My favorite liberty videos of 2010.
#1: Laughing Man hacks Facebook
#2: The Sunset of the State
#3: Pirates and Emperors - Schoolhouse Rock
#4: Uncle Sam Visits Times Square
#5: Laughing Man: The Game is On
#6: RAP NEWS 5: News World Order - the war on journalism (ft. Julian Assange)
#7: The Story of Our Unenslavement
#8: Paying Taxes Activism
#9: The Broken Window Fallacy (no accents)
Showing posts with label anarchy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anarchy. Show all posts
Friday, December 24, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
The Laughing Man: The Game is On
Another excellent post by the Laughing Man.
If you haven't seen this yet, check it out.
If you haven't seen this yet, check it out.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
How to end the state
“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.”
~Henry David Thoreau
The intense passion which drives anarchists to oppose the existence of the state invariably springs from our deep compassion for the suffering of its many victims. The state robs huge portions of the income of all who reside within its borders and utilizes the loot to finance all manner of force on all manner of victims both at home and abroad - ultimately escalating to the mass murder of millions in senseless wars.
Though passionate, we who seek to end the state seem to struggle over how to actually realize the dream. Many strategies have been tried – from running in elections to civil disobedience – to no avail. What all of these strategies have in common is that they all seek to end the state by engaging it directly in some form of conflict.
But when we battle against the state directly we invariably lose. This can at times lead to a feeling of despair. The state seems so powerful and we seem so weak by comparison. But I believe very strongly that both the perceived strength of the state and that of our weakness are illusory.
The state is actually a lot weaker than we think it is. I am in fact convinced that the state is so weak that it can be permanently ended in our life-time. But only if we focus our passion and our resources on the real force that gives rise to and sustains its existence.
What is this force? Do you know? Are you sure? If you do not know, why? How many of us who are engaged in struggle with the state have actually taken the time to stop and think deeply about this fundamental question?
How can we seriously expect to defeat an enduring institution without being absolutely certain about why that institution exists in the first place and why it seems to be so resilient? How can we defeat an enemy that we do not truly understand?
The state is organized coercion. When citizens line up to vote they do so because they are either seeking to impose their will on their neighbors or to prevent their neighbors from imposing their will on them or both. Are not the hearts and minds of those who seek to use coercion the force that breathes life into this thing we call the state?
Freedom is the absence of coercion. Freedom is the decision to stop imposing our will on each other and to live and let live. The voluntary society to which we aspire is one in which interactions between people are voluntary, based on mutual consent and free from coercion.
By why does coercion exist in the first place?
To answer this question you need only introspect.
Have you never felt the urge to impose your will on another human being? What was the force that drove you to do so? Was it not fear? Is not all coercion rooted in fear?
Have you ever felt the urge to impose your will on another human being but resisted the temptation to do so? What was the force that drove you to resist? Was it not empathy for the person(s) whose freedom that you would be restricting? Was it the knowledge that harming another to alleviate your fear would put you into conflict with your conscience?
Is not the force that gives rise to and sustains the existence of the state uncontrolled fear? Is it not the case that this thing we call the state is merely the physical manifestation of the collective uncontrolled fear of a society? When fear grows does not the power of the state grow? When fear recedes is not the power of the state weakened?
Is this not the crux of the matter?
Is not the root of all that is evil the decision to respond to the impulse of fear with coercion?
Is not the root of all that is good the decision to resist the temptation to respond to the impulse of fear with coercion and to seek instead to use the power of empathy for those who would suffer from it to face and overcome the fear itself and thus remain in harmony with our own conscience?
Is this not obvious to us all?
Why then do we continue to hack at the branches of evil instead of striking at the root?
Who among us has not convinced countless supporters of the state that using coercion against our fellow human beings who have done us no harm is morally wrong only to witness them continuing to support the state?
Human beings are not driven by logic. We are driven by emotion. People behave this way when they are driven by fear. Their fear can be so overwhelming that they will tell themselves whatever lies they have to in order to morally justify coercion to themselves because the coercion serves to alleviate their fears.
Importantly, however, when they choose the path of self-deception, they are choosing the immediate gratification of relief from fear at the expense of the long term suffering of living in disharmony with their own conscience.
All human beings are naturally driven to act in harmony with their conscience because all human beings are driven to be happy. And one cannot be truly happy if they are in disharmony with their conscience because their conscience will punish them relentlessly for the harm that they are causing to others.
This is why we can be absolutely confident that we will ultimately win the struggle. Humanity is destined to exit the age of barbarism and to dispense with the state and other forms of organized coercion because human beings are driven to be happy and they can only be truly happy when they are acting in harmony with their conscience by not causing harm to others. Our very biology compels us to do so. The end of the state is pre-ordained by evolution.
Voluntaryism is nothing more than the natural philosophy that human beings choose to follow when they are acting in complete harmony with their conscience.
Our task then is to help those who are willing to find happiness by choosing to stop harming others either directly or indirectly through their support of coercive institutions like the state and to instead harness the power of empathy to choose to face and overcome the fears that give rise to the urge to control their environment. The task of bringing about an end to the state then is actually a joyous one because it requires us to help people become more happy and self-confident in order to do so.
The question must be asked though… Why are so many people so fearful? Why are there so many souls with such low self-confidence? Why do so many people see the world as a fearful place from which they need to be protected? They certainly were not born that way. One need only watch a child at play to realize that we are all born fearless, self-confident and joyful.
Some would say it is the conditioning that people receive from their environment. This is a critical error. It is not what happens to us that defines us but rather how we choose to think about what happens to us. It is the *choice* to think of ourselves as victims and to re-tell our victimhood stories to ourselves over and over again that dis-empowers us. When we do so we create a powerful emotionally charged image of ourselves as weak and powerless victims who are unable to protect ourselves against a hostile world where threats lurk around every corner.
It is victimhood thinking that not only zaps our self-confidence but drives millions into debilitating depression and to seek solace in various unhealthy forms of immediate gratification. It is victimhood thinking that must be overcome in the mind of the individual in order to rebuild their self-confidence to the point where they will be strong enough to face and conquer their fears and thus lose their desire to impose their will on their fellow human beings, or to stand idly by while others do so.
This then is the task at hand. A permanent end to the state can only be achieved by attacking the force that gives rise to it. That force is uncontrolled fear. In the mind of a healthy individual empathy/love is far stronger than fear and can easily contain it. The fear that gives rise to and sustains the state can only be conquered by ending the underlying self-inflicted suffering of victimhood thinking from which it spawns. This is what must be done by those who truly wish to strike at the root of evil.
However, in order to effectively help others to re-build the fearless self-confidence that they were born with, we must do so for ourselves as well. As Gandhi said … “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” How many of us have dis-empowered ourselves by choosing to think of ourselves as victims of the state? Has that type of victimhood thinking not zapped our self-confidence in our own ability to achieve the dream?
What if we chose to think about the situation differently? What if we saw the truth that all force springs from fear and sought to cultivate compassion for the fearful instead of anger for the force that resulted from it? When we see the truth that behind all acts of aggression is uncontrolled fear we see the truth of how weak the state really is and how easy it actually would be to bring about its downfall by simply choosing to help people to overcome their fears.
What if we realized just how incredibly powerful we are? A single individual can change the world. There exists a ripple effect for everything that we do which we are almost never aware of because we can only see our effect on those with whom we interact directly. We do not see the bigger picture. We don’t see how helping one statist to find happiness by choosing to live in harmony with their conscience for the rest of his life affects all of his subsequent interactions with people and how these, in turn, affect their interactions, and so on and so on. In this fashion, our small ripple in the pond of humanity can grow into a great wave that sweeps the world affecting countless lives of which we will never be aware.
The state is a manifestation of those who live in fear. We are the fearless. The state is weak and we are strong. The future belongs to the fearless.
The end of the state is at hand. We need only channel our passion such that we are striking at the root of evil instead of hacking at its branches. With every person who we help to become more self-confident the state becomes weaker and we become stronger.
An end to the existence of the state and the age of barbarism as a whole is pre-ordained by evolution. Our choice is merely whether we would like to bring it about in our life-time?
~Henry David Thoreau
The intense passion which drives anarchists to oppose the existence of the state invariably springs from our deep compassion for the suffering of its many victims. The state robs huge portions of the income of all who reside within its borders and utilizes the loot to finance all manner of force on all manner of victims both at home and abroad - ultimately escalating to the mass murder of millions in senseless wars.
Though passionate, we who seek to end the state seem to struggle over how to actually realize the dream. Many strategies have been tried – from running in elections to civil disobedience – to no avail. What all of these strategies have in common is that they all seek to end the state by engaging it directly in some form of conflict.
But when we battle against the state directly we invariably lose. This can at times lead to a feeling of despair. The state seems so powerful and we seem so weak by comparison. But I believe very strongly that both the perceived strength of the state and that of our weakness are illusory.
