Billy Beck at Samizdata on voting:
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...Well, guess what. I represent myself. I do it all year long, every day of every year, and I don't wait around for their goddamned permission every couple of years, presented as a duty -- mind you -- to line up at the polls and hand them a blank check during the periods between the national hysterics every couple of years.
And that's the very last thing they ever want: me, standing for myself.
You are dead wrong. Every one of you here who votes: you're all wrong.
You're getting more wrong with every passing election, and you keep doing it.
I know -- I know -- that I am not making an impression with any of this. You're going to keep doing it, in some atavistic hope that I will never understand. You'll keep doing it until it eventually dawns on you, one at a time, that you have committed all the years of your only-ever life to this pathetic sop of a consolation that they hold out to you, and that it has gotten you nothing but more tyranny all the while...
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Read the full string of comments at Samizdata, and then ask yourself:
Do I want to delude myself with fantasies of Civics 101 into helping my oppressors?
Or, as Marko put it earlier this year:
Not to put too fine a point on it, but exhorting people to vote for McCain with the “he’s less bad than Hillbama” argument is like urging them to pick rapist #1 over rapist #2 on the grounds that #1 is a little less well endowed, and that he promised to let you pick the position.
Tempus fugit.
And the alternative is...
ReplyDeletewhat, exactly?
Be specific. And detailed.
Because I really want to hear it.
part of the problem of ever having gotten here in the first place is precisely that attitude: needing to be told what to do and think, specifically, and in detail.
ReplyDeletethis is why we are just numbers in a "social security" program. you asked the least creative people in society to paint the picture. they obliged.
Kevin:
ReplyDeleteThe people in this country who truly cherish freedom in all of its manifestations (thought, guns, speech, religion, association, private property, etc.) had better darned skippy get used to the idea that we are a cursed minority and will be for the foreseeable future.
The simple formula is this:
- we're screwed
- there's gonna be a fight
- let's win
Your posts on the courts and freedom issues in general mean that I don't have to make the case for "we're screwed" with you.
BTW, thanks for all that you have taught me through your writing.
So we move to "there's gonna be a fight".
Why?
Ain't no way that the transnational socialists can leave an armed, educated, defiant remnant intact to cut and slash at their Utopian schemes at every opportunity. The tranzis have to do everything in their power to disarm (literally, perhaps, but certainly educationally and psychologically; see generally Snyder, Walter Mitty's Second Amendment) everyone they can.
The reality is that the fight has been on for some sixty (or more) years. You know that per your writings.
So on to the fun part - "let's win".
Step one in "let's win" is to refuse any further collaboration in our demise. That's Billy Beck's point - delude yourself all you want with your participatory democracy fantasies, but leave me the hell out of it.
Withholding collaboration takes many forms, however. It involves getting physically, mentally, and emotionally prepared for the really hard stuff. Specific steps include the following:
Physical:
1) Fix teeth
2) Lose weight
3) Start walking at a fast pace regularly (1 mile 4x weekly)
4) Start working 25 yard jogs into your walks
5) Eat less and eat better
6) Get a complete physical
7) Stockpile any needed maintenance drugs
8) Start weightlifting by doing rifle dry-fire snaps (start with rifle at low ready, bringing up and dropping hammer just as sights align on light switch) 25 reps for strong side and weak side 3X/weekly
9) Integrate a light (20 lb.) pack into your walk/jogs
10) Bring one's spouse along as much and as quickly as possible.
Mental:
- read and assimilate the resistance canon (Heinlein, Ross, Vanderboegh, Bracken, Suarez, Royce, von Dach Bern, etc.)
- read and assimilate the economic canon (Hayek, von Mises, etc.)
- read and assimilate the political canon (DoI, USC, BoR, Spooner, DiLorenzo, etc.)
Emotional:
- Get square with God as you understand Him. Even if atheist or agnostic, one needs a Larger Context in which to place the upcoming suffering and struggle.
- Sort the sheep from the goats in one's immediate circle. In some cases, that may mean divorce/separation, estrangement from children, parents, or other relatives, and the loss of friends. Better now than when the excitement has begun.
- For those remaining, get them up to speed on all fronts as much and as quickly as they can handle. Your associates' ability to digest all of the bitter medicine that they must will be a source of frustration. Keep trying.
- Understand, at a profound level, how our lives as mortal creatures are both fleeting and as meaningful or as meaningless as we make them. Commit to yourself and to your ideals that you will spend the remaining days of your life wisely and in furtherance of those eternal truths.
Now, compared to that list, do you really think it matters whether one votes for McCain, Obama, Barr, or the write-in candidate of one's choice?
I respectfully submit that it matters not one whit.
Declare yourself into freedom, just as the Founders did 232 years ago.
Then do everything you can to defend that freedom, even unto death.
And I mean everything.
Remember too the cannibal's paradox - that the time spent in overcoming a taboo can so debilitate the prospective actor that the action taken fails for being too late.
Keep bashing on, amigo.
"All political power is inherent in the people, and governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and are established to protect and maintain individual rights."
ReplyDeleteWhile there may be no freedom candidate running for POTUS, there are a few running for local and state government, and these people do deserve our support. If someone really does want to reform the government, it cant be done by avoiding all contact with the government, nor can it be done by relying on the government. Good people should move into the power centers of america and enact positive change, on any level, even if it is as simple as a police officer defying an order, or a senator fillibustering a FISA bill. One person can make a huge difference.
If you love Freedom, get Free. Minimize Debt, Become Self Sufficient, Educated, Healthy, Work for yourself, Consider not paying taxes, Dont use an SS number for daily transactions, Engage in Barter.
By being free, you can remove that consent to power, and nullify an unjust or intrusive government's power, as well as serve as an example to those around you.
Form your own White Rose Society, and resist what you dont agree with or are ashamed of, everyday.
"Nothing is so unworthy of a civilized nation as allowing itself to be "governed" without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct." -WRS
http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/wr.htm
The system we live in today is not sustainable in its current status, this is evident to most economists, it will change, and when it does, even in getting worse, we may find much more opportunity to effect a concept of freedom in the general populous, and even, perhaps someday remove all of that consent, entirely.
Until then:
Dont Disarm,
Dont Give Up,
Dont Get on the Train.
Semper Vigilans