What Do You Personally Feel Prevented From Doing by Lack of Freedom/Liberty?

[STer]

 

exactly, they can't see the bars of their cage.

 

It's true that there are some bars there that they don't see. It's also true that there are some bars they simply don't care about because they wouldn't want to break through them anyway. And then there are other bars that are more upsetting which are put in place more directly by entities other than the government. So there is a mixture going on.

But you still have to grapple with the reality that, in the West, people really do in fact have quite a large range of freedoms. They may not have some freedoms you would like to have. But they seem to have enough freedoms, at least in terms of their relationship with the government, to be mostly content.

It might be interesting for you to explain which specific actions people would really want to take that the government prevents them from taking, especially ones you really think most people lose sleep over. Unless there are things that people are longing to do and are prevented from doing by the government, many will not perceive it as being caged or to really be that concerned even if you did frame it that way.

[STer]

 

There is no law saying they can't buy a certain car that they really want

Sure there are, there are tens of thousands of them...

http://ericpetersautos.com/2013/06/18/another-car-we-cant-buy/

 

How about not purposely curtailing my full quote which said:

"There is no law saying they can't buy a certain car that they really want
(if there was I bet that would really upset them in a whole other way
if it was one with any popularity at all - and note that I'm talking
here about cars many people would actually really want)"

I went out of my way to put that last part. Do you know of any car that tens of thousands of Americans are really wanting to buy and can't buy due to the law who are upset by that? If so, which car? I'm not denying there may be some cars they can't buy, but it seems most people are pretty content to shrug their shoulders and just choose from the huge range of options that they are allowed to buy. Again, my point being not that there aren't limits the government puts on us, but that within those limits the freedoms are big enough that most people are content with them.

This also is an example of first-world problems. Compare the kind of oppression where people don't have freedom of speech to the "oppression" where an American has to choose from hundreds of available state of the art cars, but can't get a few other ones that aren't allowed. Do you see why they aren't really up in arms?

 

Buying cars at a dealership is a soul sucking process with arm-and-let maintenance and agressive salesmen. People look at this process as natural inevitable... NPR recently did a story about how the entire process of selling and making a car is written into law by the government.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/19/172402376/why-buying-a-car-never-changes

 

And again you seem to not be grasping my point. I'm not saying the government doesn't indirectly create conditions that may lead to circumstances people don't like. I'm saying people don't often perceive it as the government actively oppressing them and taking away their freedoms. In this case, most people probably just perceive it as car dealerships being annoying. They put up with it when they need to, complain to their spouse over dinner how annoying it was, and get on with their lives. Very very few spend time tracing it back to government policies and losing sleep over the whole thing. Why? Because they'd rather just get their new car out on the road and drive around and exercise their large freedom to travel almost anywhere they want in that new car!

[STer]

 

 

I think it's entirely reasonable to assume that people generally don't see govt in quite the same way as the anarchist and libertarian do. However, the state has poured enormous amounts of resources into propaganda over the years, Juxtaposed with the freedom to choose our lifestyles and hold onto at least 50% of our wealth. The state has engineered a magnificently sophisticated form of slavery that allows the average westerner to suspend their belief

Yep, that's the whole trick. Also, the government will teach you about government in school, but only to show how fair and balanced theirs is in comparison to worse ones in history.  The Nazi\Hitler plugin for example, comes pre-installed in our operating system. So when current government is enacting some shitty policy all we do is compare that to a nazi concentration camp and conclude, "Hey no big deal".  I'd bet that even the people in protests getting tear gassed and beaten by riot police are likely not thinking "Fuck ALL of this shit, Statism is immoral!", but rather "Fuck these guys, we need to get these crooks out and vote in some GOOD political leaders!"  The Man IS keeping us down, but if we can't correctly identify who the Man is, then we'll be fighting all the wrong fights.  Government is basically a cheater in the game of life.  People get more riled up about pro athletes using steroids than they do about fundamental and wide-reaching cheating by governments.  So baseball players and cyclists must be tarred and feathered whilst thieves and murderers are elevated as demigods.

 

Students are also taught to respect their teachers and elders. Does that stop children for generations from complaining about the way their schools and parents are limiting their freedoms? No. Because they actually experience those people doing it in a very direct way. Their teachers tell them "You must sit still and not talk." Their parents tell them "You are not going out wearing that shirt." If you try to directly take away a basic freedom from people, they will complain many times despite propaganda. I'm not saying propaganda can't work on the larger scale. Obviously it can. But when you directly take away freedoms enough it becomes harder to hide it.

The government simply isn't the one telling people they can't say what they want to say, wear what they want to wear, go where they want to go on their schedule for the most part. I think that is a big part of why most people are not up in arms about this. Even with propaganda, which certainly can play a role, if the government started telling Americans they can't travel or wear certain clothes or make political speech, I think we both know there would be an uproar. I'm not saying you can't find counterexamples where people will put up with certain degrees of limitation. But there is a point where even Westerners will become quiet upset.

[STer]

 

I think STer's point is not that people are not unfree, but that they are free enough to experience a lot of what the world offers with little hindrance (or so it feels for them). Certainly they will look everywhere else before they equate govt with any hinderance they experience. Of course he can correct me if I mistook his reasoning.

 

 

Yes this is exactly what I'm saying. Obviously we're not completely free. But most people don't care about being completely free, as there are infinite things they simply have no interest in doing. As long as they can do the things they really feel strongly about doing, they will be, for the most part, content. And where they are limited, the limits seem to come more from entities in their personal lives than from the government. Taxes is one big exception that I think most people do notice and feel, but again it isn't enough of a burden on them to push them over the edge.

[nathanm]

People close to you can indeed impose more immediate and apparent restrictions on your life than the government does.  However, rebelling against personal authority is usually not life-threatening.  There's "getting in trouble" and then there's the government.  The government does not show any mercy.  If they want their hundred bucks from you they will not stop until they get it.  You can weasel your way out of a debt you owe to your friends or family, but try doing the same with the government and you are facing inevitable, unavoidable consequences leading to great bodily harm and loss of property.  I don't mean to diminish the emotional impact of familial relations, but man just getting in a minor scrape with the state and you're in a world of hurt very quickly.