The state is actually a lot weaker than we think it is. I am in fact convinced that the state is so weak that it can be permanently ended in our life-time. But only if we focus our passion and our resources on the real force that gives rise to and sustains its existence.
What is this force? Do you know? Are you sure? If you do not know, why? How many of us who are engaged in struggle with the state have actually taken the time to stop and think deeply about this fundamental question?
How can we seriously expect to defeat an enduring institution without being absolutely certain about why that institution exists in the first place and why it seems to be so resilient? How can we defeat an enemy that we do not truly understand?
The state is organized coercion. When citizens line up to vote they do so because they are either seeking to impose their will on their neighbors or to prevent their neighbors from imposing their will on them or both. Are not the hearts and minds of those who seek to use coercion the force that breathes life into this thing we call the state?
Freedom is the absence of coercion. Freedom is the decision to stop imposing our will on each other and to live and let live. The voluntary society to which we aspire is one in which interactions between people are voluntary, based on mutual consent and free from coercion.
By why does coercion exist in the first place?
To answer this question you need only introspect.
Have you never felt the urge to impose your will on another human being? What was the force that drove you to do so? Was it not fear? Is not all coercion rooted in fear?
Have you ever felt the urge to impose your will on another human being but resisted the temptation to do so? What was the force that drove you to resist? Was it not empathy for the person(s) whose freedom that you would be restricting? Was it the knowledge that harming another to alleviate your fear would put you into conflict with your conscience?
Is not the force that gives rise to and sustains the existence of the state uncontrolled fear? Is it not the case that this thing we call the state is merely the physical manifestation of the collective uncontrolled fear of a society? When fear grows does not the power of the state grow? When fear recedes is not the power of the state weakened?
Is this not the crux of the matter?
Is not the root of all that is evil the decision to respond to the impulse of fear with coercion?
Is not the root of all that is good the decision to resist the temptation to respond to the impulse of fear with coercion and to seek instead to use the power of empathy for those who would suffer from it to face and overcome the fear itself and thus remain in harmony with our own conscience?
Is this not obvious to us all?
Why then do we continue to hack at the branches of evil instead of striking at the root?
Who among us has not convinced countless supporters of the state that using coercion against our fellow human beings who have done us no harm is morally wrong only to witness them continuing to support the state?
Human beings are not driven by logic. We are driven by emotion. People behave this way when they are driven by fear. Their fear can be so overwhelming that they will tell themselves whatever lies they have to in order to morally justify coercion to themselves because the coercion serves to alleviate their fears.
Importantly, however, when they choose the path of self-deception, they are choosing the immediate gratification of relief from fear at the expense of the long term suffering of living in disharmony with their own conscience.
All human beings are naturally driven to act in harmony with their conscience because all human beings are driven to be happy. And one cannot be truly happy if they are in disharmony with their conscience because their conscience will punish them relentlessly for the harm that they are causing to others.
This is why we can be absolutely confident that we will ultimately win the struggle. Humanity is destined to exit the age of barbarism and to dispense with the state and other forms of organized coercion because human beings are driven to be happy and they can only be truly happy when they are acting in harmony with their conscience by not causing harm to others. Our very biology compels us to do so. The end of the state is pre-ordained by evolution.
Voluntaryism is nothing more than the natural philosophy that human beings choose to follow when they are acting in complete harmony with their conscience.
Our task then is to help those who are willing to find happiness by choosing to stop harming others either directly or indirectly through their support of coercive institutions like the state and to instead harness the power of empathy to choose to face and overcome the fears that give rise to the urge to control their environment. The task of bringing about an end to the state then is actually a joyous one because it requires us to help people become more happy and self-confident in order to do so.
The question must be asked though… Why are so many people so fearful? Why are there so many souls with such low self-confidence? Why do so many people see the world as a fearful place from which they need to be protected? They certainly were not born that way. One need only watch a child at play to realize that we are all born fearless, self-confident and joyful.
Some would say it is the conditioning that people receive from their environment. This is a critical error. It is not what happens to us that defines us but rather how we choose to think about what happens to us. It is the *choice* to think of ourselves as victims and to re-tell our victimhood stories to ourselves over and over again that dis-empowers us. When we do so we create a powerful emotionally charged image of ourselves as weak and powerless victims who are unable to protect ourselves against a hostile world where threats lurk around every corner.
It is victimhood thinking that not only zaps our self-confidence but drives millions into debilitating depression and to seek solace in various unhealthy forms of immediate gratification. It is victimhood thinking that must be overcome in the mind of the individual in order to rebuild their self-confidence to the point where they will be strong enough to face and conquer their fears and thus lose their desire to impose their will on their fellow human beings, or to stand idly by while others do so.
This then is the task at hand. A permanent end to the state can only be achieved by attacking the force that gives rise to it. That force is uncontrolled fear. In the mind of a healthy individual empathy/love is far stronger than fear and can easily contain it. The fear that gives rise to and sustains the state can only be conquered by ending the underlying self-inflicted suffering of victimhood thinking from which it spawns. This is what must be done by those who truly wish to strike at the root of evil.
However, in order to effectively help others to re-build the fearless self-confidence that they were born with, we must do so for ourselves as well. As Gandhi said … “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” How many of us have dis-empowered ourselves by choosing to think of ourselves as victims of the state? Has that type of victimhood thinking not zapped our self-confidence in our own ability to achieve the dream?
What if we chose to think about the situation differently? What if we saw the truth that all force springs from fear and sought to cultivate compassion for the fearful instead of anger for the force that resulted from it? When we see the truth that behind all acts of aggression is uncontrolled fear we see the truth of how weak the state really is and how easy it actually would be to bring about its downfall by simply choosing to help people to overcome their fears.
What if we realized just how incredibly powerful we are? A single individual can change the world. There exists a ripple effect for everything that we do which we are almost never aware of because we can only see our effect on those with whom we interact directly. We do not see the bigger picture. We don’t see how helping one statist to find happiness by choosing to live in harmony with their conscience for the rest of his life affects all of his subsequent interactions with people and how these, in turn, affect their interactions, and so on and so on. In this fashion, our small ripple in the pond of humanity can grow into a great wave that sweeps the world affecting countless lives of which we will never be aware.
The state is a manifestation of those who live in fear. We are the fearless. The state is weak and we are strong. The future belongs to the fearless.
The end of the state is at hand. We need only channel our passion such that we are striking at the root of evil instead of hacking at its branches. With every person who we help to become more self-confident the state becomes weaker and we become stronger.
An end to the existence of the state and the age of barbarism as a whole is pre-ordained by evolution. Our choice is merely whether we would like to bring it about in our life-time?
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Private property is not evil
I believe that moral codes are immoral.
They are not only unnecessary but they exist for the purpose of deceiving ourselves into believing that an action we wish to take or have already taken is moral when we know that it is not.
True morality is innate and requires no written code.
We act morally when we act in harmony with our conscience.
We act in harmony with our conscience when our empathy is stronger than our fear because empathy enables us to feel what others feel as if we were them. We do unto others as we would have done unto us.
When our fear is stronger than our empathy we act immorally, because when we are consumed by fear we cannot feel what others feel and we are capable of harming them without remorse.
It is that simple.
Our conscience punishes us for doing so, and we feel the need to morally justify ourselves in a vain attempt to anesthetize our own conscience.
Such is the case with the belief that private property is evil.
We all know that there is nothing inherently evil about owning private property.
The act of owning it does not, by itself, cause harm to any person.
People might harm themselves by judging themselves harshly because they have less of it than others, but this hurt is an imaginary hurt that occurs solely in the mind of the individual.
Fear causes good people to do evil things.
What is really behind this belief that private property is evil is fear.
Fear that they are somehow inadequate because they have less of it than another.
Fear that it can and potentially will be used to cause harm to others.
Fear that those who have more of it somehow have more power than those who do not, leading the later to feel a self-inflicted sense of powerlessness.
Those who profess a belief that private property is evil hold that belief in their moral code because they intend to take what does not belong to them, or to support others who intend to do so or to morally justify the fact that they have already done so.
Were they to allow themselves to feel empathy for their victims they would realize that theft is immoral.
But their fear is stronger than their empathy, so they act immorally.
Moral codes are immoral.
They are invariably driven by fear but seek to camouflage themselves in fake empathy.
Wealth redistribution does not have anything to do with a genuine concern for the welfare of the poor.
This is a lie that the socialists tell themselves to morally justify what they know in their heart to be immoral.
They are not only unnecessary but they exist for the purpose of deceiving ourselves into believing that an action we wish to take or have already taken is moral when we know that it is not.
True morality is innate and requires no written code.
We act morally when we act in harmony with our conscience.
We act in harmony with our conscience when our empathy is stronger than our fear because empathy enables us to feel what others feel as if we were them. We do unto others as we would have done unto us.
