“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.” Mark Twain
“The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men”. Plato
“Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.” Henry David Thoreau
“The politicians are put there to give you the idea you have freedom of choice—you don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own, and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the senate, the congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets, and they own all the big media, so they control just about all the information you get. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying—lobbying, to get what they want.” George Carlin
The Solution of the Social Problem
source excerpts from The Solution of the Social Problem P-J. Proudhon 1848 critique of representative or parliamentary democracyThe “ideal republic” is “an organization that leaves all opinions and all activities free. In this republic, every citizen, by doing what he wishes...
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Consent Theory in the Radical Libertarian Tradition
“Oh, Ye Are For Anarchy!”: Consent Theory in the Radical Libertarian Tradition Carl Watner 1986 source ...Part II (Much like the assumption that if one's parents are English, one's allegiance and citizenship are automatically British.) "In Thoreau's day, the church taxed each...
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Equality and libertarianism
by Hume, (not David): source Libertarian political philosophy is often criticized for not taking equality seriously as an important political value. Is this charge legitimate? Do libertarians reject the idea of equality as such? Do they reject the idea that...
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On Organization
Tom Wetzel "Consensus" has had a certain popularity as a decision-making method among social change groups since the '60s, especially within the anti-nuclear movement but also in anarchist and radical feminist circles. I think we can understand why if we...
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Organization and Conflict: Free Association vs. Politics
[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community] source Free association and competition resolves conflict while politics, especially democratic politics, enables and ultimately depends on conflict. All disagreements between people about how to organize can theoretically be resolved through free association, as...
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Anarchism As Skepticism
[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community] "The government is necessary. The government is legitimate. Democracy is representative of the people. Democracy is the best form of government. Majority rule is legitimate. Checks and balances actually function. Voting is meaningful or...
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The “Love It Or Leave It” Argument
brainpolice source Libertarians are likely to be familiar with and annoyed by the "love it or leave it argument", which roughly goes something like this: "If you don't like the government, why do you live here? Why don't you just...
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Anarchism! = “Giving Up”
Originally posted at LessGovernment.com. brainpolice I’ve seen it expressed in many different ways: “I hate the government, but anarchy would be even worse.” “Voting for radical reformers is one thing, but we shouldn’t just throw away our republic/democracy/whatever!” “Anarchists want to...
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The Anarchist Critique of Democracy
source What is democracy, precisely? Will it ever deliver on what it promises? How significant is the difference between state democracy and direct democracy? Is anarchism a kind of direct democracy, or something else entirely? And how do democratic discourse...
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