[STer]

 

People close to you can indeed impose more immediate and apparent restrictions on your life than the government does.  However, rebelling against personal authority is usually not life-threatening.  There's "getting in trouble" and then there's the government.  The government does not show any mercy.  If they want their hundred bucks from you they will not stop until they get it.  You can weasel your way out of a debt you owe to your friends or family, but try doing the same with the government and you are facing inevitable, unavoidable consequences leading to great bodily harm and loss of property.  I don't mean to diminish the emotional impact of familial relations, but man just getting in a minor scrape with the state and you're in a world of hurt very quickly.

 

No question that the government has a lot more power to harm you if you resist them than others. But the point here is that most people don't perceive all that much reason to resist them on a day to day basis. In those cases where the government does cross the line to where they really do limit a freedom someone values dearly, then those people will probably come to a new awareness on the issue. But that new awareness will be an epiphany precisely because they probably went their whole lives without feeling the government infringing on them too directly.

One exception we could bring up that I'm surprised hasn't been raised is that in some communities people feel that the police stop them too much without good cause and actually do restrict their travel and things like that. And so in that case there might be a feeling of being unfree that others don't necessarily have.

[PatrickC]

I think you're still missing my point. It is not quite the same as slavery since, as you yourself said, people have "the freedom to choose our lifestyles and hold onto at least 50% of our wealth." You can say there is authority involved, hierarchy involved and so on. But you can't honestly call it the same as slavery with those conditions in place. And, as I keep pointing out, this isn't just an illusion. People really do have a large range of everyday freedoms. Do you think slaves are allowed to get a permit to go in a public square with a bullhorn and speak against their masters? No. But people can do that in the West all the time. You can say it's ineffective and doesn't change much if you wish. But they are allowed to do it and so they feel free (and in this way they are indeed free.) It's just not going to resonate with most people comparing their situation in terms of the government to slavery when they feel so accurately free to say and do and move about mostly as they please.

Where you will hear the slavery comparison resonate more is when it comes to employment. People will speak of "wage slavery" and they feel this kind of thing viscerally since at work they actually cannot dress and speak and move as they choose. Their employer can control them in ways the government does not.

I'm not sure I'm missing your point. Where we differ I think, is on the definition of slavery.

So perhaps you consider the term slavery to be too strong for those that only have to hand over a significant portion of their income under the threat of force. Whilst enjoying the rest that the world has to offer. Personally I find it a wholly appropriate term to use myself. But if it is a question of differing definitions then I can live with that and accept your own definition that we are not slaves under 'direct and physical constraint'. Although it does beg the question, 'when does a man stop being a slave'. Is it when he has complete control over his life and his property, or is it when his master stops beating him, but still demands he give him half of his labour in return for that freedom.

[PatrickC]

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQTeQ5yLNXIJZUbsjRoEErDwCvu_2wCAJUp7dmMS4Wc4ZaTeb5S3w

Not that a quote should prove a persons point. But I thought this ladies history with slavery was quite illuminating all the same.

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

[STer]

 

I'm not sure I'm missing your point. Where we differ I think, is on the definition of slavery.

So perhaps you consider the term slavery to be too strong for those that only have to hand over a significant portion of their income under the threat of force

 

Yes I do. By that definition, if the Mafia (or anyone else) extorts protection money out of someone, then that person has now become a slave. I hardly think that definition fits.

I agree with you that we're defining slavery differently. More importantly, I think people care a lot more about the nature of their situation than what you label it. If you want to call this situation where most people keep most of their money, some of it is taken but they see public services offered as a result, and other than that they mostly come and go as they please "slavery" then I guess you can do that. But I doubt most people will care what you call it as long as they can continue to engage in their freedoms. Letting people live a life marked by a level of freedom that they are mostly content with but debating whether to call it "slavery" or not is probably not focusing on what matters to the people themselves.

[STer]

 

Not that a quote should prove a persons point. But I thought this ladies history with slavery was quite illuminating all the same.

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

 

Yes she makes a very correct point that sometimes people who are slaves don't realize they are slaves. There is also the famous Goethe quote "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."

But it just goes back to my last post. Debating the semantics of whether to call a modern Westerner's situation "slavery" or just a certain degree of limited freedom is kind of irrelevant in terms of activism. If people are content with the level of freedom they have then not only will they not really care what you label it, but if you try to convince them it's "slavery" you will more than likely just lose credibility since that doesn't match their experience.

I honestly think the "freedom" argument is just not that strong an argument in the West because it quite honestly does not speak to so many of the more viscerally felt concerns of people, not the least of which, as I've mentioned, are the very opposite feelings - feelings of being neglected, lost and abandoned. Until libertarians and anarchists have a good answer to those feelings, they will be missing a huge part of their potential audience.

[DoubtingThomas]

 

I honestly think the "freedom" argument is just not that strong an argument in the West because it quite honestly does not speak to so many of the more viscerally felt concerns of people, not the least of which, as I've mentioned, are the very opposite feelings - feelings of being neglected, lost and abandoned. Until libertarians and anarchists have a good answer to those feelings, they will be missing a huge part of their potential audience.

 

I agree with this asessment. Arguments for freedom are imperfect tools when the listener has no "free" point of comparison.

That said, I don't think it's possible for any non-collectivist ideology to strongly appeal to the "neglected, lost, and abandoned," at large. The appeal of liberalism is exactly its ability to coopt just such a person. They offer a social heirarchy with the most oppressed and neglected seated at the top and copious amounts of stand-in parenting from the state. If there were such a corrolarry in the libertarian movement, it would probably migrate to the neocons or liberals.

