Whenever I confess to being an anarchist, I get immediate blowback from my statist conversational partner. For some reason, unbeknownst to me, despite the rather universal belief that government is broken, corrupt, and inefficient, most people experience visceral upset when they encounter an amicable and peaceful proponent of anarchy. While many can be convinced of minarchism, they seem to revile its natural extension: absence of government.
I must give an approving nod to my minarchist friends, for they want to move in the same direction that I do, and we can collaborate and support each other, sharing the train up until the far away destination of our differences. Most minarchists think, as I do, that government is evil. They only differ in thinking that it is a necessary institution, say for the management of one or a small handful of services, such as defense, roads, and/or law, etc. We can have very deep and detailed discussion on those particular markets. I believe that to convert a minarchist, you only have to show that each of those markets can be adequately serviced by a free and voluntary market rather than a coercive, bureaucratic government.
But the nature of conversation that I have with statists, doesn't revolve around particular aspects of government responsibility. Rather, they seem to accept government, and Rousseau's Social Contract whole hog. Reasonable statements like "I don't think government should administer education" become translated to "Oh, so you must not want anyone to be educated!". Curiously, I've never conversed with a homeschooled person that made this absurd logical leap, which only buttresses my point. I find that the statist has so completely adopted the nature of government that they act and argue as if it is The Great Provider, without which we would all still be cavemen.
And even without directly engaging the statist, I can see the message has thoroughly infiltrated our media, culture, and language. For example, every day there are late night news items about how the police or firemen have "saved the day" and "we should be so thankful they are here to serve us". But I hardly ever get to hear about the police raid on the wrong house and the dog or daughter they shot.
Or what about the news items that interview people who say "There ought to be a law about X", and fail to consider the costs and impositions of their statement. Why do statists think that the economy would fail or the country would collapse if the President wasn't there to manage things? I mean seriously, would we quit trading with each other if he went missing?
This mentality is so entrenched it's also taken over the language we use. I personally find it difficult to say "The American Government attacked X" and almost always revert to those hideously collective terms "We attacked X", when neither I nor my conversational partner had anything to do with the attack, and would have said "no" if only we were asked.
I know of only one way to fight statism. That's to go my own way. To defect as much as feasible, and live my life by my own terms. Sure, I'll still pay my taxes so that I don't get imprisoned, but I'll do what I want with what I have left. I believe that independence is freedom, and financial independence especially so. The various states within the union have discovered that they can't leave because they've become dependent on federal funds for various infrastructure and social projects. I'm endeavoring not to make this financial mistake, and to preserve my ability to defect. I encourage all other anarchists to do likewise. Anarchism is freedom, and we can each live it through our personal affairs, providing a distributed example of this message to all the statists that their ideas are bankrupt.
No comments:
Post a Comment