they reasoned things out poorly but recognizing that their very perceptual capacities failed them. That is a very scary thing to admit. So people often defend against it. Perhaps one of the challenges here is to make it more "OK to admit you were wrong." Perhaps a lot of the energy that goes into more statistics and reasoned arguments should instead be spent making people feel safe about admitting they were wrong and changing their minds.

Perhaps before even spending so much time promoting a particular philosophy, we should spend time promoting the idea that changing your mind can be cool We can get some beloved endorsers to do commercials about how awesome changing your mind is.

Another thing I really think people here should look into more is the Myers-Briggs groups. You'll notice that only one group specializes in and most highly values logic and reason-based truth. And that group, the Rationals, is one of the less populated ones in our society by a significant margin. You're not going to suddenly change Artisans and Idealists and Guardians into Rationals. Maybe a few who are on the border may move a little. But for the most part people are staying in the group they're in. You'll have to speak to them in the language they speak, not the one you speak.

[STer]

 

I've already ripped apart and shredded every belief I've ever had, so challenges to those beliefs don't frustrate me that much. 

 

This ties into what I just posted. Since you have experience with having your mind changed multiple times, it's lost its ability to upset you so much. You've already faced the fearful fact that your perceptions can lead you astray and come to terms with it. For people who haven't yet done that, it's like they're being asked to start a ride on a roller coaster they haven't been on that you've already ridden multiple times. So they resist and try to get out of it whereas you're like "Oh cmon it's not so bad."

[Moriartis]

 

Libertarian values may be optimal for creating a particular kind of society that some people value. But if others don't value that kind of society, they won't find it right. Furthermore, there are plenty of people who genuinely feel that people do have more obligations and responsibilities to others than Libertarians believe they do. And if they were raised in a neglectful environment you can see why they might feel that even more strongly.

But many of these people are not as individualistic as you. They don't see the total freedom of the individual as the highest goal. They see people as a blend of individual and connected and with responsibilities to both levels. What you interpret as glorious individual freedom they may interpret as reckless negligence because they have different values.

They can be tested to find out which one brings about a particular outcome more effectively. But people disagree on which outcome they want. Libertarians want to maximize individual freedom (with some limits). Many other people do not want to maximize individual freedom. Some want to maximize interdependence and effectiveness of systems as a whole. Others want to find some nice balance point between individual freedom and responsibility.

People who grew up neglected, for example, are keenly aware that misery and devastation can come not only from coercion but from abandonment. Some may be more worried about abandonment than coercion. Others may be worried about both.

 

Very well said. I see your point. I think this makes the case for peaceful parenting and the promotion of the non-agression principle and steps that must be taken if anarcho-capitalism is ever to see any mainstream acceptance.

[Moriartis]

 

Was your education really that extreme? First of all, did you not even learn to read and write and do basic math in school?

Second, I don't know about you, but even in public school I learned a number of things that didn't reflect well on states. Of course there was plenty of bad stuff about non-American states. But even as far as the US, we learned about things like the internment of the Japanese, the corruption involved in Watergate and so on. Surely it wasn't a nonstop lovefest about the government like in North Korea? Just trying to see if your experience was more extreme than mine or if there is a little more nuance here than was stated.

 

Actually, yes, my education was pretty horrific. I had already taught myself to read and use basic math using Garfiend books before I ever attended school. Most of my education regarding the basics was something I explored on my own without any help/guidance from anyone at school. When the time came to approach these subjects in school, I flew through my classes. I was reading Jurassic Park when I was in elementary school and was considered to have a post high school literacy level. My mother was fascinated by science and I had that instilled in me long before public school could get it's clutches into me. Most likely the only reason I have a brain left at all today.

As far as the rest of it, my public school education was the most indoctrinating, white washed version of American history imaginable. It was the one class that I had to take EVERY semester, no matter what. I was taught that Columbus discovered America and with no mentions of his crimes. I was taught that the wars with the Indians were unfortunate, but there was never any mentioning of atrocities that were really commited against them. No talk of burning down their homes while they slept. No talk of their women and children being raped and killed while the men were out hunting, only to return to see their loved one butchered. Most talk of the indians was relegated to talk of Thanksgiving, which is the equivalent of telling people that Hitler gave Jews free showers and then conveniently leaving out the rest of the details and then claiming that you are being honest with them.

