Self-Labeling

Posting from: Tucson, AZ
Listening to: Warren Zevon covering Bob Dylan's Chimes of Freedom

Since before I could vote, I have been pretty plugged into politics and public policy. I was very excited to vote when I turned eighteen. For some years I’d stay up late on election nights doing things like coloring the states on a blank U.S. map red and blue to track who was winning and worrying over the returns on local ballot initiatives. Happily, I have since gotten over that affliction. This is a little summary of where I think I am today, and how I think I got here.

First I was a Republican because my parents are Republicans.

Then I was a Democrat because my parents are Republicans.

After that I may or may not have registered Independent or gone back to Republican. I don’t really remember. At some point the magic was gone, and I was just doing what I thought was my civic duty.

Then in the early ‘90s I met my first love who I adored in many ways, but he kept saying these weird things about getting rid of taxes and all sorts of other laws. I was willing to overlook that little foible, though, because I so dearly loved him. To this day, he remains my favorite mistake. Anyway, that was my first exposure to libertarian thought. How funny and sad it is to look back and see where we both are now- he a pro-war collectivist Republican, and I heading further and further down the individualist path and as far away from the political system as I can go.

At some later time which I don’t recall and for some reason which I don’t recall, I ended up registering with the Libertarian Party. Shortly thereafter I was contacted by someone from the LP regarding organizing a student club at the university I attended. I was one of the founding members of the club, and I think I was also an officer of the club or something. (We had to have a certain infrastructure to be recognized by the student government at the university.)

Through many of the activities of that organization and the local LP and the people I was exposed to, I started to question many of the positions associated with the LP either formally or through its candidates. For instance, I saw letters in a voter information pamphlet from local libertarian candidates endorsing things like a medical marijuana initiative that would have also imposed harsher penalties on other drug use or state-run healthcare which was supposedly okay because it was supposed to be paid for through lottery money. WTF??? This sort of shit seemed obviously anti-libertarian to me, and I wanted no part of it. Certainly we do have to live within the imperfect system we already have as best we can, but to purposely help that system progress further away from liberty is not something that I can consider within the realm of libertarianism.

But there were also positive influences. It was at a 2nd amendment rally that our club sponsored that I heard Claire Wolfe speak which really helped me look at things in a new light. There were also some folks on our club discussion listserv who would ask annoying questions that were hard to answer and got me thinking very seriously about my stances on certain issues.

I think it was some of those folks are who introduced me to voluntaryism. That was a real philosophical upheaval. I faced that question that so many people seem never to get past- If we don’t vote, how can we ever change anything? I had been heavily indoctrinated with the if you don’t vote, don’t bitch soundbite philosophy. Well, I got past it largely by reading a lot of voluntaryist literature which opened up a whole new world to me whereupon I quickly went through the end stages of political busybodyism from voting Libertarian to voting only on ballot measures and not for candidates to conscientiously objecting to the entire voting process and washing my hands of it altogether.

I still consider myself a libertarian.

Typical shorthand within The Family is that Libertarian refers to members of the Libertarian Party whereas libertarian refers to people regardless of party affiliation who hold to the libertarian philosophy. Some Libertarians are libertarians. Some Libertarians are not libertarians. Some libertarians are Libertarians. Some libertarians are not Libertarians.

I am not myself a member of the Libertarian Party, having given up the vile and nasty habit of voting some time ago. I do consider myself a libertarian because I oppose the initiation of force or fraud.

If there is any appropriate role for government at all- and the more I see of government the more I favor the view that most, if not all, governments do any appropriate role- but IF there is one, then that role is to defend its constituents’ rights (let me emphasize, I am talking about rights and not entitlements) and NOTHING MORE. There are a lot of reasons why I believe no such government could ever exist, so I do lean heavily against the idea that there is any appropriate role for government whatsoever, but that is still a point on which I am open to persuasion.

I think it's fair to say that individualist anarchists were some of the first libertarians (e.g. Benjamin Tucker, Voltairine de Cleyre, etc...). Those who oppose the initiation of force or fraud are generally called libertarians. That is true of individualist anarchists. But individualist anarchists, unlike limited government libertarians, take that philosophy to what seems to be its natural consequence- that governments, which by definition claim a monopoly on the authority to initiate force or fraud, have no proper role. That is the direction I am heavily leaning, but my mind is not entirely made up on the matter so for now I’ve chosen to stick to the term libertarian which I think is sufficiently descriptive as well as accurate.



I will wrap this up with a couple of passages written by Henry David Thoreau in Civil Disobedience that really get to the heart of my thoughts on this topic:

All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.

It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations too.

There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself with imagining a State at least which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men.