[MrCapitalism]

Agreed. I personally feel that the ideas of liberty tend to reduce these feelings of abandonment, confusion, and neglect instead of appeal to them. It comes as a sudden assault upon that mentality, and takes some work to plow through. The ideas (e.g. NAP, property rights, ciminality of government, free market) tend to show people their place in society, which helps reduce their feelings of being lost (now you know where you are, even if you don't like it), abandonment (this feeling isn't empathized with or enabled.. it's basically like "yeah, you were abandoned by society..that really sucke....time to deal with it"), and neglect ("you're not being neglected, you're being actively assaulted and decieved"). These feelings are very quickly confronted in this philosophy, and they pretty much never survive in any debilatating way.

[STer]

 

 

I honestly think the "freedom" argument is just not that strong an argument in the West because it quite honestly does not speak to so many of the more viscerally felt concerns of people, not the least of which, as I've mentioned, are the very opposite feelings - feelings of being neglected, lost and abandoned. Until libertarians and anarchists have a good answer to those feelings, they will be missing a huge part of their potential audience.

 

I agree with this asessment. Arguments for freedom are imperfect tools when the listener has no "free" point of comparison.

That said, I don't think it's possible for any non-collectivist ideology to strongly appeal to the "neglected, lost, and abandoned," at large. The appeal of liberalism is exactly its ability to coopt just such a person. They offer a social heirarchy with the most oppressed and neglected seated at the top and copious amounts of stand-in parenting from the state. If there were such a corrolarry in the libertarian movement, it would probably migrate to the neocons or liberals.

 

And I think this reflects one of the major problems for philosophies that make a fetish of the individual. People feel neglected, lost and abandoned because humans are not only social creatures, but creatures that evolved for hundreds of thousands of years in tribes. They are born "wired" to expect to be part of a group from birth to death, for better or worse. The very very sudden transition to a viewpoint of extreme individualism is quite difficult for such a creature to adapt to. Libertarians and anarchists don't seem to offer much of a practical solution to this. Philosophically, they can say "We still love groups, but the groups need to be voluntary and freely chosen by all involved." But that isn't of much comfort to someone who is unable to find such a group. And that is a very real practical problem for which the libertarian/anarchist communities don't seem to have any answer.

[STer]

 

Agreed. I personally feel that the ideas of liberty tend to reduce these feelings of abandonment, confusion, and neglect instead of appeal to them. It comes as a sudden assault upon that mentality, and takes some work to plow through. The ideas (e.g. NAP, property rights, ciminality of government, free market) tend to show people their place in society, which helps reduce their feelings of being lost (now you know where you are, even if you don't like it), abandonment (this feeling isn't empathized with or enabled.. it's basically like "yeah, you were abandoned by society..that really sucke....time to deal with it"), and neglect ("you're not being neglected, you're being actively assaulted and decieved"). These feelings are very quickly confronted in this philosophy, and they pretty much never survive in any debilatating way.

 

Just because this way of seeing the world might offer some explanation for why a person is in an abandoned and neglected social situation, which could certainly be helpful, that doesn't mean it offers any solution. Abandoned and neglected people don't just want to know why they are in that position. They want to know how to get out of it.

[DoubtingThomas]

 

And I think this reflects one of the major problems for philosophies that make a fetish of the individual. People feel neglected, lost and abandoned because humans are not only social creatures, but creatures that evolved for hundreds of thousands of years in tribes. They are born "wired" to expect to be part of a group from birth to death, for better or worse. The very very sudden transition to a viewpoint of extreme individualism is quite difficult for such a creature to adapt to. Libertarians and anarchists don't seem to offer much of a practical solution to this. Philosophically, they can say "We still love groups, but the groups need to be voluntary and freely chosen by all involved." But that isn't of much comfort to someone who is unable to find such a group. And that is a very real practical problem for which the libertarian/anarchist communities don't seem to have any answer.

 

I think that more accurately describes minarchists, specifically objectivists.

The family and the local community are what represents the libertarian philosophy on the tribal front. While that is once removed from the artificial classes and cultural divides generated by so many centuries of politics, it shouldn't be said that it would be no comfort to someone who readily understood the tradeoff.

The practical problem is that the chronically disposessed, who have no notion of a family or community outside the superficial political sense of the word, will not respond in the short-term to any such appeal.

So while I agree you hit on a problem and I don't see the answer either. I don't think it's quite as polar as you describe.

[MrCapitalism]

They want to know how to get out of it.

What if they can't?

 

[PatrickC]

But it just goes back to my last post. Debating the semantics of whether to call a modern Westerner's situation "slavery" or just a certain degree of limited freedom is kind of irrelevant in terms of activism.

Yea, I don't wish to debate semantics myself. I think we have both laid out our positions fairly well. I disagree, but I think you know why of course. However I did find the discussion an interesting and productive way (at least for me) to find empathy with people. Perhaps that is a leftfield way of looking at it for some, but I certainly appreciated the challenge.

[Magnus]

 

 

Not that a quote should prove a persons point. But I thought this ladies history with slavery was quite illuminating all the same.

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

 

Yes she makes a very correct point that sometimes people who are slaves don't realize they are slaves. There is also the famous Goethe quote "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."

But it just goes back to my last post. Debating the semantics of whether to call a modern Westerner's situation "slavery" or just a certain degree of limited freedom is kind of irrelevant in terms of activism. If people are content with the level of freedom they have then not only will they not really care what you label it, but if you try to convince them it's "slavery" you will more than likely just lose credibility since that doesn't match their experience.

I honestly think the "freedom" argument is just not that strong an argument in the West because it quite honestly does not speak to so many of the more viscerally felt concerns of people, not the least of which, as I've mentioned, are the very opposite feelings - feelings of being neglected, lost and abandoned. Until libertarians and anarchists have a good answer to those feelings, they will be missing a huge part of their potential audience.

 

Libertarians (and anarchists, presumably) tend to rank Liberty as their highest value, so they see every issue according to where it falls on that scale, ranging from total freedom on one end to total control on the other.