I was never taught a single thing about anything more recent than the Civil War. The Civil War was the furthest my American history courses ever got to, and even that was shrouded in nonsense about it being fought over slavery. The only exception to this was the civil rights movement of Martin Luther King Jr, in which the government was treated as the cure to the symptom of a backwards populace that needed to be forced to act right(ironic considering that the FBI was most likely involved in his assassination). The only thing I learned about Hitler was that he was a bad man killing Jews and we stepped in and saved the world, my wonderful government. Everything I ever learned in history classes was entirely propagandised. I had to salute the flag, pledge allegiance, sing anthems. I was taught all sorts of nonsense about how wonderful Democracy is and how important it was to vote. I took place in a mock election when Ross Perot was running for office when I was in the 4th grade. 4th grade. How could that possibly be seen as anything other than indoctrination? Every mentioning of the founding fathers and our system of government was laden with polished, worship-esque rhetoric of how noble and awesome it all was.

My entire education wasn't about how to think, it was about what to think.

Furthermore, there was a growing Marxist sentiment in everything. Even when we were covering works like Animal Farm, Farenheit 451 or Robin Hood, where the bad guy is undeniably the government and the works are clearly intended as criticism of power structures and not money or greed, the emphasis was always on how bad other governments were and on how great and free I was in comparison. The "bad guy" was always greed, and not violence and coercion. My entire education taught me that freedom was something my government gave me. It taught me that "the rich" were the bad guys, not the government. The government were always seen as the protector of the people from the corrupt. This continues all over the national diaologue today. Soldiers "fight for my freedom" and police "protect me from bad guys". Delusional.

I cannot remember a single criticism of my government being taught in class. I never learned about Japanese internment, Watergate, playing both sides of various wars, nothing. I would love to say that I'm blowing it out of proportion or maybe exaggerating, but I'm dead serious. I was taught hardcore Marxist rhetoric about using the government to "protect myself" from the evil that is humanity and nothing about using my humanity to protect myself from the evil that is government.

Later in life I learned about the Prussian model of education. Here is a link to the Wikipedia article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system

Stated explicitly on the wiki page is the fact that our system of public education was specifically set up to indoctrinate children to be obedient to power and to worship the power structure. This of course is exactly opposite of libertarian thinking and it was the intended goal of the Prussian system and one of the main reasons it was brought to America. I realize that if you're just coming across that information, it sounds like crazy conspiracy theory stuff, but it's important to remember that back then(1818-20ish) propaganda was not seen as a bad thing. "Propaganda" didn't become a dirty word until after the years of Hitler when the American government was doing their best to really tarnish the name of Germany during/after the war. So my criticisms of public education and blaming it for the dismal condition of libertarian philosophy in the mainstream is not just a kooky opinion. It comes from trying to understand how the system functions. I think it's a pretty solid hypothesis.

[Moriartis]

 

Another thing I really think people here should look into more is the Myers-Briggs groups. You'll notice that only one group specializes in and most highly values logic and reason-based truth. And that group, the Rationals, is one of the less populated ones in our society by a significant margin. You're not going to suddenly change Artisans and Idealists and Guardians into Rationals. Maybe a few who are on the border may move a little. But for the most part people are staying in the group they're in. You'll have to speak to them in the language they speak, not the one you speak.

 

It's been a long time since I took the test, but I know I wasn't a Rational. I think I was an Idealist. When I was a kid I wanted to be a wise man and I really valued Truth and Compassion. I was vehemently pacifist and what turned me away from politics and towards anarchism was my study of secret government policy in the Middle East/South America/Latin America/Africa. I wasn't into libertarianism until I found out that Ron Paul, a Libertarian(whatever that was) was the only guy calling out the government on it's war crimes. I started paying attention to him and his supporters, which is when the rest of my Marxism was shattered into bits.

So that being said I fully understand what you're getting at. You have to find the thing that really matters to them and approach it from that perspective if you want to get any progress. For me it was being a peacenik. For some it's fiscal policy. For some it's Corporatism. it's always going to be different.

[STer]

 

 

Was your education really that extreme? First of all, did you not even learn to read and write and do basic math in school?

Second, I don't know about you, but even in public school I learned a number of things that didn't reflect well on states. Of course there was plenty of bad stuff about non-American states. But even as far as the US, we learned about things like the internment of the Japanese, the corruption involved in Watergate and so on. Surely it wasn't a nonstop lovefest about the government like in North Korea? Just trying to see if your experience was more extreme than mine or if there is a little more nuance here than was stated.

 

Actually, yes, my education was pretty horrific. I had already taught myself to read and use basic math using Garfiend books before I ever attended school. Most of my education regarding the basics was something I explored on my own without any help/guidance from anyone at school. When the time came to approach these subjects in school, I flew through my classes. I was reading Jurassic Park when I was in elementary school and was considered to have a post high school literacy level. My mother was fascinated by science and I had that instilled in me long before public school could get it's clutches into me. Most likely the only reason I have a brain left at all today.

