Whether it be an individual or a group, self-defense is to be taken with the utmost seriousness because, in many cases, it can mean the difference between life and death.
I'm all in on this. I just wish I could see a clear path to victory here. I hope the local strategy will work, but hope is all it is so far. I don't like being in a position of having no better ideas but lacking confidence in the one we have.
Wasn't life easier when we had all the answers and didn't have to do anything?
>> I’m going to work under the assumption that this approach to fighting the State is the perfect path forward and to defend the mentality of those running for office.
I know you’re just making this assumption for the sake of argument, but I don’t think it’s a very realistic assumption.
Of course, you know this already, but just to be clear, there are multiple strategies of resistance available, and I think any or all of them have some merit. Exactly which strategies you prefer and how much to emphasize each strategy, will differ for different people depending on their situations, what skills they have, what kind of resources they have, their temperament, etc.
There are exceptions, but politics, even local politics tends to reward demagogues, and that tends to make it a harder battleground for the kinds of people who value liberty, and who typically have skills and values that are anathema to demagoguery. On the other hand, there are advantages from engaging in politics even if you don’t win the election. For instance, your campaign might open some minds, or sway some powerful people, or introduce you to some valuable contacts.
When the adversaries have different strengths and weaknesses, it’s important to choose an asymmetric strategy. To me, one of the most interesting ways of taking advantage of asymmetric strategies to resist oppression, is through some sort of cyberwarfare or sabotage similar to what groups like Anonymous engage in. Oppressors typically have large databases and complex systems that they have to expend large amounts of resources to protect. Attackers, on the other hand, while they need to have good technical skills, require only a minimal budget.
I’m not arguing that engaging in politics is immoral or ineffective; just that there are lots of other strategies as well, and which ones you choose to emphasize will depend on your objectives and lots of other factors.
Your writing surely is invigorating, but the alarm bells are ringing in my mind. The start of my political awakening, from lefty to now being a Mises caucus libertarian, started at the same time that "anti-racism" was being thrown around all the time. Progressives loved to make claims that not being woke and not weaponizing the state against political enemies was tantamount to supporting the opposition and killing blacks/gays/trans/etc. It is in general a favorite assertion of authoritarians, made more compelling by focusing the ire of my in group on some out group. Perhaps the difference is that you're right in your claim, and they weren't; that they were wrong is obvious. However, it still makes me deeply suspicious.
If your intent with taking state power is to safeguard yourself and your in group while leaving others alone, that's fine. But if the intent includes the subjugation of others, based purely on your confidence that you know what's best for them, that's where I part ways. You could even be right, but I view liberty as a principle that is successful through an evolutionary mechanism. Those who do civilizing and productive things are more likely to have influence upon future generations or simply not die while those who do risky things are more likely to be forgotten by history or prematurely end their lives. However, those risk takers are often the innovators both technologically and culturally, so it does not behoove the rest of us to make them conform when they're leaving us alone.
I can understand the impulse to wrest a weapon being used against you by an opponent, but how offensively you use it after that is a function of how antagonistic you are towards them. A post-liberal friend of mine on the new right, who's also quite catholic, takes it as a matter of faith that *everyone* can be redeemed. Not being religious myself, I'm not as inclined to buy that universal, but I would think that your religious beliefs might push you to being more measured and still treating your enemies with grace. Ultimately, I'm not a Christian, but I feel like that's one of the lessons that gets circulated often. I still have my hunch though that any organized religion is rife with internal contradictions, which allows people to pick and choose to a certain degree what they choose to do with their faith. The character of a religious populace then would be in large part a function of the level of desperation/prosperity.
Gonna end it here since I'm kinda ranting, and I understand the fury you experience. For me it's aimed at the state, and my solution is to use the authority/legitimacy of government to spread the message of liberty. But I still moderate it because I'd prefer to enjoy life rather than be angry and insufferable.
I would crush every progressive and child groomer into dust. I would take their wealth and make sure they never got close to a seat of power again. I would banish them as far away from people who cherish the true, good and beautiful.
I wouldn't burn their books though, They would be presented to people years down the line when they asked me why I did what I did.
See I hear something like that, and my indifferent side comes out. You are free to take whatever measures you would deem necessary, and I might even congratulate/celebrate with you should you succeed — depending though on what actions you take to achieve your ends. But should you fail, relegated to the dust bin of history and your family/community left to languish under the weight of their association to you, my sympathy and willingness to lend aid will very much hinge on those same actions you took in pursuit of your ends. I do not mean to seem sanctimonious; these are all hypotheticals after all. It's just worth keeping in mind how things could turn out if you aren't at least sometimes diplomatic. While it might be better to ask forgiveness than permission at the interpersonal level, at scale the operative precept is that the ends never justify the means.