Conservatives consider Civilization to be their most important value, to which all other matters take a back seat.  That's why they are so hot about advancing cultural issues, and are so willing to sacrifice their (stated) free-market principles in order to win some minor short-term political battle on a social issue.  They actually care more about those social issues than they do about economic freedom.  They have a very hard time thinking in any terms ofher than the past and tradition, and find it almost impossible to think in terms of alternate (hypothetical or counter-factual) scenarios.  This is why they're obsessed with history.

Leftists rank Oppression as their most important issue.  They see everything as a matter of power, and the differentials in power.  This means EVERYTHING to them, and all relationships are interpreted according to their Power attributes.  They assume, deep within the recesses of their minds, that the State must exist, or else the Powerful will run amok.  They cannot conceive of a State that IS the right arm of the Oppressors. They are perfectly willing to perpetuate slavery if it means that everyone is equally enslaved.  That's why they have no problem with global government and HATE the idea that the Powerful can go places that the State cannot go.  Hence, the Internationalism of most variations of socialism.

In appealing to Lefties and RIghties, we not only have to modulate our priorities, but our core language.  If you portray the government as the instrument of Oppression by the Powerful, then you'll get tons of traction with the Left.  If you argue that the freest societies are also the most traditional, Righties eat it up.

[STer]

 

They want to know how to get out of it.

What if they can't?

 

 

Even if they can't, they are going to be a lot more interested in a philosophy that speaks to their feeling of being abandoned and neglected than one that constantly harps on the need for more and more freedom which they don't feel they are really missing to begin with.

[STer]

 

Libertarians (and anarchists, presumably) tend to rank Liberty as their highest value, so they see every issue according to where it falls on that scale, ranging from total freedom on one end to total control on the other.

 

And this is, to me, a huge fundamental problem because health requires a balance of opposing values. To take a spectrum like freedom and responsibility and choose one side and make it your highest value, rather than to value a healthy balance, is almost inherently misguided to me.

 

Conservatives consider Civilization to be their most important value, to which all other matters take a back seat.  That's why they are so hot about advancing cultural issues, and are so willing to sacrifice their (stated) free-market principles in order to win some minor short-term political battle on a social issue.  They actually care more about those social issues than they do about economic freedom.  They have a very hard time thinking in any terms ofher than the past and tradition, and find it almost impossible to think in terms of alternate (hypothetical or counter-factual) scenarios.  This is why they're obsessed with history.

 

Interesting way to frame it.

 

Leftists rank Oppression as their most important issue.  They see everything as a matter of power, and the differentials in power.  This means EVERYTHING to them, and all relationships are interpreted according to their Power attributes.  They assume, deep within the recesses of their minds, that the State must exist, or else the Powerful will run amok.  They cannot conceive of a State that IS the right arm of the Oppressors. They are perfectly willing to perpetuate slavery if it means that everyone is equally enslaved.  That's why they have no problem with global government and HATE the idea that the Powerful can go places that the State cannot go.  Hence, the Internationalism of most variations of socialism.

 

Also a very interesting way to frame it.

 

In appealing to Lefties and RIghties, we not only have to modulate our priorities, but our core language.  If you portray the government as the instrument of Oppression by the Powerful, then you'll get tons of traction with the Left.  If you argue that the freest societies are also the most traditional, Righties eat it up.

 

I like the way that you're thinking about this overall. You are obviously using stereotypes of the most archetypal person in each category. But the point is well made. I could find it if I took the time to search, but I posted a very similar post to this a while back myself.

The main difference between us here (and correct me if I'm wrong about your view) is that you seem convinced the state IS, as a rule, always the instrument of oppression by the powerful, never the protector. I think you can have situations where the state is the oppressor and situations where some other element is even more oppressive and the state does step in and mitigate it. It isn't a black and white issue.

Either way, you're zeroing in on the key question behind all this for me too.

As I phrased it in one of my blog posts

"The key question is this:

Is government the concentration of evil or a protector against evil?"

[DoubtingThomas]

As I phrased it in one of my blog posts

"The key question is this:

Is government the concentration of evil or a protector against evil?"

 

In what way does government protect against evil?

 

[STer]

 

As I phrased it in one of my blog posts

"The key question is this:

Is government the concentration of evil or a protector against evil?"

 

In what way does government protect against evil?

 

 

You can cite many cases.  Some of the best examples of how this is not as black and white as people make it are cases where one government entity protects someone from harm from another government entity. For instance, you can look at cases where a state government enabled or tolerated racial discrimination and the federal government intervened to prevent that. You can also look at cases where a citizen sues the government over a violation of their rights and a court (another government entity) finds in the citizen's favor. Or how about when corrupt government officials are prosecuted and sent to jail by a court?

Now we can talk all day about the complexities involved. I'm certainly not going to the other extreme and saying government is only the protector. I'm saying many governments play both roles at different times (or sometimes even at the same time) It's not as simple as that the government only oppresses people and never helps them obtain justice. Sometimes the government will even protect people from harm about to be done by others in the very same government. It shows how mixed things are on this question of whether government is a concentration of evil or a protector against evil. And I think that explains why people are so confused about which one it is.

[DoubtingThomas]

 

You can cite many cases.  Some of the best examples of how this is not as black and white as people make it are cases where one government entity protects someone from harm from another government entity. For instance, you can look at cases where a state government enabled or tolerated racial discrimination and the federal government intervened to prevent that. You can also look at cases where a citizen sues the government over a violation of their rights and a court (another government entity) finds in the citizen's favor. Or how about when corrupt government officials are prosecuted and sent to jail by a court?

 

The problem is all of those cases are brought about by government. Institutional racism was a product of legal restrictions on certain ethnicities. Socially normative racial prejudice can't be displaced by government, at least not a democratic one, because the implication is that the majority of persons want that descrimination. To the extent that the government does step in to hamper such activity is the extent that popular opinion is already against such practices. The second and third example are even more cut and dry versions of this. The Federal government steps in to check state government. The Judicial branch steps in to prosecute a member of the executive. These are all examples of government solving some of the problems directly associated with itself, not protecting from some outside evil.