When our fear is stronger than our empathy we act immorally, because when we are consumed by fear we cannot feel what others feel and we are capable of harming them without remorse.
It is that simple.
Our conscience punishes us for doing so, and we feel the need to morally justify ourselves in a vain attempt to anesthetize our own conscience.
Such is the case with the belief that private property is evil.
We all know that there is nothing inherently evil about owning private property.
The act of owning it does not, by itself, cause harm to any person.
People might harm themselves by judging themselves harshly because they have less of it than others, but this hurt is an imaginary hurt that occurs solely in the mind of the individual.
Fear causes good people to do evil things.
What is really behind this belief that private property is evil is fear.
Fear that they are somehow inadequate because they have less of it than another.
Fear that it can and potentially will be used to cause harm to others.
Fear that those who have more of it somehow have more power than those who do not, leading the later to feel a self-inflicted sense of powerlessness.
Those who profess a belief that private property is evil hold that belief in their moral code because they intend to take what does not belong to them, or to support others who intend to do so or to morally justify the fact that they have already done so.
Were they to allow themselves to feel empathy for their victims they would realize that theft is immoral.
But their fear is stronger than their empathy, so they act immorally.
Moral codes are immoral.
They are invariably driven by fear but seek to camouflage themselves in fake empathy.
Wealth redistribution does not have anything to do with a genuine concern for the welfare of the poor.
This is a lie that the socialists tell themselves to morally justify what they know in their heart to be immoral.
What is to be done?
In the beginning were the barbarians.
They had been endowed by natural selection with a highly evolved sense of fear. The fight-or-flight response to the impulse of fear enabled them to survive in the hostile and threatening “survival of the fittest” environment in which they evolved over millions of years.
In time the barbarians triumphed over all of their rivals to become the undisputed masters of the animal kingdom. That triumph represented a major evolutionary turning point for the species of homo sapiens.
In the absence of predators the heightened sense of fear which had served them so well ceased to be an asset and instead became a liability. Natural selection began to reverse itself.
In the mind of the barbarians fear turned to anger, hatred and aggression with such ease and rapidity that it led them to inflict all manner of immorality on each other from theft, to rape to murder to the wholesale slaughter of millions, and they lived their lives in a constant state of conflict of varying intensity.
Their fear of death led them to invent religions which promised an after-life.
Their fear of each other lead them to divide into tribes and to go to war with each other.
Unable to control their fears they sought instead to control each other via the establishment of “the rule of law” and armed groups of men to inflict their will on each other.
The resulting cancer of government grew to assume control over nearly all aspects of the lives of the barbarians in their nation state tribes leading to paralysis, stagnation, and economic depression. The state grew in proportion to the inability of individuals to control their fears, and the inability of individuals to control their fears grew in proportion to the state. This vicious self re-enforcing and recurring cycle ended with unstable tyrants ascending to the pinnacle of power and unleashing unrestrained barbarous bloodbaths.
The history of the triumphant species of homo sapiens has many stories that differ in their particulars but the underlying story is always the same – the inability to control their fear lead to unremitting conflict and suffering.
The species was victorious but it was still emotionally immature. They had evolved a rational mind and were able to fend off some attempts of the more ancient fear-based mind from seizing control but they were not yet able to assume total dominance over their own destructive emotions.
The war of consequence was not without but within. It was a war for control their own mind. It was a war between the primitive fear-based brain of the barbarian and the rational mind of the post-barbarian. At its core it was a battle between fear and love, for one could only gain at the expense of the other and love was the means by which the rational mind assumed and maintained control – for the simple reason that the fight-or-flight response to fear robs the brain of the oxygen it needs to function properly.
With each passing generation the rational mind assumed greater dominance. Unbeknownst to all, natural selection was still at work and the unremitting warfare between tribes was actually serving the evolutionary purpose of cleansing the species of those most unable to control their destructive emotions.
Over the eons of barbarous warfare emerged a new type of homo sapiens - the non-barbarian - one who was able to control his fear and thus felt no need to control his environment.
The non-barbarian was able to control his fear of death and thus had no need for religion.
The non-barbarian was able to control his fear of others and thus had no need for government, the rule of law, power or coercion of any sort.
The non-barbarian naturally embraced the philosophy of voluntaryism.
The ascent of the non-barbarian represented a large evolutionary step forward in the history of the species. The triumph of love over fear enabled the rational part of the mind of homo sapiens to achieve dominance over the destructive emotions of his barbarian ancestors.
As the others continued to war and kill each other off the “evolved ones” continued to grow in number and to congregate amongst themselves and to ask the question:
What is to be done?
How do we survive and thrive amongst the hordes of emotionally unstable barbarians?
Whereas we see a world of unbounded opportunity for joy, the fearful barbarians see only threats.
Our very existence is a threat to them.
They seek to control us with their laws, and their governments and their threats of punishment and brutality.
They enslave us by looting our income at gun-point with taxation.
They throw us into their dungeons if we refuse to comply with their cowardly laws.
To live amongst these barbarians is a challenge to our tolerance for tyranny and immorality.
What is to be done?
The answer to that question depends upon the answer to another:
Has a majority of the species evolved to the point where they are physiologically capable of assuming control over their destructive emotions and resisting the temptation to respond to the impulse of fear with coercion?
An answer of “yes” suggests one course of action, whereas one of “no” suggests another.
In the final analysis, there are but two options, and the choice to respond to the impulse of fear with coercion is the deciding factor. To the extent that people continue to make this choice our civilization will remain stuck within the age of barbarism.
Option 1: Empowerment
Those who are willing can be counseled to change their conditioned response to the impulse of fear.
Instead of allowing the fear to grow to the point where the fight-or-flight response is triggered and coercion is embraced, they can choose to face and overcome the fear itself.
They can choose to allow themselves to be consumed by the natural enemy of fear - empathy, compassion and love - and to consequently naturally act in accordance with the Golden Rule instead of resorting to coercion.
This choice leads inexorably to enduring happiness.
Why?
Because it enables us to live in peace and harmony with our conscience.
Because each time we overcome a fear we achieve an enduring sense of empowerment by expanding our comfort zone. When we do so the world becomes a less threatening and more beautiful place - not because it has changed but because we have.
Because the vacuum resulting from the absence of fear is naturally filled by empathy, compassion and love.
Option 2: Natural Selection
On the other hand there are those who are unable or unwilling to control their destructive emotions.
They continue to choose to allow themselves to be consumed by fear and subsequently choose to use ever more evil forms of coercion against others.
In time, they will be dealt with by those they have chosen to harm.
The converse of the Golden Rule is the Law of Reciprocity.
If one’s conscience is not strong enough to enforce the golden rule, the desire for retribution amongst the victims of the tyrants will get the job done.
We need merely sit back and allow nature to take its course. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. No action on our part is required.
Were we voluntaryists of many lands to give in to intemperance, however, we might perhaps seek to accelerate natural selection somewhat by encouraging the barbarians in our respective nation state tribes to war amongst themselves more voraciously so as to eliminate themselves from the gene pool more quickly.
Eventually, natural selection will ensure that the emotionally unstable barbarians will become a tiny minority and they can be dealt with by mental health professionals. As long as the inmates are running the asylum, however, a means of decreasing their numbers is required.
They had been endowed by natural selection with a highly evolved sense of fear. The fight-or-flight response to the impulse of fear enabled them to survive in the hostile and threatening “survival of the fittest” environment in which they evolved over millions of years.
In time the barbarians triumphed over all of their rivals to become the undisputed masters of the animal kingdom. That triumph represented a major evolutionary turning point for the species of homo sapiens.
In the absence of predators the heightened sense of fear which had served them so well ceased to be an asset and instead became a liability. Natural selection began to reverse itself.
In the mind of the barbarians fear turned to anger, hatred and aggression with such ease and rapidity that it led them to inflict all manner of immorality on each other from theft, to rape to murder to the wholesale slaughter of millions, and they lived their lives in a constant state of conflict of varying intensity.
Their fear of death led them to invent religions which promised an after-life.
Their fear of each other lead them to divide into tribes and to go to war with each other.
Unable to control their fears they sought instead to control each other via the establishment of “the rule of law” and armed groups of men to inflict their will on each other.
The resulting cancer of government grew to assume control over nearly all aspects of the lives of the barbarians in their nation state tribes leading to paralysis, stagnation, and economic depression. The state grew in proportion to the inability of individuals to control their fears, and the inability of individuals to control their fears grew in proportion to the state. This vicious self re-enforcing and recurring cycle ended with unstable tyrants ascending to the pinnacle of power and unleashing unrestrained barbarous bloodbaths.
The history of the triumphant species of homo sapiens has many stories that differ in their particulars but the underlying story is always the same – the inability to control their fear lead to unremitting conflict and suffering.
The species was victorious but it was still emotionally immature. They had evolved a rational mind and were able to fend off some attempts of the more ancient fear-based mind from seizing control but they were not yet able to assume total dominance over their own destructive emotions.