And your comment about not burning their books reminds me of Thanos, in his misguided confidence that his actions would lead unquestionably to conditions so markedly better than before that he would be met only with gratitude. You may succeed in rooting out only those things which are truly evil/wrong, but the tricky thing about strongman rhetoric is that it tends to attract those privy to going overboard. And when power corrupts, as it does, I will support the deposition effort.
Ultimately there is truth, good, and beauty in some of what progressives align with, and it's just being overshadowed by the bad ideas which proliferate when there isn't sufficient dissent. While I'm aware of James Lindsay's work on the conspiracy by leftist theorists to capture the halls of power, that doesn't exculpate conservatives for abdicating their role in the battle of ideas since most leftists aren't aware they're part of such a conspiracy. They just fall prey to groupthink as they see more and more of their beliefs being accepted by their peers. This is all besides the point, but it seems like you don't have many progressive/liberal friends — at least not ones who are able to readily explain their views or have their minds changed.
I cringe at this "crush your enemies" mindset precisely because I've seen people change their minds and had my mind changed. Any configuration arrived at by force will be unstable; its longevity depending on how long the supersition of authority lasts, and the pendulum will continue to swing forevermore because people always think that there's something uniquely awful about the present moment. Don't mistake this to mean that there's nothing awful about this moment, just that this is just yet another awful thing in a string of awful things humanity must endure because of the de-civilizing effects of the state.
There's no diplomacy to be had here. "I want to kill you and rape your children" is not a position that we can find a compromise on. And they don't give up. Every time they get pushed back they just plot and strategize to get power back and keep the ball rolling. They've been doing this for over a century now, and nothing about that is going to change.
This is their religion, and to them I am morally evil and must be defeated. The feeling is mutual. Our beliefs are fundamentally incompatible. We cannot live in the same place. We can't share air. I don't even wish to trade, because I don't want to fund child rape and mutilation. To say nothing of their other crimes and derangements.
These people have to be utterly and completely broken. Denazification worked, maybe too well, in Germany. If Germans can be denazified, progs can be debugged. If they can't be debugged, there are only three options left: death or exile for them, or giving them what they want. I'm not giving them what they want.
Get out of your head for a bit and stop playing anarchist hypotheticals. "What about the long-term" is not a relevant question here. We already know the answer to "what if you fail". They've told us the answer to that: "die cis scum" and "we're coming for your children". The fact that the bugmen will say mean things about us if we fail is not even on my list of things to worry about. They already do that. Oooh, oh no, muh feelz, a bugman called me a nazi. How will I look myself in the mirror. Booo hoo.
I'm all in on this. I just wish I could see a clear path to victory here. I hope the local strategy will work, but hope is all it is so far. I don't like being in a position of having no better ideas but lacking confidence in the one we have.
Wasn't life easier when we had all the answers and didn't have to do anything?
>> I’m going to work under the assumption that this approach to fighting the State is the perfect path forward and to defend the mentality of those running for office.
I know you’re just making this assumption for the sake of argument, but I don’t think it’s a very realistic assumption.
Of course, you know this already, but just to be clear, there are multiple strategies of resistance available, and I think any or all of them have some merit. Exactly which strategies you prefer and how much to emphasize each strategy, will differ for different people depending on their situations, what skills they have, what kind of resources they have, their temperament, etc.
There are exceptions, but politics, even local politics tends to reward demagogues, and that tends to make it a harder battleground for the kinds of people who value liberty, and who typically have skills and values that are anathema to demagoguery. On the other hand, there are advantages from engaging in politics even if you don’t win the election. For instance, your campaign might open some minds, or sway some powerful people, or introduce you to some valuable contacts.
When the adversaries have different strengths and weaknesses, it’s important to choose an asymmetric strategy. To me, one of the most interesting ways of taking advantage of asymmetric strategies to resist oppression, is through some sort of cyberwarfare or sabotage similar to what groups like Anonymous engage in. Oppressors typically have large databases and complex systems that they have to expend large amounts of resources to protect. Attackers, on the other hand, while they need to have good technical skills, require only a minimal budget.
I’m not arguing that engaging in politics is immoral or ineffective; just that there are lots of other strategies as well, and which ones you choose to emphasize will depend on your objectives and lots of other factors.
Your writing surely is invigorating, but the alarm bells are ringing in my mind. The start of my political awakening, from lefty to now being a Mises caucus libertarian, started at the same time that "anti-racism" was being thrown around all the time. Progressives loved to make claims that not being woke and not weaponizing the state against political enemies was tantamount to supporting the opposition and killing blacks/gays/trans/etc. It is in general a favorite assertion of authoritarians, made more compelling by focusing the ire of my in group on some out group. Perhaps the difference is that you're right in your claim, and they weren't; that they were wrong is obvious. However, it still makes me deeply suspicious.