 

Now we can talk all day about the complexities involved. I'm certainly not going to the other extreme and saying government is only the protector. I'm saying many governments play both roles at different times (or sometimes even at the same time) It's not as simple as that the government only oppresses people and never helps them obtain justice. Sometimes the government will even protect people from harm about to be done by others in the very same government. It shows how mixed things are on this question of whether government is a concentration of evil or a protector against evil. And I think that explains why people are so confused about which one it is.

 

Right, I do agree with the premise that government can protect people from other governments or other parts of the same government, but that doesn't seem like a strong appeal to the idea of government protecting against evil. It's more apt, I think, to say that government, on occasion, limits the output of its own evil.

[J-William]

If you want to talk about the practical realities of the state (instead of the morality of theft, coercion, and murder) then you will almost always be wasting your time.

Because the biggest practical negatives of the state are the unseen costs and the unknowable lost opportunity. If the murder, theft and coercion of the state are not enough to convince someone that the state is dangerous... well maybe it's time to move on, time is short and there are lots of other people you could be talking to.

[STer]

DoubtingThomas,

I think you missed my point completely. I purposely chose cases where the government was doing something "evil" and then another part of the government protected someone from that "evil" to show how the very same entity can not only do both, but even do both at the same time. This is the most stark type of example of why people have mixed feelings about whether government concentrates evil or protects from evil. It's much easier to give examples where the government just protects someone from "evil." Those are a dime a dozen. A person is assaulted by a neighbor and a policeman saves them and a zillion other examples along those types of lines. And it's also easy to give examples of where government is just "evil" like when a corrupt dictator has thousands of people killed for political reasons.The entire point of all this is to show why people who try to figure out "Is government the concentration of evil or the protector from evil?" will often get very confused. They can not only see cases of both, but even cases where different government entities are both at the same time and even against each other. So my goal was to show the complexity that goes into people's perception of the answer to that question. Therefore, I purposely skipped the infinite and simple-to-find examples where it's one or the other and showed that it's even more confusing than that.

[STer]

 

If you want to talk about the practical realities of the state (instead of the morality of theft, coercion, and murder) then you will almost always be wasting your time.

Because the biggest practical negatives of the state are the unseen costs and the unknowable lost opportunity. If the murder, theft and coercion of the state are not enough to convince someone that the state is dangerous... well maybe it's time to move on, time is short and there are lots of other people you could be talking to.

 

People don't only see murder, theft and coercion by the state though. They also see the state locking up murderers and thieves. They see policemen working hard to catch murderers (in fact, they complain when they don't see it enough because they want to see it more and they salute them heartily when they do see a widely publicized example such as in Boston a few months ago). You have to understand this. When it comes to what people see on a day to day basis, it is a big mix of government doing things they don't like and government protecting them against things other people do that they don't like.

If you can't wrap your head around why the average person sees government as both sometimes evil and sometimes the protector against evil, then you aren't open to the full spectrum of examples people see.

As an anti-statist, no doubt you can give a long principled argument about why the cost isn't worth the benefit. But I think you lose credibility if you try to oversimplify and claim that there aren't any people in government that are there because they honestly want to protect people and who sometimes do protect people. To simply state "The government is always perpetrating evil and never protects people from evil" just flies in the face of people's experience. So I think the more honest and accurate argument that you can make, if this is how you feel, is simply that the costs outweigh the benefits and that there are better ways to have that protection that will be more efficient and effective. You can at least then have a discussion about that. But trying to deny the state ever protects people sounds delusional to most people and actually rightly so.

[DaisyAnarchist]

I think you missed my point completely. I purposely chose cases where the government was doing something "evil" and then another part of the government protected someone from that "evil" to show how the very same entity can not only do both, but even do both at the same time.

But how "good" is an entity that uses bad methods (taxation) in order to carry out "good ends" ?

I don't think there is any kind of blur at all. While it may be true that government is able to protect some people from "evil," how is it able to provide that protection in the first place? 

I would also not deny that politicians and government agents can have good intentions. Good intentions don't directly translate into good actions, though. 

EDIT: Hopefuly I can revise and add to this before you respond. I see what you mean about people's perceptions. The only thing that comes to mind that I can respond quickly with is that a lot of people believe in faulty moral systems. That is, in systems where "the ends justify the means," and government operates for the greater good despite bad methods. So, that is another challenge in making a compelling argument against the state; to convince people that they need to reevaluate what morality actually is. 

[STer]

 

I think you missed my point completely. I purposely chose cases where the government was doing something "evil" and then another part of the government protected someone from that "evil" to show how the very same entity can not only do both, but even do both at the same time.

But how "good" is an entity that uses bad methods (taxation) in order to carry out "good ends" ?

I don't think there is any kind of blur at all. While it may be true that government is able to protect some people from "evil," how is it able to provide that protection in the first place? 

I would also not deny that politicians and government agents can have good intentions. Good intentions don't directly translate into good actions, though. 

EDIT: Hopefuly I can revise and add to this before you respond. I see what you mean about people's perceptions. The only thing that comes to mind that I can respond quickly with is that a lot of people believe in faulty moral systems. That is, in systems where "the ends justify the means," and government operates for the greater good despite bad methods. So, that is another challenge in making a compelling argument against the state; to convince people that they need to reevaluate what morality actually is. 

 

Oh ok, I was about to respond. But I'll wait and give you some time to clarify if you want. Let me know when you have said what you want to say and then I'll take a look at it.

[Magnus]

 

 

As I phrased it in one of my blog posts

"The key question is this:

Is government the concentration of evil or a protector against evil?"

 

In what way does government protect against evil?

 

 

You can cite many cases.  Some of the best examples of how this is not as black and white as people make it are cases where one government entity protects someone from harm from another government entity. For instance, you can look at cases where a state government enabled or tolerated racial discrimination and the federal government intervened to prevent that. You can also look at cases where a citizen sues the government over a violation of their rights and a court (another government entity) finds in the citizen's favor. Or how about when corrupt government officials are prosecuted and sent to jail by a court?