As far as the rest of it, my public school education was the most indoctrinating, white washed version of American history imaginable. It was the one class that I had to take EVERY semester, no matter what. I was taught that Columbus discovered America and with no mentions of his crimes. I was taught that the wars with the Indians were unfortunate, but there was never any mentioning of atrocities that were really commited against them. No talk of burning down their homes while they slept. No talk of their women and children being raped and killed while the men were out hunting, only to return to see their loved one butchered. Most talk of the indians was relegated to talk of Thanksgiving, which is the equivalent of telling people that Hitler gave Jews free showers and then conveniently leaving out the rest of the details and then claiming that you are being honest with them.

I was never taught a single thing about anything more recent than the Civil War. The Civil War was the furthest my American history courses ever got to, and even that was shrouded in nonsense about it being fought over slavery. The only exception to this was the civil rights movement of Martin Luther King Jr, in which the government was treated as the cure to the symptom of a backwards populace that needed to be forced to act right(ironic considering that the FBI was most likely involved in his assassination). The only thing I learned about Hitler was that he was a bad man killing Jews and we stepped in and saved the world, my wonderful government. Everything I ever learned in history classes was entirely propagandised. I had to salute the flag, pledge allegiance, sing anthems. I was taught all sorts of nonsense about how wonderful Democracy is and how important it was to vote. I took place in a mock election when Ross Perot was running for office when I was in the 4th grade. 4th grade. How could that possibly be seen as anything other than indoctrination? Every mentioning of the founding fathers and our system of government was laden with polished, worship-esque rhetoric of how noble and awesome it all was.

My entire education wasn't about how to think, it was about what to think.

Furthermore, there was a growing Marxist sentiment in everything. Even when we were covering works like Animal Farm, Farenheit 451 or Robin Hood, where the bad guy is undeniably the government and the works are clearly intended as criticism of power structures and not money or greed, the emphasis was always on how bad other governments were and on how great and free I was in comparison. The "bad guy" was always greed, and not violence and coercion. My entire education taught me that freedom was something my government gave me. It taught me that "the rich" were the bad guys, not the government. The government were always seen as the protector of the people from the corrupt. This continues all over the national diaologue today. Soldiers "fight for my freedom" and police "protect me from bad guys". Delusional.

I cannot remember a single criticism of my government being taught in class. I never learned about Japanese internment, Watergate, playing both sides of various wars, nothing. I would love to say that I'm blowing it out of proportion or maybe exaggerating, but I'm dead serious. I was taught hardcore Marxist rhetoric about using the government to "protect myself" from the evil that is humanity and nothing about using my humanity to protect myself from the evil that is government.

Later in life I learned about the Prussian model of education. Here is a link to the Wikipedia article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system

Stated explicitly on the wiki page is the fact that our system of public education was specifically set up to indoctrinate children to be obedient to power and to worship the power structure. This of course is exactly opposite of libertarian thinking and it was the intended goal of the Prussian system and one of the main reasons it was brought to America. I realize that if you're just coming across that information, it sounds like crazy conspiracy theory stuff, but it's important to remember that back then(1818-20ish) propaganda was not seen as a bad thing. "Propaganda" didn't become a dirty word until after the years of Hitler when the American government was doing their best to really tarnish the name of Germany during/after the war. So my criticisms of public education and blaming it for the dismal condition of libertarian philosophy in the mainstream is not just a kooky opinion. It comes from trying to understand how the system functions. I think it's a pretty solid hypothesis.

 

Well if you just happened to be very gifted and learned the basics on your own, that doesn't mean it wasn't being taught in school. It just means you didn't personally need to take advantage of that. Others did. But it also means you could have benefited from some of the advanced or gifted programs some schools offer.

I guess there is some diversity among public schools. Yours sounds very extreme compared to mine. I'm not saying I got an accurate view of history at that level of education. But we certainly learned about some of the dark side of things. It wasn't nearly as over the top as yours sounds like.

[STer]

 

 

Another thing I really think people here should look into more is the Myers-Briggs groups. You'll notice that only one group specializes in and most highly values logic and reason-based truth. And that group, the Rationals, is one of the less populated ones in our society by a significant margin. You're not going to suddenly change Artisans and Idealists and Guardians into Rationals. Maybe a few who are on the border may move a little. But for the most part people are staying in the group they're in. You'll have to speak to them in the language they speak, not the one you speak.

 

It's been a long time since I took the test, but I know I wasn't a Rational. I think I was an Idealist. When I was a kid I wanted to be a wise man and I really valued Truth and Compassion. I was vehemently pacifist and what turned me away from politics and towards anarchism was my study of secret government policy in the Middle East/South America/Latin America/Africa. I wasn't into libertarianism until I found out that Ron Paul, a Libertarian(whatever that was) was the only guy calling out the government on it's war crimes. I started paying attention to him and his supporters, which is when the rest of my Marxism was shattered into bits.