The war of consequence was not without but within. It was a war for control their own mind. It was a war between the primitive fear-based brain of the barbarian and the rational mind of the post-barbarian. At its core it was a battle between fear and love, for one could only gain at the expense of the other and love was the means by which the rational mind assumed and maintained control – for the simple reason that the fight-or-flight response to fear robs the brain of the oxygen it needs to function properly.
With each passing generation the rational mind assumed greater dominance. Unbeknownst to all, natural selection was still at work and the unremitting warfare between tribes was actually serving the evolutionary purpose of cleansing the species of those most unable to control their destructive emotions.
Over the eons of barbarous warfare emerged a new type of homo sapiens - the non-barbarian - one who was able to control his fear and thus felt no need to control his environment.
The non-barbarian was able to control his fear of death and thus had no need for religion.
The non-barbarian was able to control his fear of others and thus had no need for government, the rule of law, power or coercion of any sort.
The non-barbarian naturally embraced the philosophy of voluntaryism.
The ascent of the non-barbarian represented a large evolutionary step forward in the history of the species. The triumph of love over fear enabled the rational part of the mind of homo sapiens to achieve dominance over the destructive emotions of his barbarian ancestors.
As the others continued to war and kill each other off the “evolved ones” continued to grow in number and to congregate amongst themselves and to ask the question:
What is to be done?
How do we survive and thrive amongst the hordes of emotionally unstable barbarians?
Whereas we see a world of unbounded opportunity for joy, the fearful barbarians see only threats.
Our very existence is a threat to them.
They seek to control us with their laws, and their governments and their threats of punishment and brutality.
They enslave us by looting our income at gun-point with taxation.
They throw us into their dungeons if we refuse to comply with their cowardly laws.
To live amongst these barbarians is a challenge to our tolerance for tyranny and immorality.
What is to be done?
The answer to that question depends upon the answer to another:
Has a majority of the species evolved to the point where they are physiologically capable of assuming control over their destructive emotions and resisting the temptation to respond to the impulse of fear with coercion?
An answer of “yes” suggests one course of action, whereas one of “no” suggests another.
In the final analysis, there are but two options, and the choice to respond to the impulse of fear with coercion is the deciding factor. To the extent that people continue to make this choice our civilization will remain stuck within the age of barbarism.
Option 1: Empowerment
Those who are willing can be counseled to change their conditioned response to the impulse of fear.
Instead of allowing the fear to grow to the point where the fight-or-flight response is triggered and coercion is embraced, they can choose to face and overcome the fear itself.
They can choose to allow themselves to be consumed by the natural enemy of fear - empathy, compassion and love - and to consequently naturally act in accordance with the Golden Rule instead of resorting to coercion.
This choice leads inexorably to enduring happiness.
Why?
Because it enables us to live in peace and harmony with our conscience.
Because each time we overcome a fear we achieve an enduring sense of empowerment by expanding our comfort zone. When we do so the world becomes a less threatening and more beautiful place - not because it has changed but because we have.
Because the vacuum resulting from the absence of fear is naturally filled by empathy, compassion and love.
Option 2: Natural Selection
On the other hand there are those who are unable or unwilling to control their destructive emotions.
They continue to choose to allow themselves to be consumed by fear and subsequently choose to use ever more evil forms of coercion against others.
In time, they will be dealt with by those they have chosen to harm.
The converse of the Golden Rule is the Law of Reciprocity.
If one’s conscience is not strong enough to enforce the golden rule, the desire for retribution amongst the victims of the tyrants will get the job done.
We need merely sit back and allow nature to take its course. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. No action on our part is required.
Were we voluntaryists of many lands to give in to intemperance, however, we might perhaps seek to accelerate natural selection somewhat by encouraging the barbarians in our respective nation state tribes to war amongst themselves more voraciously so as to eliminate themselves from the gene pool more quickly.
Eventually, natural selection will ensure that the emotionally unstable barbarians will become a tiny minority and they can be dealt with by mental health professionals. As long as the inmates are running the asylum, however, a means of decreasing their numbers is required.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
The destruction of the state is a moral imperative
Good and evil
What is morality?
What is right and wrong?
How do you answer this question?
Different people answer it differently.
Different philosophies answer it differently.
Different religions answer it differently.
Different legal systems answer it differently.
However, that which is perhaps most fascinating is not what is different but what is the same.
Beneath all the rules of all of the moral codes of all of the philosophies, religions, legal systems and individual belief systems of all the inhabitants of all of the continents of this planet throughout all the ages lies a single rule from which all other rules are derived and all morality springs.
It is the Golden Rule.
“Do unto others as you would have done unto you”.
Ponder that truth.
How can this possibly be?
It is my belief that the golden rule is seared into our very DNA.
It emerges from the neuro-chemistry of our brains.
The seed from which the Golden Rule germinates and the very foundation of morality is the emotion of empathy.
When we feel empathy for other beings we cannot harm them or through inaction allow harm to come to them because we feel their pain as if it were our own.
We do unto them as we would have done unto us.
What we refer to as our “conscience” is the powerful emotive force of empathy that guides our decision making.
When our empathy is strong we are at our happiest and feel most driven to share our joy with others and to treat them with kindness.
We do unto them as we would have done unto us.
Love is the word we use to describe a state of deep and consuming empathy.
We know intuitively that those who have the most love in their hearts are the ones whom always seem to have that sense of inner peace that comes from acting in harmony with their conscience.
They are the ones who are constantly seeking to bring joy to (and alleviate suffering from) the lives of others.
Unconditional love is the means by which a state of maximum empathy can be maintained.
When we feel unconditional love for others there is nothing that they can do which would cause us to stop loving them.
We are at our very best as human beings when we are consumed by feelings of unconditional love for others.
Why then does there appear to be so much evil in this world?
If morality is innate because we are all born with empathy, why does there so often appear to be such a dearth of it?
Empathy is not the only emotive force which drives us.
It has a powerful adversary in the emotion of fear.
Empathy and fear are constantly at war for control of our mind.
Some of our decisions we make under the influence of empathy, but some we make under the influence of fear.
Our destiny is shaped by which of these two powerful winds we choose to fill our sails with.
The power of empathy is inversely proportional to that of fear. One can only gain at the expense of the other.
When we feel fear our empathy for our fellow human beings is switched off.
The greater the fear the less we are able to connect with them.
The greater the fear the less we are able to feel their pain or joy as if it were our own.
The greater the fear the more self-absorbed we become.
The greater the fear, the more likely that the “fight or flight” response will be triggered and the fear will turn to anger.
The greater the fear the more likely we are to lash out at that which triggered the fear and bring pain to others.
Consequently the more likely we are to receive retaliation and to jointly descend into a downward spiral of barbarian conflict.
The inability to feel the pain of others, combined with the destructive emotion of anger can escalate into hatred, physical violence and even murder.
Are not most of the violent and unstable people we know men and women who are ruled by fear?
In a very real sense this neuro-chemical battle between empathy and fear is the battle between good and evil that rages within us all.
The impulse of fear puts us on trial and our conscience is the judge, jury and executioner.
How we choose to respond to the impulse of fear will put us on the path towards good or evil.
The root of all evil is the choice to respond to the impulse of fear with coercion against others.
The root of all good is the choice to respond to the impulse of fear by courageously seeking to overcome the fear itself and avoiding the temptation to initiate force against others.
The former is a choice to not to feel empathy for those who seek to control.
The later is a choice to embrace empathy for them and utilize it as a motivator for us to overcome our own fear.
Those who choose coercion chose to embrace the immediate gratification of short term pleasure at the cost of the long-term suffering of being tortured by their own conscience.
Those who choose to courageously face their fears choose to embrace short term pain in exchange for the reward of the enduring joy of living in harmony with their conscience.
The decisions we make under the influence of fear are not moral though we invariably try to deceive ourselves into believing that they are.
Question:
When you are unable to control your fear what do you do?
Be honest with yourself.
When you cannot control your own fear do you not seek instead to control your environment?
Do you not seek to control others?
Do you not seek to use coercion against them and limit their freedom?
When you do so are you really giving any thought as to the pain that you are causing them or are you too self absorbed by your own pain to feel theirs?
Is your empathy turned on or off?
Do you truly have their best interests at heart?
Be honest with yourself.
When the fear subsides do you not feel remorse?
Do you hear your conscience screaming at you “do unto others as you would have done unto you”?
What do you do about the screaming?
Do you embrace the short term pain of undoing what you have done in order to make peace with your conscience?
Or do you cower in fear at the thought?
Do you tell yourself lies?
Do you seek to silence the screaming by morally justifying your coercion against others in some fashion?
Does this really work?
Are you truly happy?
Are you able to experience deep love and intimacy without feeling pangs of guilt?
If you truly seek to silence your conscience there are but two ways to do it.