Now we can talk all day about the complexities involved. I'm certainly not going to the other extreme and saying government is only the protector. I'm saying many governments play both roles at different times (or sometimes even at the same time) It's not as simple as that the government only oppresses people and never helps them obtain justice. Sometimes the government will even protect people from harm about to be done by others in the very same government. It shows how mixed things are on this question of whether government is a concentration of evil or a protector against evil. And I think that explains why people are so confused about which one it is.

 

Racial discrimination is not evil.

Forcing people to refrain from racial discrimination is evil. 

I do not understand how you can spend any significant amount of time here and not grasp this basic idea -- adult relationships are voluntary.  People can freely choose to associate only with men, or with women, or tall people, or short people, or bald people, or hairy people, or sci-fi fans, or Luddites, or Francophiles, or Anglophiles, or ....

When the State labels any kind of voluntary association (or disassociation) as evil, and then uses force to compel the State's preferred modes of association (or disassociation), that itself is evil.  It's completely indefensible.

As far as the State being a mixed bag of good and evil, because it catches murderers and thieves, I'd say that the overall "balance" between the evil committed by the State and the countervailing good it does comes out to at least 99% evil to maybe 1% (marginal) sort-of good.  The catching of (true) criminals is about 1% of what the State does, if that. 

But here's the thing -- even then, they do it badly.  The State's criminal response system is insanely expensive, just like the way they build roads for 100 times the appropriate cost.  And the system of responding to criminals solves almost none of the problems it purports to solve.  It puts young criminals in prisons with experienced criminals, effectively training the young ones to become better criminals. 

And the other 99% of the State's activities is a major contributor to the existence of criminality in the first place.  There wouldn't BE as many murders and thieves if the State did not destroy economic opportunity on a daily basis.

[DoubtingThomas]

The entire point of all this is to show why people who try to figure out "Is government the concentration of evil or the protector from evil?" will often get very confused. They can not only see cases of both, but even cases where different government entities are both at the same time and even against each other. So my goal was to show the complexity that goes into people's perception of the answer to that question. Therefore, I purposely skipped the infinite and simple-to-find examples where it's one or the other and showed that it's even more confusing than that.

 

So your goal was to avoid answering my question directly. How about another one then, this a little more direct:

Where does government protect from evil that doesn't originate from government?

[STer]

 

Racial discrimination is not evil.

 

It really doesn't matter if you personally think it is or not. Many people believe it is and when they see government entities protecting against it that registers as an example of a government protecting from evil. Hence, a good example of why they have mixed feelings about government creating vs. protecting against evil.

Also, this was even going on in public institutions like public schools. You may not like the existence of public schools, but if they exist, surely THEY shouldn't be discriminating on the basis of race. Yet they were. There was also race-based discrimination in voting, which the federal government helped fix. So you can argue that you think discrimination is OK in private interactions. And you can argue that we should only have private interactions. But as long as we have public institutions, even you must admit we should not have governments themselves discriminating that way. And so when another government entity comes in and ends discrimination in ANOTHER PUBLIC INSTITUTION that is protection from an evil, I think even you must agree. But again, even if you don't agree, it still doesn't matter in terms of how that affects public perception of government, which is really the focus here.

But in the larger principle, you make my point for me even better than I did. I showed that it's so complex that different government entities can both create and protect against "evil" at the same time. YOU took it one step further and showed that government can do one act that has both evil and protective aspects at the same time. So it's even more mixed than I had pointed out. When it comes to certain private interactions, you look at the same act that many people would point to as a hugely protective measure and see that very same act as an evil measure. That's because you focus on one aspect of it and others focus on another aspect of it. So again, is there any wonder people are confused whether government is evil or protective?

 

As far as the State being a mixed bag of good and evil, because it catches murderers and thieves, I'd say that the overall "balance" between the evil committed by the State and the countervailing good it does comes out to at least 99% evil to maybe 1% (marginal) sort-of good.  The catching of (true) criminals is about 1% of what the State does, if that. 

But here's the thing -- even then, they do it badly.  The State's criminal response system is insanely expensive, just like the way they build roads for 100 times the appropriate cost.  And the system of responding to criminals solves almost none of the problems it purports to solve.  It puts young criminals in prisons with experienced criminals, effectively training the young ones to become better criminals. 

And the other 99% of the State's activities is a major contributor to the existence of criminality in the first place.  There wouldn't BE as many murders and thieves if the State did not destroy economic opportunity on a daily basis.

 

Well like I said, it is a more valid argument to try to convince people that the bad outweighs the good and that there are more cost-efficient ways to get the same protection done. It is not valid to claim the government is always the perpetrator or evil and never the protector from it. That's just factually false (at least based on a basic understanding of things like rape, murder, child abuse and so on as evil.) There is just no question that government entities sometimes protect people from those things. And I'd say your 99% is just a made up number. I doubt it's 99% either. But regardless, if you can show it's a net loss, that is a more credible argument.

But there is an even larger and more important point that your response brings to light. It's very clear that my goal in this thread is to expose the gap between some common libertarian/anarchist arguments and public perception on things like freedom, protection from evil, etc.. Your disgust for the state, even if merited, which is another issue, is so virulent that you can't even put it aside long enough to focus on the perception issue. This is not about whether you like the state or think it's good. Nor is it really a thread where it makes sense for you to launch into arguments about why government is bad as if you have to convince me, which would be beside the point. The thread is focusing on the fact that I don't think the standard libertarian/anarchist arguments are very effective in modern Western societies and why that is. I think one of the most troubling patterns with activists in this space is when they can't put aside their "anti-government rant mode" (for lack of a better term) to focus on particular aspects of the discussion separate from just launching into the usual argument. I find it worth noting that you would see a discussion that is about public perception and still jump right back into the most cliche anti-government arguments, not even aware that it wasn't relevant to the topic, since the topic is about public perception and what kind of message is likely to resonate with them, not about what you personally think. In fact, it's even ironic that in a thread where I'm explaining why the public does not feel much resonance with these types of arguments, you still saw fit to revert to some of those very same arguments.