So that being said I fully understand what you're getting at. You have to find the thing that really matters to them and approach it from that perspective if you want to get any progress. For me it was being a peacenik. For some it's fiscal policy. For some it's Corporatism. it's always going to be different.

 

Idealists are also often drawn to ideas like the ones at FDR. Rationals can come to ideas based on logic and reason, Idealists can come at them out of a strong desire for a better world. Guardians and Artisans have different primary values. Guardians value security, often short-term security, most. Artisans value the experience of life - joy, excitement, savoring sensations.

So I'm not surprised if FDR and communities like it are overflowing wtih Rationals and Idealists wondering why those darn others don't see it the same way. These personality type differences are part of why that is.

[Formelyknown]

 

 

 

Another thing I really think people here should look into more is the Myers-Briggs groups. You'll notice that only one group specializes in and most highly values logic and reason-based truth. And that group, the Rationals, is one of the less populated ones in our society by a significant margin. You're not going to suddenly change Artisans and Idealists and Guardians into Rationals. Maybe a few who are on the border may move a little. But for the most part people are staying in the group they're in. You'll have to speak to them in the language they speak, not the one you speak.

 

It's been a long time since I took the test, but I know I wasn't a Rational. I think I was an Idealist. When I was a kid I wanted to be a wise man and I really valued Truth and Compassion. I was vehemently pacifist and what turned me away from politics and towards anarchism was my study of secret government policy in the Middle East/South America/Latin America/Africa. I wasn't into libertarianism until I found out that Ron Paul, a Libertarian(whatever that was) was the only guy calling out the government on it's war crimes. I started paying attention to him and his supporters, which is when the rest of my Marxism was shattered into bits.

So that being said I fully understand what you're getting at. You have to find the thing that really matters to them and approach it from that perspective if you want to get any progress. For me it was being a peacenik. For some it's fiscal policy. For some it's Corporatism. it's always going to be different.

 

Idealists are also often drawn to ideas like the ones at FDR. Rationals can come to ideas based on logic and reason, Idealists can come at them out of a strong desire for a better world. Guardians and Artisans have different primary values. Guardians value security, often short-term security, most. Artisans value the experience of life - joy, excitement, savoring sensations.

So I'm not surprised if FDR and communities like it are overflowing wtih Rationals and Idealists wondering why those darn others don't see it the same way. These personality type differences are part of why that is.

 

             ^

             I

             I

What he said

[Formelyknown]

Another thing. Libertarian suck at humour. We should be able to ridicule poeple like Bill Mayer and look smart at the same time.

 

[View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ybud1Ai1dWQ]

[Moriartis]

 

Well if you just happened to be very gifted and learned the basics on your own, that doesn't mean it wasn't being taught in school. It just means you didn't personally need to take advantage of that. Others did. But it also means you could have benefited from some of the advanced or gifted programs some schools offer.

I guess there is some diversity among public schools. Yours sounds very extreme compared to mine. I'm not saying I got an accurate view of history at that level of education. But we certainly learned about some of the dark side of things. It wasn't nearly as over the top as yours sounds like.

 

I'm not trying to imply that I couldn't or didn't take anything positive away from public school. I went there for 12 years. It would be absurd to think you don't get something positive out of it. My point is not that I didn't get anything out of it, but rather that it does far more harm than good. I also believe that the basics are a lot easier to learn than people tend to think they are. So the only good that public education does can be done better elsewhere. The rest of public education is entirely indoctrination, by design.

To me, real education is what you take away for life. A passion for learning. All of things that stuck with me are things like my passion for philosophy, which had nothing to do with schooling, because I never even had the option to take a philosophy class. Basic skills like reading and writing that could have come from somewhere else are hardly worth all the statist brainwashing.

It's curious to me that your public schooling didn't have that kind of thing in common with mine. You are the first person I've come across that doesn't have stories about saluting flags, pledging allegiance and being taught whitewashed versions of history. Where/when did you go to public school?

[Moriartis]

 

Another thing. Libertarian suck at humour. We should be able to ridicule poeple like Bill Mayer and look smart at the same time.

 

Yeah, the problem with comedy is that it in general has to be written for the lowest common denominator. The moment my views on politics/philosophy changed I no longer had as positive an outlook on my potential comedy career. When things like public school and statist brainwashing are commonplace, it makes it very difficult to get ideas through to people in wity snippets that only take a couple of seconds. It's FAR easier to write comedy that doesn't have to be explained before they'll get the punchline. This is why liberal comedy is everywhere. It's very easy to get it through to people.

To be fair, there are libertarian comedians that are pretty damn good. Bill Hicks, Doug Stanhope, Joe Rogan, to name a few. The problem is that being Libertarian makes you far less marketable in Hollywood, so they will always be less well known.