Read all of this essay by Michael Gaddy, but whet your appetite with this excerpt:***
I am an anarchist, as defined by Robert LeFevre. I believe that government contributes nothing of value to the individuals it governs. No matter what political party is in control, like a leech or a tick, government attaches itself to the body of freedom and feeds on the life-giving blood of that body, while imparting the Lyme disease of corruption, fear, pestilence and war. Finally, that decaying host/body of freedom and liberty is totally destroyed by the parasite called government.
People of a wicked and criminal nature are drawn to the stench of government like flies to manure. Even those of integrity who engage in service to the State find themselves administered and controlled by those who are wicked and criminal. They eventually learn, that if one is to advance in this government service, they must take on the characteristics of their leaders.
I am also a proud Southerner – born and bred. I revel in the writings of Thomas DiLorenzo, Professor Clyde Wilson, the brothers Kennedy and Michael Grissom, but thanks to my grandfather, who lived into his one hundredth year and an insatiable thirst for history, I know that the fledgling government of the Confederacy was just as cruel and wicked as any other.
The government of the Confederacy, born, as we believe, to the parents,’ self-determination and liberty, was nothing but coercion, violence and force wearing a butternut uniform...
***
We live in times that force us to challenge our assumptions.
Before resuming business as usual, make sure that what you think is so actually is.
Tempus fugit.
Nice essay. Have to say that the poster is pretty much correct, as far as coercion goes. Shades of the movie Cold Mountain.
ReplyDeleteFor what little this tidbit is worth, the CSA did better with its constitution than how the original states wrote it. They deleted the phrase about providing for the general welfare. Not that following the constitution matters at all any more as far as governance goes, but those Southerners may have seen the hook that so many unreasonable programs have been hung on for the last seventy years, and chose not to include those words in their constitution.
I would have to lie in order to deny Ayn Rand's illuminations. The whole truth, however, is that Robert LeFevre was the first star of freedom that ever cast its light on my intellect.
ReplyDeleteThe first American patriot who I ever knew directly in my own life was responsible for that. He had attended LeFevre's seminar at the University of Hawaii in 1969, and told me all about it that year, when I was thirteen years old.
That patriot was my father, William Joseph Beck, Jr., eternally blessed be his name.
From that day to this, no collectivist has ever laid a finger on me. Among the most important things that I learned from LeFevre was the immorality of voting. He is a crucial and disgracefully neglected modern American libertarian.
I still have the copy of "This Bread Is Mine" autographed by LeFevre to my father, and with Dad's annotations in it. I have all their correspondance over about fifteen years. They are the most prized possessions in my library.
i submit that the founders' initial "limited government" does not, in fact, fit the definition of government common to the free-market anarchist branch of libertarian thought: that it is force, it is fire, and that as a manifestation of state, it is an unneccessary evil. and so on.
ReplyDeletei'll let y'all do your own homework on that one, because i might be dreadfully wrong. but i do not see supporting a restoration towards that republic as necessarily inconsistent with my philosophical predisposition to anarchy (rothbardian, minus the legitimate education).
technically, parts of colonial america were anarchist at times. even among the land and power grabs common to the time (not in and of themselves, but what they would and did lead to: institutionalized tax slavery), i would otherwise be at home among some form of limited republic, because we clearly fit each others' criteria for peaceable coexistence.
you might just say that if i could, i'd take it further than you restorationists would have. fair enough? however we find an equilibrium before this truly becomes necessary, because of the uninvolvement of your form of "government": i am a republican citizen for all intents and purposes of yours, and you are anarchists for all intents and purposes of mine.
this is all i have to assert about it. the rest is my opinion.
Anarchy means no rulers. It can
ReplyDeletemean Chaos in its worst degenerate form or high levels of liberty and
morality in its ideal positive form.
This is much like a Republic,
which is defined as rule by law and comes from the Latin res publica
"public thing." In its pure form the constitutional republic is in the hands of the people.
No rights of the people can be taken away at the whim of the masses (i.e. a democracy) or via an elite and law is the restrainer of government and a common sense code of morality and liberty.
In its degenerate form, a republic is oligarchal,collectivist, and imperial. Socialism destroys the republic and libratory anarchy for collectivism and elite state planners.
Jon,
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you're not alone in your belief - I tend to agree, more or less, as well.
Quoth L. Neil Smith:
"Indeed, I've said in print and at the lectern that any difference between a society created by the most radical Libertarian Party platforms I helped to write in the 70s, and the society that would arise from stringent enforcement of the first ten amendments to the Constitution would merely be a matter of 'fine tuning'."
Those interested in Robert LeFevre and autarchism might want to ponder a term my wife coined:
ReplyDeleteUnarchism
1. un (from Latin unus, one) archy (from Greek archos, ruler): the rule of all as one. Universal leadership. To be differentiated from monarchy, i.e. the rule of a single one out of many possibilities. Under unarchy, there is only one possibility: everyone.
2. un- (the negative English prefix) archy: not rulership. Anarchy.
3. Unarchy: using “U” as the colloquial “you” to mean that the government is you. “YOUnarchy.”
Thus, (1) we all rule, (2) no one rules, (3) rulership lies in You, meaning We.