[STer]

 

The entire point of all this is to show why people who try to figure out "Is government the concentration of evil or the protector from evil?" will often get very confused. They can not only see cases of both, but even cases where different government entities are both at the same time and even against each other. So my goal was to show the complexity that goes into people's perception of the answer to that question. Therefore, I purposely skipped the infinite and simple-to-find examples where it's one or the other and showed that it's even more confusing than that.

 

So your goal was to avoid answering my question directly. How about another one then, this a little more direct:

Where does government protect from evil that doesn't originate from government?

 

It seems more like you selectively quoted my response to leave out the part where I already answered your question, which was only two sentences before the part you did quote, which leaves me wondering if you somehow missed seeing it or rather just decided to be provocative and troublemaking by pretending not to have seen it and then claiming I chose not to answer your question when instead you chose to ignore my answer. You also continue to oddly miss the fact that cases where government protects from evil created by other elements in the government supports my point more than the other cases, not less. If you don't realize that then you may want to reread to understand the point I'm making better because you must be missing the purpose of my argument. Talking about cases where government is solely protective is fine. It's a perfectly interesting discussion to have. But it's a far less compelling one when the topic is "Why do people have such mixed feelings about the government's relationship to evil?" If you're making a case for why people have mixed feelings, showing that government can be both at the same time is a lot more of an example of that than showing it can be one or the other.

[J-William]

 

 

If you want to talk about the practical realities of the state (instead of the morality of theft, coercion, and murder) then you will almost always be wasting your time.

Because the biggest practical negatives of the state are the unseen costs and the unknowable lost opportunity. If the murder, theft and coercion of the state are not enough to convince someone that the state is dangerous... well maybe it's time to move on, time is short and there are lots of other people you could be talking to.

 

People don't only see murder, theft and coercion by the state though. They also see the state locking up murderers and thieves. They see policemen working hard to catch murderers (in fact, they complain when they don't see....[blahblah]

 

you're response was incoherent and had little to nothing to do with the objections I raised. No wonder this thread has gone on for over a hundred posts and you have not changed your mind or changed anyone else's mind.

[STer]

 

 

 

If you want to talk about the practical realities of the state (instead of the morality of theft, coercion, and murder) then you will almost always be wasting your time.

Because the biggest practical negatives of the state are the unseen costs and the unknowable lost opportunity. If the murder, theft and coercion of the state are not enough to convince someone that the state is dangerous... well maybe it's time to move on, time is short and there are lots of other people you could be talking to.

 

People don't only see murder, theft and coercion by the state though. They also see the state locking up murderers and thieves. They see policemen working hard to catch murderers (in fact, they complain when they don't see....

 

you're response was incoherent and had little to nothing to do with the objections I raised. No wonder this thread has gone on for over a hundred posts and you have not changed your mind or changed anyone else's mind.

 

A couple things:

The response was not incoherent. You said "If the murder, theft and coercion of the state are not enough to convince someone that the state is dangerous... well maybe it's time to move on." I replied that that is not as simple as it sounds because people may see the state do something dangerous as you listed, but then the very same day see it do something exactly the opposite and stop something elsewhere that was also dangerous. You are focusing on one part of the picture (the dangers of the state), ignoring the other (the dangers elsewhere that the state sometimes intervenes in), and that will not give you a good understanding of the average person's view of the government since they see both of these things day in and day out. You will find almost nobody who won't admit the government does some very bad things (just look at the approval ratings). But you will also find very few who will claim it doesn't also do some good things. So as I keep pointing out, your better message is not "We are unfree and the government is evil." That just doesn't match people's experience. The argument that seems more reasonable and discussable is "Government does some good and some bad, but the bad outweighs the good and we can get those good things more efficiently." This is certainly an argument many people make and I think it's a better one. In this thread I'm just calling into question the "freedom" argument's effectiveness.

As for changing people's minds, I'm not even sure many people have disagreed on my actual point to begin with - that the "freedom" message is pretty ineffective in modern Western countries. Some people have tried changing the subject and arguing straw men. But how many have you heard claim that the message "We are oppressed and unfree" is a highly effective one in modern Western countries? Has even one person said that? I know a couple said they agree with me that it isn't effective. Has anyone disagreed? It seems more like people agree with me on that, but rather than just post "Yes I agree" they change the subject to other things like "Is government, on the whole, in net, good?" which is not an issue I've raised. So the length of the thread, to me, just represents that it's a topic that raises a lot of interesting tangents and people have strong feelings about, not that many people are even disagreeing with my core argument, which, again, isn't even about my view, per se, but about the public perception.

[Magnus]

 

It really doesn't matter if you personally think [racial discrimination is evil] or not. Many people believe it is and when they see government entities protecting against it that registers as an example of a government protecting from evil. Hence, a good example of why they have mixed feelings about government creating vs. protecting against evil.

 

In a sense, I agree.  That's why the most effective states do not begin their attacks with brute force out of the blue, most of the time.  That has not been done (in Western Europe, at least) for 1,000 years, since the times of the Germanic migrations, and all of the brutal mass invasions and Viking raids, and such.  Since 900 A.D. or so, governmental take-overs are far more sophisticated.  They are preceded by a very large, broad propaganda movement.  The propaganda component of State action -- the psychological attack on a people -- is critical.  It facilitates the violence that follows. 

Yuri Bezmenov discussed this process at length in the early 1980s.  He was a Soviet defector, and KGB propaganda expert, who described the psychological methods of control, which they called "Ideological Subversion."  The first phase of Ideological Subversion was what the KGB called "demoralization," by which he meant the de-programming of people's basic moral compasses.  An entire population, in one generation, he described, could be de-moralized -- all vestiges of their instinctive moral reactions could be removed, and replaced with a set of moral attitudes favoring the government.  Videos of his interviews and lectures are all over YouTube.

In the case of racial discrimination in the US, the State did a masterful job of its own "ideological subversion" -- the twisting of basic moral principles -- before taking violent control over people's formerly-voluntary relationships.  It involved the complete eradication of the idea of Freedom of Association.  It was effectively removed from the national vocabulary, on purpose.