You can make peace with it by embracing empathy, choosing to make amends for the harm that you have caused and resolving to be a better person henceforth.
This is a choice that leads to a life of unremitting joy.
It is the choice that was made by the greatest human beings who have lived. The ones whom we revere.
People like the Buddha and Jesus.
The other way to silence your conscience is to choose to live your life consumed by the destructive emotions of fear and anger and to never experience love.
This is a choice that leads to a life of unremitting self torment.
It is the choice that was made by all of the great monsters of history who were driven by fear to ascend to the pinnacle of state power and use it to slaughter other people by the millions.
People like Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler.
The physical manifestation of evil
What is government?
What is the state?
Why does it really exist?
Please really think about that.
Is not the state simply an organization that forcibly robs from us and utilizes the loot to create and enforce all variety of laws with which to control us?
Recall for a moment the time in your life you were the most consumed by feelings of love and joy.
Picture yourself actually reliving that experience.
Recall the sights, sounds and smells that remind you of that moment.
Feel now as you felt then.
Now ask yourself the following question.
Is the existence of the state moral?
What was your initial gut reaction to this question?
Did you initially say “No”?
Did you then feel fear at the consequence of that answer and change your mind?
Did you search for a way to morally justify its existence somehow?
When you made this decision were you filling your sails with the winds of love or fear?
Do you accept the truth that decisions made under the influence of fear are not moral?
Is it moral to take what does not belong to you?
Is it moral to put a gun to the head of your neighbor and steal their hard-earned income?
Is it moral to stand by and not defend them as they are being gang-raped of their possessions by the state?
Is it moral to support and encourage the police state to inflict the will of the many on the few?
The prison system of the state is overflowing with people who have done no harm to any person who are being dehumanized, brutalized and raped as you read these very words.
Is that moral?
Deep down you KNOW it is not.
Why do you pay taxes when you know they will be used to finance barbarism?
Why do you vote when you know that the system would collapse without the consent of the voters?
Why do you refuse to resist evil?
Is it not because you like the security of believing that the things which you fear are being controlled by a big brother who cares about you?
Are you sure about that?
Do those coercion lovers who fight their way to the pinnacle of power truly have feelings of deep love for you? Is that what truly motivates them?
Even if it were true, have you ever asked yourself what price others are paying for your sense of security?
Do you have the courage to open your heart and allow yourself to feel the pain of your victims?
Is the existence of the state moral?
What is the state *really*?
The root of all evil is the decision to respond to the impulse of fear with coercion.
The state is an organization which exists solely for the purpose of enabling people to inflict their will on other people without ever having to look their victims in the eye.
As such, it attracts into its ranks the very worst elements of humanity – Those who are ruled by fear and who consequently actually enjoy using coercion against others.
The state is nothing more and nothing less than the physical manifestation of the evil that lies within us all.
The destruction of the state is a moral imperative.
But the way to do that is not by attacking the state itself.
Rather it is to focus on the force that gives rise to it.
The size and power of the state is directly proportional to the inability and/or unwillingness of the people within its domain to control their own fear.
Each time that each of us summons the courage to face and overcome our own fear instead of choosing to use coercion against another is a victory.
Overcoming fear in this fashion brings great joy to our lives because it enables us to live in harmony with our own conscience.
Conquering fear expands our comfort zone, and builds our self-confidence in our own abilities, and makes the world a little bit more beautiful than it was before.
And each time that one of us does this we deal a blow to the state.
In this fashion, love will overcome fear, good will triumph over evil, and the state will die a well deserved death.
The age of barbarism will come to an end and where coercion once ruled a new voluntaryist civilization of peace and prosperity will emerge in its place.
And in changing the world we will change ourselves.
After millions of years of evolution, our species will finally have transformed itself into one which has mastered fear.
Imagine what we could accomplish.
All of this can be achieved by the simple practice of choosing to overcome our own fear instead of using coercion against others.
All of this can be achieved by simply choosing to follow the Golden Rule.
What is morality?
What is right and wrong?
How do you answer this question?
Different people answer it differently.
Different philosophies answer it differently.
Different religions answer it differently.
Different legal systems answer it differently.
However, that which is perhaps most fascinating is not what is different but what is the same.
Beneath all the rules of all of the moral codes of all of the philosophies, religions, legal systems and individual belief systems of all the inhabitants of all of the continents of this planet throughout all the ages lies a single rule from which all other rules are derived and all morality springs.
It is the Golden Rule.
“Do unto others as you would have done unto you”.
Ponder that truth.
How can this possibly be?
It is my belief that the golden rule is seared into our very DNA.
It emerges from the neuro-chemistry of our brains.
The seed from which the Golden Rule germinates and the very foundation of morality is the emotion of empathy.
When we feel empathy for other beings we cannot harm them or through inaction allow harm to come to them because we feel their pain as if it were our own.
We do unto them as we would have done unto us.
What we refer to as our “conscience” is the powerful emotive force of empathy that guides our decision making.
When our empathy is strong we are at our happiest and feel most driven to share our joy with others and to treat them with kindness.
We do unto them as we would have done unto us.
Love is the word we use to describe a state of deep and consuming empathy.
We know intuitively that those who have the most love in their hearts are the ones whom always seem to have that sense of inner peace that comes from acting in harmony with their conscience.
They are the ones who are constantly seeking to bring joy to (and alleviate suffering from) the lives of others.
Unconditional love is the means by which a state of maximum empathy can be maintained.
When we feel unconditional love for others there is nothing that they can do which would cause us to stop loving them.
We are at our very best as human beings when we are consumed by feelings of unconditional love for others.
Why then does there appear to be so much evil in this world?
If morality is innate because we are all born with empathy, why does there so often appear to be such a dearth of it?
Empathy is not the only emotive force which drives us.
It has a powerful adversary in the emotion of fear.
Empathy and fear are constantly at war for control of our mind.
Some of our decisions we make under the influence of empathy, but some we make under the influence of fear.
Our destiny is shaped by which of these two powerful winds we choose to fill our sails with.
The power of empathy is inversely proportional to that of fear. One can only gain at the expense of the other.
When we feel fear our empathy for our fellow human beings is switched off.
The greater the fear the less we are able to connect with them.
The greater the fear the less we are able to feel their pain or joy as if it were our own.
The greater the fear the more self-absorbed we become.
The greater the fear, the more likely that the “fight or flight” response will be triggered and the fear will turn to anger.
The greater the fear the more likely we are to lash out at that which triggered the fear and bring pain to others.
Consequently the more likely we are to receive retaliation and to jointly descend into a downward spiral of barbarian conflict.
The inability to feel the pain of others, combined with the destructive emotion of anger can escalate into hatred, physical violence and even murder.
Are not most of the violent and unstable people we know men and women who are ruled by fear?
In a very real sense this neuro-chemical battle between empathy and fear is the battle between good and evil that rages within us all.
The impulse of fear puts us on trial and our conscience is the judge, jury and executioner.
How we choose to respond to the impulse of fear will put us on the path towards good or evil.
The root of all evil is the choice to respond to the impulse of fear with coercion against others.
The root of all good is the choice to respond to the impulse of fear by courageously seeking to overcome the fear itself and avoiding the temptation to initiate force against others.
The former is a choice to not to feel empathy for those who seek to control.
The later is a choice to embrace empathy for them and utilize it as a motivator for us to overcome our own fear.
Those who choose coercion chose to embrace the immediate gratification of short term pleasure at the cost of the long-term suffering of being tortured by their own conscience.
Those who choose to courageously face their fears choose to embrace short term pain in exchange for the reward of the enduring joy of living in harmony with their conscience.
The decisions we make under the influence of fear are not moral though we invariably try to deceive ourselves into believing that they are.
Question:
When you are unable to control your fear what do you do?
Be honest with yourself.
When you cannot control your own fear do you not seek instead to control your environment?
Do you not seek to control others?
Do you not seek to use coercion against them and limit their freedom?
When you do so are you really giving any thought as to the pain that you are causing them or are you too self absorbed by your own pain to feel theirs?
Is your empathy turned on or off?
Do you truly have their best interests at heart?
Be honest with yourself.
When the fear subsides do you not feel remorse?
Do you hear your conscience screaming at you “do unto others as you would have done unto you”?
What do you do about the screaming?
Do you embrace the short term pain of undoing what you have done in order to make peace with your conscience?
Or do you cower in fear at the thought?
Do you tell yourself lies?
Do you seek to silence the screaming by morally justifying your coercion against others in some fashion?
Does this really work?
Are you truly happy?
Are you able to experience deep love and intimacy without feeling pangs of guilt?
If you truly seek to silence your conscience there are but two ways to do it.
You can make peace with it by embracing empathy, choosing to make amends for the harm that you have caused and resolving to be a better person henceforth.
This is a choice that leads to a life of unremitting joy.
It is the choice that was made by the greatest human beings who have lived. The ones whom we revere.