If your intent with taking state power is to safeguard yourself and your in group while leaving others alone, that's fine. But if the intent includes the subjugation of others, based purely on your confidence that you know what's best for them, that's where I part ways. You could even be right, but I view liberty as a principle that is successful through an evolutionary mechanism. Those who do civilizing and productive things are more likely to have influence upon future generations or simply not die while those who do risky things are more likely to be forgotten by history or prematurely end their lives. However, those risk takers are often the innovators both technologically and culturally, so it does not behoove the rest of us to make them conform when they're leaving us alone.
I can understand the impulse to wrest a weapon being used against you by an opponent, but how offensively you use it after that is a function of how antagonistic you are towards them. A post-liberal friend of mine on the new right, who's also quite catholic, takes it as a matter of faith that *everyone* can be redeemed. Not being religious myself, I'm not as inclined to buy that universal, but I would think that your religious beliefs might push you to being more measured and still treating your enemies with grace. Ultimately, I'm not a Christian, but I feel like that's one of the lessons that gets circulated often. I still have my hunch though that any organized religion is rife with internal contradictions, which allows people to pick and choose to a certain degree what they choose to do with their faith. The character of a religious populace then would be in large part a function of the level of desperation/prosperity.
Gonna end it here since I'm kinda ranting, and I understand the fury you experience. For me it's aimed at the state, and my solution is to use the authority/legitimacy of government to spread the message of liberty. But I still moderate it because I'd prefer to enjoy life rather than be angry and insufferable.
I would crush every progressive and child groomer into dust. I would take their wealth and make sure they never got close to a seat of power again. I would banish them as far away from people who cherish the true, good and beautiful.
I wouldn't burn their books though, They would be presented to people years down the line when they asked me why I did what I did.
See I hear something like that, and my indifferent side comes out. You are free to take whatever measures you would deem necessary, and I might even congratulate/celebrate with you should you succeed — depending though on what actions you take to achieve your ends. But should you fail, relegated to the dust bin of history and your family/community left to languish under the weight of their association to you, my sympathy and willingness to lend aid will very much hinge on those same actions you took in pursuit of your ends. I do not mean to seem sanctimonious; these are all hypotheticals after all. It's just worth keeping in mind how things could turn out if you aren't at least sometimes diplomatic. While it might be better to ask forgiveness than permission at the interpersonal level, at scale the operative precept is that the ends never justify the means.
And your comment about not burning their books reminds me of Thanos, in his misguided confidence that his actions would lead unquestionably to conditions so markedly better than before that he would be met only with gratitude. You may succeed in rooting out only those things which are truly evil/wrong, but the tricky thing about strongman rhetoric is that it tends to attract those privy to going overboard. And when power corrupts, as it does, I will support the deposition effort.
Ultimately there is truth, good, and beauty in some of what progressives align with, and it's just being overshadowed by the bad ideas which proliferate when there isn't sufficient dissent. While I'm aware of James Lindsay's work on the conspiracy by leftist theorists to capture the halls of power, that doesn't exculpate conservatives for abdicating their role in the battle of ideas since most leftists aren't aware they're part of such a conspiracy. They just fall prey to groupthink as they see more and more of their beliefs being accepted by their peers. This is all besides the point, but it seems like you don't have many progressive/liberal friends — at least not ones who are able to readily explain their views or have their minds changed.
I cringe at this "crush your enemies" mindset precisely because I've seen people change their minds and had my mind changed. Any configuration arrived at by force will be unstable; its longevity depending on how long the supersition of authority lasts, and the pendulum will continue to swing forevermore because people always think that there's something uniquely awful about the present moment. Don't mistake this to mean that there's nothing awful about this moment, just that this is just yet another awful thing in a string of awful things humanity must endure because of the de-civilizing effects of the state.
There's no diplomacy to be had here. "I want to kill you and rape your children" is not a position that we can find a compromise on. And they don't give up. Every time they get pushed back they just plot and strategize to get power back and keep the ball rolling. They've been doing this for over a century now, and nothing about that is going to change.
This is their religion, and to them I am morally evil and must be defeated. The feeling is mutual. Our beliefs are fundamentally incompatible. We cannot live in the same place. We can't share air. I don't even wish to trade, because I don't want to fund child rape and mutilation. To say nothing of their other crimes and derangements.
These people have to be utterly and completely broken. Denazification worked, maybe too well, in Germany. If Germans can be denazified, progs can be debugged. If they can't be debugged, there are only three options left: death or exile for them, or giving them what they want. I'm not giving them what they want.
Get out of your head for a bit and stop playing anarchist hypotheticals. "What about the long-term" is not a relevant question here. We already know the answer to "what if you fail". They've told us the answer to that: "die cis scum" and "we're coming for your children". The fact that the bugmen will say mean things about us if we fail is not even on my list of things to worry about. They already do that. Oooh, oh no, muh feelz, a bugman called me a nazi. How will I look myself in the mirror. Booo hoo.