 

Also, this [racial discrimination] was even going on in public institutions like public schools. You may not like the existence of public schools, but if they exist, surely THEY shouldn't be discriminating on the basis of race. Yet they were.

 

If that's not the most trivial concern, I do not know what is.  Whole generations of children are forcibly removed from their homes for 12 years, daily, and indoctrinated in state-worship, and has been done for a century, and you are concerned about the racial division among those enslaved children?  Are you kidding me? 

What if the government decided to implement a program of forced breeding of all females, starting at age 14?  Let's say that, along with turning all of America's daughters into forced-breeding stock, the government gave tall girls the discriminatory privilege of choosing their sires, whereas any female under 5'9" would be assigned a male at random. 

Would you complain about the intolerable HEIGHT DISCRIMINATION going on in this program?  Is that really the heart of the problem?  Or does it miss the point?

 

There was also race-based discrimination in voting, which the federal government helped fix. So you can argue that you think discrimination is OK in private interactions. And you can argue that we should only have private interactions. But as long as we have public institutions, even you must admit we should not have governments themselves discriminating that way. And so when another government entity comes in and ends discrimination in ANOTHER PUBLIC INSTITUTION that is protection from an evil, I think even you must agree.

 

Race-based voting rules had been illegal in the US since the 1860s.  The Voting Rights Act prohibited racially-neutral voting rules that had a disproportionate impact on blacks, largely because they had a disproportionate impact on poor people.  The vast majority of the post-1965 rules concerned the banning of poll taxes and literacy tests. 

There is probably not 1 person in 100 today who knows that there were zero racial laws on the books at the time of the passage of the Voting Rights Act.  Part of the State's propaganda has been to imply that the VRA abolished racially discriminatory laws in voting, when it did not, since there was none at the time.

 

But again, even if you don't agree, it still doesn't matter in terms of how that affects public perception of government, which is really the focus here.

 

But in the larger principle, you make my point for me even better than I did. I showed that it's so complex that different government entities can both create and protect against "evil" at the same time. YOU took it one step further and showed that government can do one act that has both evil and protective aspects at the same time. So it's even more mixed than I had pointed out. When it comes to certain private interactions, you look at the same act that many people would point to as a hugely protective measure and see that very same act as an evil measure. That's because you focus on one aspect of it and others focus on another aspect of it. So again, is there any wonder people are confused whether government is evil or protective?

 

Public perception in manipulated by the State, as part of its propaganda campaigns. 

I
would submit that the State's activities reach directly into the most
sensitive and personal areas of everyone's lives all the time.  The
reason people do not resist it is NOT because these controls do not
exist, or that they float around on the periphery of most people's daily lives, but because the State (masterfully) inoculates and anesthetizes
people against objecting to these controls, before the controls are
fully implemented. 

The State controls all money, banking, land
use, construction, transportation, utilities, marriage, education, police, fire,
communications, retirement, pharmaceuticals, invention of new
technology, and now the entire health care industry. 

The problem
is not identifying or comprehending the scope of Statist violence in
everyone's daily lives.  The problem is seeing it for the atrocity that
it is.  The problem is ethical blindness -- the ethical distortion that precedes every successful Statist take-over of some area of people's lives.

 

Well like I said, it is a more valid argument to try to convince people that the bad outweighs the good and that there are more cost-efficient ways to get the same protection done. It is not valid to claim the government is always the perpetrator or evil and never the protector from it. That's just factually false (at least based on a basic understanding of things like rape, murder, child abuse and so on as evil.) There is just no question that government entities sometimes protect people from those things. And I'd say your 99% is just a made up number. I doubt it's 99% either. But regardless, if you can show it's a net loss, that is a more credible argument.

 

It's perfectly credible.  The problem is that the vast majority of people's minds have been indoctrinated, for multiple generations, to reflexively reject the truth.

 

But there is an even larger and more important point that your response brings to light. It's very clear that my goal in this thread is to expose the gap between some common libertarian/anarchist arguments and public perception on things like freedom, protection from evil, etc.. Your disgust for the state, even if merited, which is another issue, is so virulent that you can't even put it aside long enough to focus on the perception issue. This is not about whether you like the state or think it's good. Nor is it really a thread where it makes sense for you to launch into arguments about why government is bad as if you have to convince me, which would be beside the point. The thread is focusing on the fact that I don't think the standard libertarian/anarchist arguments are very effective in modern Western societies and why that is. I think one of the most troubling patterns with activists in this space is when they can't put aside their "anti-government rant mode" (for lack of a better term) to focus on particular aspects of the discussion separate from just launching into the usual argument. I find it worth noting that you would see a discussion that is about public perception and still jump right back into the most cliche anti-government arguments, not even aware that it wasn't relevant to the topic, since the topic is about public perception and what kind of message is likely to resonate with them, not about what you personally think. In fact, it's even ironic that in a thread where I'm explaining why the public does not feel much resonance with these types of arguments, you still saw fit to revert to some of those very same arguments.

 

My opposition to the State's violence is indistinguishable from the perception issue, because the State has created the perception problem.  The State is a corporation that produces two products, not just one -- slavery and lies. The lies are critically important -- they enable the slavery.  Without it, it would be impossible for such a small group to enslave such a larger one.  The only way to accomplish such a task is to get the population to enslave itself.

Orwell described this in 1984 -- how MiniTru's department dedicated to
developing NewSpeak was not merely improving the language.  It was
controlling thought -- by removing certain words, they removed the
ability of people to psychologically formulate certain kinds of
opposition to the State. 

The inability of people to see through the lies is the problem.  It's as if the State has managed to train a whole generation of people to only see the lower half of the visible spectrum of light, and now whenever anyone tries to point out the color red, he's labeled as a crazy person.

My point is that the reason you think my "rants" about the existence of the color red are just resorting to ineffective cliche arguments about the State is because you also fail to appreciate the fact that the State is also responsible for the widespread inability of most people to see the color red.