People like the Buddha and Jesus.
The other way to silence your conscience is to choose to live your life consumed by the destructive emotions of fear and anger and to never experience love.
This is a choice that leads to a life of unremitting self torment.
It is the choice that was made by all of the great monsters of history who were driven by fear to ascend to the pinnacle of state power and use it to slaughter other people by the millions.
People like Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler.
The physical manifestation of evil
What is government?
What is the state?
Why does it really exist?
Please really think about that.
Is not the state simply an organization that forcibly robs from us and utilizes the loot to create and enforce all variety of laws with which to control us?
Recall for a moment the time in your life you were the most consumed by feelings of love and joy.
Picture yourself actually reliving that experience.
Recall the sights, sounds and smells that remind you of that moment.
Feel now as you felt then.
Now ask yourself the following question.
Is the existence of the state moral?
What was your initial gut reaction to this question?
Did you initially say “No”?
Did you then feel fear at the consequence of that answer and change your mind?
Did you search for a way to morally justify its existence somehow?
When you made this decision were you filling your sails with the winds of love or fear?
Do you accept the truth that decisions made under the influence of fear are not moral?
Is it moral to take what does not belong to you?
Is it moral to put a gun to the head of your neighbor and steal their hard-earned income?
Is it moral to stand by and not defend them as they are being gang-raped of their possessions by the state?
Is it moral to support and encourage the police state to inflict the will of the many on the few?
The prison system of the state is overflowing with people who have done no harm to any person who are being dehumanized, brutalized and raped as you read these very words.
Is that moral?
Deep down you KNOW it is not.
Why do you pay taxes when you know they will be used to finance barbarism?
Why do you vote when you know that the system would collapse without the consent of the voters?
Why do you refuse to resist evil?
Is it not because you like the security of believing that the things which you fear are being controlled by a big brother who cares about you?
Are you sure about that?
Do those coercion lovers who fight their way to the pinnacle of power truly have feelings of deep love for you? Is that what truly motivates them?
Even if it were true, have you ever asked yourself what price others are paying for your sense of security?
Do you have the courage to open your heart and allow yourself to feel the pain of your victims?
Is the existence of the state moral?
What is the state *really*?
The root of all evil is the decision to respond to the impulse of fear with coercion.
The state is an organization which exists solely for the purpose of enabling people to inflict their will on other people without ever having to look their victims in the eye.
As such, it attracts into its ranks the very worst elements of humanity – Those who are ruled by fear and who consequently actually enjoy using coercion against others.
The state is nothing more and nothing less than the physical manifestation of the evil that lies within us all.
The destruction of the state is a moral imperative.
But the way to do that is not by attacking the state itself.
Rather it is to focus on the force that gives rise to it.
The size and power of the state is directly proportional to the inability and/or unwillingness of the people within its domain to control their own fear.
Each time that each of us summons the courage to face and overcome our own fear instead of choosing to use coercion against another is a victory.
Overcoming fear in this fashion brings great joy to our lives because it enables us to live in harmony with our own conscience.
Conquering fear expands our comfort zone, and builds our self-confidence in our own abilities, and makes the world a little bit more beautiful than it was before.
And each time that one of us does this we deal a blow to the state.
In this fashion, love will overcome fear, good will triumph over evil, and the state will die a well deserved death.
The age of barbarism will come to an end and where coercion once ruled a new voluntaryist civilization of peace and prosperity will emerge in its place.
And in changing the world we will change ourselves.
After millions of years of evolution, our species will finally have transformed itself into one which has mastered fear.
Imagine what we could accomplish.
All of this can be achieved by the simple practice of choosing to overcome our own fear instead of using coercion against others.
All of this can be achieved by simply choosing to follow the Golden Rule.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Beware the demagogue
No matter how independent we are, we all have people who we respect and look up to as leaders and role models.
How do you choose your leaders?
I have a couple rules of thumb that I use to filter out candidates.
Rule #1: If they seek power they are disqualified.
Rule #2: If they appeal to destructive emotions they are disqualified.
Power seekers
“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”
~Jimi Hendrix
We all fall into the trap of choosing to use coercion against others from time to time. But when the fear subsides and our empathy for our victim returns, our shame reminds us that that such behavior is morally wrong. We may seek to deceive ourselves into believing otherwise but our conscience knows better.
Self-confident people do not desire power.
Only those who lack the emotional maturity to control their own fear seek to control their environment instead.
Power seekers seek power because they fear they will not be able to handle to consequences of not forcing others to behave as they wish.
They lack the courage to allow others to choose their own path.
They lack the requisite compassion to connect with others to understand the deeper reasons why they do what they do.
They lack self-confidence in their own ability to persuade others to voluntarily adopt their way of thinking.
They lack the patience to allow others to see the rightness of their position.
Perhaps worst of all, they lack the courage to question the correctness of their own beliefs.
Intuitively we all know that those who seek power are the last ones to whom it should be given.
Haters
“Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.”
~Benjamin Franklin
We all fall into the trap of allowing ourselves to be overtaken by destructive emotions from time to time. However, we know in our hearts that this sort of behavior is nothing to be proud of.
Those who seek to motivate others by appealing to fear and anger are not worthy of respect.
Those who use fear to move others do so because this is how they motivate themselves. They lack the emotional maturity to control their fear so they choose to harness it instead.
Those who use anger to move others do so for the same reason. Uncontrolled fear invariably turns to anger and hatred.
Fear turns off empathy – the source of our conscience and sense of morality – and is thus the root of all evil.
It kills the ability to connect with other human beings and makes civilized discussion impossible.
It causes us to focus on the very worst qualities in others and to see them as a “threat”.
It leads to the division of society into camps of “us” and “them”.
When fear turns to anger, “us” and “them” go to war with each other.
Those who allow themselves to be lead by such people are choosing the path of barbarism.
Demagogues
Those who both crave power and seek to appeal to the destructive emotions of others are demagogues or demagogue wannabes.
Regardless of the underlying issues, choosing to follow a demagogue is a very bad idea.
They are the leaders of the barbarian tribes and they should be shunned by civilized human beings.
P.S. The author is aware of and amused by the irony of advising others to beware of those who advise others to beware. ;)
How do you choose your leaders?
I have a couple rules of thumb that I use to filter out candidates.
Rule #1: If they seek power they are disqualified.
Rule #2: If they appeal to destructive emotions they are disqualified.
Power seekers
“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”
~Jimi Hendrix
We all fall into the trap of choosing to use coercion against others from time to time. But when the fear subsides and our empathy for our victim returns, our shame reminds us that that such behavior is morally wrong. We may seek to deceive ourselves into believing otherwise but our conscience knows better.
Self-confident people do not desire power.
Only those who lack the emotional maturity to control their own fear seek to control their environment instead.
Power seekers seek power because they fear they will not be able to handle to consequences of not forcing others to behave as they wish.
They lack the courage to allow others to choose their own path.
They lack the requisite compassion to connect with others to understand the deeper reasons why they do what they do.
They lack self-confidence in their own ability to persuade others to voluntarily adopt their way of thinking.
They lack the patience to allow others to see the rightness of their position.
Perhaps worst of all, they lack the courage to question the correctness of their own beliefs.
Intuitively we all know that those who seek power are the last ones to whom it should be given.
Haters
“Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.”
~Benjamin Franklin
We all fall into the trap of allowing ourselves to be overtaken by destructive emotions from time to time. However, we know in our hearts that this sort of behavior is nothing to be proud of.
Those who seek to motivate others by appealing to fear and anger are not worthy of respect.
Those who use fear to move others do so because this is how they motivate themselves. They lack the emotional maturity to control their fear so they choose to harness it instead.
Those who use anger to move others do so for the same reason. Uncontrolled fear invariably turns to anger and hatred.
Fear turns off empathy – the source of our conscience and sense of morality – and is thus the root of all evil.
It kills the ability to connect with other human beings and makes civilized discussion impossible.
It causes us to focus on the very worst qualities in others and to see them as a “threat”.
It leads to the division of society into camps of “us” and “them”.
When fear turns to anger, “us” and “them” go to war with each other.
Those who allow themselves to be lead by such people are choosing the path of barbarism.
Demagogues
Those who both crave power and seek to appeal to the destructive emotions of others are demagogues or demagogue wannabes.
Regardless of the underlying issues, choosing to follow a demagogue is a very bad idea.
They are the leaders of the barbarian tribes and they should be shunned by civilized human beings.
P.S. The author is aware of and amused by the irony of advising others to beware of those who advise others to beware. ;)
Sunday, June 21, 2009
The violence of non-violence
I am a big believer in the philosophy of non-violence.
People like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. are heroes of mine.
What really gets me steamed though is all of the activists out there who claim the heritage of these men, and who claim to genuinely believe in non-violence, but who simultaneously strive to achieve their goals by using the power of the state to inflict violence on others.
I find this to be exasperating for two reasons.
First of all, by behaving in this fashion they smear all of us who believe in non-violence with the label of hypocrisy and dissuade others who might otherwise be attracted to this philosophy.
Secondly I believe that many of those who practice this hypocrisy are not actually aware on a conscience level that they are acting at odds with their own beliefs.
I believe this to be so because the very existence of the state blinds them to the reality of what they are doing.
I believe that the impulse to use coercion against our fellow human beings is fundamentally due to an inability to control our fears.
When we are unable to control our fears, we must choose between the fight or flight response. When we choose to fight we usually choose to exercise control over our environment in some fashion.
When we do this ourselves by directly imposing our will on other human beings there is at least the possibility of connecting with that other human being. There is the chance that we will become aware of the pain and suffering that we are causing to them.
There is a chance that we may choose to stop hurting them.
There is a chance that we may choose to feel remorse and to seek to make amends for causing harm to them.
Of course, if the inability to control a strong fear is significant, we may instead choose to turn off our empathy for them, become self absorbed, get and stay angry and to morally justify what we know in our heart to be immoral. This is, of course, the path chosen by all of the monsters of history.
So, when we choose to do the deed ourselves, there is at least a chance that we will not descend into evil.
However, when we choose to exercise coercion indirectly by asking someone else to do it for us, this possibility is much more remote.
When we choose to vote this is what we are doing and this is why voting in particular and democracy in general is so incredibly evil.
When we cast a ballot we are choosing to employ another human being to exercise coercion on our behalf.
Laws are passed for this purpose.
The violence of the state is then used to impose force on our victims.
But all of this is out-of-sight and out-of-mind for the voters.
We never have to see the pain and suffering that these human beings feel, thus we are never able to feel remorse for what we have done.
And nobody who works for the state is willing to accept responsibility for this evil.
They all pass the buck.
The police officers who serve the fines, and throw human beings into dehumanizing cages where they will be raped and brutalized always say the same thing … “I’m just following the law” … “I’m just doing my job”.
And when our victims seek empathy from organs of governments who administer these laws, they always say the same thing … “I’m just following the law” … “I’m just doing my job”.
Few people in our society realize what is really going.
Few people see the big picture.
Few people understand the true dynamics of the larger forces that are really at work here and where all this is ultimately leading us to.
Few people understand the role that they themselves are playing to bring this about and the role that they could play to prevent it from being so if they so chose.
A vicious self-reinforcing cycle is at work …
The state grows in proportion to the inability of individuals to control their fears and the inability of individuals to control their fears grows in proportion to the growth of the state.
The increase in the rate of taxation …
the increase in the ferocity of invasive laws which destroy individual liberty and seek to control every aspect of the life of the individual …
the increase in the dependency of the individual on the state and the feeling of dis-empowerment …
These symptoms of the growth of the state serve only to increase the stress of the individual who more often than not seeks to decrease that stress by paradoxically giving the state more power.
We choose to vote “our guy” into office to respond in kind to the individuals who are perceived to be inflicting the pain on us via the state.
This cycle of barbarism is absolutely identical to the cycle of barbarism that unfolds between individuals in conflict [http://tinyurl.com/9drnvy] except that it is practiced between organized gangs of individuals who band together to increase their strength.
And unless the cycle is broken it leads to the same destructive ends except on a much more massive scale.
Each time one group attains power they seek retribution on the other and use the force of the state to achieve that goal.
It is a vicious cycle that is destined to end in an explosion of barbarism and bloodshed.
We know this is true because it is not the first time this has happened.
It would seem to be a naturally occurring pattern.
The last time that the world was consumed by the total state philosophies of communism and fascism tens of millions were slaughtered, great cities were leveled and entire societies where devastated and traumatized.
These philosophies are identical in all respects but one – who they chose to focus their hatred on and who, consequently, those in control of the state chose to use the power of the state to focus their extermination efforts on.
As the state grows so grows evil.
This is the path which we are traveling.
Anyone who has ever read about the holocaust cannot help but be struck by the fact that the people who lead the jews to the gas chambers responded to pleading for empathy from those who were about to die with the usual cold response of the government employee: “I’m just following the law” … “I’m just doing my job”.
Those who consider themselves to believe in non-violence should remember this quote from Martin Luther King Jr.
“We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was ‘legal’”.
The choice between violence and non-violence is the choice between coercion and voluntarism.
Support for the existence of the state is 100% at odds with support for a philosophy of non-violence because the state is an institution that exists solely for the purpose of inflicting coercive and violent force against individuals.
Gandhi’s philosophy of Satyagraha explicitly sought to combat the impulse to coercion not only because it does not work but because this path leads us to become just like those whose behavior we are seeking to change.
If the goal is to achieve enduring change, coercion will never work. Indeed it can have the deceptive effect of appearing to work in the short term but actually making things much worse in the long term.
The goal is not to use force against the evil doer.
The goal is to encourage the evil doer to transform themselves by connecting with them, forcing them to face their own conscience and to voluntarily choose to stop exercising coercion.
Deep down we all know the difference between right and wrong because morality is innate and is rooted in empathy. When we feel empathy for other human beings we cannot cause harm to them because we feel their pain as if it were our own.
Stayagraha seeks to turn on the empathy of the one who chooses to exercise coercion. In so doing it forces them to face their own conscience.
Destructive emotions have the opposite effect. When we choose to respond to force with force we are actually helping the evil doer to deceive themselves into thinking that their actions are moral because we are helping them to keep their empathy turned off.
This is what the destructive emotions of fear and anger do. They kill empathy and in so doing blind the conscience.
This path leads to the division of society into warring tribes who use ever increasing means of violence against each other. Sooner or later the violence of voting, taxation and law-making will escalate into even more brutal forms of violence, barbarism and war making.
This time around perhaps we will end up wiping out our entire species?
I believe that those who profess to believe in non-violence but who inadvertently end up choosing the path of coercion should choose to practice Satyagraha on themselves and to lead by example.
This is the path that has the best chance of not only avoiding a deep dive into barbarism but actually bringing about positive, peaceful and enduring change in the world.
People like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. are heroes of mine.
What really gets me steamed though is all of the activists out there who claim the heritage of these men, and who claim to genuinely believe in non-violence, but who simultaneously strive to achieve their goals by using the power of the state to inflict violence on others.
I find this to be exasperating for two reasons.
First of all, by behaving in this fashion they smear all of us who believe in non-violence with the label of hypocrisy and dissuade others who might otherwise be attracted to this philosophy.
Secondly I believe that many of those who practice this hypocrisy are not actually aware on a conscience level that they are acting at odds with their own beliefs.
I believe this to be so because the very existence of the state blinds them to the reality of what they are doing.
I believe that the impulse to use coercion against our fellow human beings is fundamentally due to an inability to control our fears.
When we are unable to control our fears, we must choose between the fight or flight response. When we choose to fight we usually choose to exercise control over our environment in some fashion.
When we do this ourselves by directly imposing our will on other human beings there is at least the possibility of connecting with that other human being. There is the chance that we will become aware of the pain and suffering that we are causing to them.
There is a chance that we may choose to stop hurting them.
There is a chance that we may choose to feel remorse and to seek to make amends for causing harm to them.
Of course, if the inability to control a strong fear is significant, we may instead choose to turn off our empathy for them, become self absorbed, get and stay angry and to morally justify what we know in our heart to be immoral. This is, of course, the path chosen by all of the monsters of history.
So, when we choose to do the deed ourselves, there is at least a chance that we will not descend into evil.
However, when we choose to exercise coercion indirectly by asking someone else to do it for us, this possibility is much more remote.
When we choose to vote this is what we are doing and this is why voting in particular and democracy in general is so incredibly evil.
When we cast a ballot we are choosing to employ another human being to exercise coercion on our behalf.
Laws are passed for this purpose.
The violence of the state is then used to impose force on our victims.
But all of this is out-of-sight and out-of-mind for the voters.
We never have to see the pain and suffering that these human beings feel, thus we are never able to feel remorse for what we have done.
And nobody who works for the state is willing to accept responsibility for this evil.
They all pass the buck.
The police officers who serve the fines, and throw human beings into dehumanizing cages where they will be raped and brutalized always say the same thing … “I’m just following the law” … “I’m just doing my job”.
And when our victims seek empathy from organs of governments who administer these laws, they always say the same thing … “I’m just following the law” … “I’m just doing my job”.
Few people in our society realize what is really going.
Few people see the big picture.
Few people understand the true dynamics of the larger forces that are really at work here and where all this is ultimately leading us to.
Few people understand the role that they themselves are playing to bring this about and the role that they could play to prevent it from being so if they so chose.
A vicious self-reinforcing cycle is at work …
The state grows in proportion to the inability of individuals to control their fears and the inability of individuals to control their fears grows in proportion to the growth of the state.
The increase in the rate of taxation …
the increase in the ferocity of invasive laws which destroy individual liberty and seek to control every aspect of the life of the individual …
the increase in the dependency of the individual on the state and the feeling of dis-empowerment …
These symptoms of the growth of the state serve only to increase the stress of the individual who more often than not seeks to decrease that stress by paradoxically giving the state more power.
We choose to vote “our guy” into office to respond in kind to the individuals who are perceived to be inflicting the pain on us via the state.
This cycle of barbarism is absolutely identical to the cycle of barbarism that unfolds between individuals in conflict [http://tinyurl.com/9drnvy] except that it is practiced between organized gangs of individuals who band together to increase their strength.
And unless the cycle is broken it leads to the same destructive ends except on a much more massive scale.
Each time one group attains power they seek retribution on the other and use the force of the state to achieve that goal.
It is a vicious cycle that is destined to end in an explosion of barbarism and bloodshed.
We know this is true because it is not the first time this has happened.
It would seem to be a naturally occurring pattern.
The last time that the world was consumed by the total state philosophies of communism and fascism tens of millions were slaughtered, great cities were leveled and entire societies where devastated and traumatized.
These philosophies are identical in all respects but one – who they chose to focus their hatred on and who, consequently, those in control of the state chose to use the power of the state to focus their extermination efforts on.
As the state grows so grows evil.
This is the path which we are traveling.
Anyone who has ever read about the holocaust cannot help but be struck by the fact that the people who lead the jews to the gas chambers responded to pleading for empathy from those who were about to die with the usual cold response of the government employee: “I’m just following the law” … “I’m just doing my job”.
Those who consider themselves to believe in non-violence should remember this quote from Martin Luther King Jr.
“We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was ‘legal’”.
The choice between violence and non-violence is the choice between coercion and voluntarism.
Support for the existence of the state is 100% at odds with support for a philosophy of non-violence because the state is an institution that exists solely for the purpose of inflicting coercive and violent force against individuals.
Gandhi’s philosophy of Satyagraha explicitly sought to combat the impulse to coercion not only because it does not work but because this path leads us to become just like those whose behavior we are seeking to change.
If the goal is to achieve enduring change, coercion will never work. Indeed it can have the deceptive effect of appearing to work in the short term but actually making things much worse in the long term.
The goal is not to use force against the evil doer.
The goal is to encourage the evil doer to transform themselves by connecting with them, forcing them to face their own conscience and to voluntarily choose to stop exercising coercion.
Deep down we all know the difference between right and wrong because morality is innate and is rooted in empathy. When we feel empathy for other human beings we cannot cause harm to them because we feel their pain as if it were our own.
Stayagraha seeks to turn on the empathy of the one who chooses to exercise coercion. In so doing it forces them to face their own conscience.
Destructive emotions have the opposite effect. When we choose to respond to force with force we are actually helping the evil doer to deceive themselves into thinking that their actions are moral because we are helping them to keep their empathy turned off.
This is what the destructive emotions of fear and anger do. They kill empathy and in so doing blind the conscience.
This path leads to the division of society into warring tribes who use ever increasing means of violence against each other. Sooner or later the violence of voting, taxation and law-making will escalate into even more brutal forms of violence, barbarism and war making.
This time around perhaps we will end up wiping out our entire species?
I believe that those who profess to believe in non-violence but who inadvertently end up choosing the path of coercion should choose to practice Satyagraha on themselves and to lead by example.
This is the path that has the best chance of not only avoiding a deep dive into barbarism but actually bringing about positive, peaceful and enduring change in the world.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
The State Is Not The Problem
Picture in your mind for a moment the image of a crazy man angrily shaking his fist at a non-existent foe.
Many libertarians are passionate defenders of the right to bear arms. They say things like …
“Guns don’t hurt people. People hurt people.”
I would argue, however, that libertarians who blame the state for violence have a lot in common with those who blame guns for violence.
The state is just another kind of weapon is it not?
It doesn’t hurt anyone on its own.
It’s just a tool.
“The state doesn’t hurt people. People hurt people.”
Ponder that disturbing truth for a moment.
The state is not the problem.
The state is just one type of weapon that people use to impose their will on each other.
The problem is not the weapon.
The problem is with those who seek to use the weapon to force their will on others.
More specifically, the problem is the pattern of thinking that gives rise to the desire to exercise control over our fellow human beings.
I submit that if people did not desire to impose their will on each other there would be no state.
The real enemy of freedom and the root cause of all conflict and violence in the world is that pattern of thinking in the mind of man that gives rise in him to a desire to impose his will on his fellow man.
So the critically important question to ask is “Why?”.
Why do people desire to impose their will on each other?
You need only search your heart to find the answer.
FEAR
The state is not the problem.
FEAR is the problem.
You can completely destroy the state but if man has not learned to condition his mind to overcome FEAR he will just find another weapon he can use to impose his will on his fellow man.
Somalia proved that did it not?
Admittedly, this is a humbling truth that is difficult to accept. Many libertarians have spent their entire lives railing against the evils of the state.
If you are one of these, please consider the disturbing possibility that the crazy man shaking his fist at a non-existent foe might be you.
Addendum
My apologies to any of my libertarian friends who might find this to be offensive. My goal was not to offend. Rather it was to challenge your thinking. I have found that sometimes patterns of thinking are so deeply ingrained that it sometimes requires a bit of a shock in order to get us to question them.
I believe very strongly that achieving the free society we all dream of requires us to radically change our entire way of thinking about the nature of the problem and, consequently, the range of solutions that might be effective in solving it.
One of the most fascinating things about the world in which we live is that problems which at first appear to be complex and intractable often turn out to have staggeringly simple root causes that can go undetected for decades or more. In such situations, solving the problem by dealing directly with its root cause can result in an almost magical melting away of the heretofore observed complexity.
I strongly believe that to be the case here and make the following bold prediction: The day that man learns to condition his mind to face and overcome his fears will be the day in which the state itself will cease to exist. More so, all forms of coercion, conflict and violence will simply disappear as humanity enters into a new age of emotional maturity and bids farewell to the age of barbarism.
The resultant ripple-effect of changes to human society of this one simple change will be of such staggering vastness that it may well be impossible to predict exactly what the world would look like. There is, however, one thing of which we can be sure. It is a world worth fighting for.
Many libertarians are passionate defenders of the right to bear arms. They say things like …
“Guns don’t hurt people. People hurt people.”
I would argue, however, that libertarians who blame the state for violence have a lot in common with those who blame guns for violence.
The state is just another kind of weapon is it not?
It doesn’t hurt anyone on its own.
It’s just a tool.
“The state doesn’t hurt people. People hurt people.”
Ponder that disturbing truth for a moment.
The state is not the problem.
The state is just one type of weapon that people use to impose their will on each other.
The problem is not the weapon.
The problem is with those who seek to use the weapon to force their will on others.
More specifically, the problem is the pattern of thinking that gives rise to the desire to exercise control over our fellow human beings.
I submit that if people did not desire to impose their will on each other there would be no state.
The real enemy of freedom and the root cause of all conflict and violence in the world is that pattern of thinking in the mind of man that gives rise in him to a desire to impose his will on his fellow man.
So the critically important question to ask is “Why?”.
Why do people desire to impose their will on each other?
You need only search your heart to find the answer.
FEAR
The state is not the problem.
FEAR is the problem.
You can completely destroy the state but if man has not learned to condition his mind to overcome FEAR he will just find another weapon he can use to impose his will on his fellow man.
Somalia proved that did it not?
Admittedly, this is a humbling truth that is difficult to accept. Many libertarians have spent their entire lives railing against the evils of the state.
If you are one of these, please consider the disturbing possibility that the crazy man shaking his fist at a non-existent foe might be you.
Addendum
My apologies to any of my libertarian friends who might find this to be offensive. My goal was not to offend. Rather it was to challenge your thinking. I have found that sometimes patterns of thinking are so deeply ingrained that it sometimes requires a bit of a shock in order to get us to question them.
I believe very strongly that achieving the free society we all dream of requires us to radically change our entire way of thinking about the nature of the problem and, consequently, the range of solutions that might be effective in solving it.
One of the most fascinating things about the world in which we live is that problems which at first appear to be complex and intractable often turn out to have staggeringly simple root causes that can go undetected for decades or more. In such situations, solving the problem by dealing directly with its root cause can result in an almost magical melting away of the heretofore observed complexity.
I strongly believe that to be the case here and make the following bold prediction: The day that man learns to condition his mind to face and overcome his fears will be the day in which the state itself will cease to exist. More so, all forms of coercion, conflict and violence will simply disappear as humanity enters into a new age of emotional maturity and bids farewell to the age of barbarism.
The resultant ripple-effect of changes to human society of this one simple change will be of such staggering vastness that it may well be impossible to predict exactly what the world would look like. There is, however, one thing of which we can be sure. It is a world worth fighting for.
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