Center for a Stateless Society » Stalin

Rand Paul has been touted as a libertarian Republican. In spite of the fact that he has claimed to not be a libertarian. This claim is also peculiar due to his statements about not wanting to end the War on Drugs. Not to mention his promotion of a “pro-life” anti-abortion rights bill. And his lack of belief in a borderless world. These are all positions contrary to radical libertarian principle.

Not only would we see a violation of said principle from a Rand Paul presidency, it would help sustain the present perception amongst many non-libertarians that libertarianism is reactionary. This will make it more difficult for left-libertarians to reach out to the non-libertarian left. Something not at all good for our cause.

Genuinely radical libertarian politics doesn’t require a constitutional conservative savior to coming to our rescue. It requires bottom up direct action. And this is precisely what a preoccupation with the presidency as a mechanism for change ignores. It can only contribute to a bizarre “libertarian” cult of personality surrounding the holder of executive power.

Such cults of personality have wreaked major havoc throughout human history. Mao and Stalin worship come to mind. Libertarians should strive to avoid a repeat of this. Of course, Rand Paul is not proposing Stalinism or Maoism, but, a cult of persona surrounding him could lead to him getting away with the liberty destroying measures mentioned above.

Presidential politics is just not the right thing for libertarians to be involved with. One only need look at the deference shown towards Obama and George W. Bush by their respective partisans. They can literally get away with murder due to the respect offered them.

The transcendence of aforementioned presidential politics is key to the project of liberty. A commander in chief is fit for a militarized society, but, not an egalitarian one. Industrial organization such as that championed by friends of liberty calls for equality rather than hierarchies of command. A Rand Paul presidency would be a setback for that project. It would wrap the mantle of the presidency in the aura of liberty. Something that would lead to disaster for actual freedom.

In lieu of voting for Rand Paul, libertarians can work to create liberty by labor organizing, copwatch programs, and other such grassroots efforts. All of this will do far more to help the most disadvantaged members of society than a Rand Paul presidency would.

One Human’s Taxation is a Tragedy; Three Hundred Million is a Statistic

Ross Kenyon — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 20:16:13 +0000

An itemized receipt for taxes? How lovely and desirable!

Think tank Third Way just issued a paper [PDF] analyzing what the median US taxpayer of 2009 (who earned $34,140 and paid $5,400 in federal taxes) actually purchased.

Bloggers responding to the analysis note that usually when an exchange of goods occurs, a bill of transfer or receipt is produced. Why is one not given to taxpayers in the same manner? An honest and baffling question for American citizens to ponder, with a lousy answer.

Joseph Stalin said “One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.”

When brought down to the individual level, death and taxes aren’t just abstract concepts anymore. Three-something trillion dollars in government spending this year? What does that even mean? It’s difficult to fully comprehend such a vast amount of goods and services and the labor necessary to produce them.

However, when someone takes $200 out of my paycheck, I notice. You probably do too.

When people see that they have to work for two weeks of their year to pay for the healthcare of someone they’ve never met, or for a morning (with luck, probably a Monday) to preserve land they’ll possibly never visit or enjoy, or a full day to pay to fight wars which they may find morally reprehensible, without the choice of refusing, they rightly become angry!

It gets worse, though. There isn’t even a satisfying answer for taxation after one has become aware of the current unavoidability of this process. The argument most commonly given as to why one has to pay this tax “bill” is almost always the supposed Claymore known as the social contract argument:

You live inside of a nation.

You must abide by its rules and what the majority decides.

If you don’t like it, you can leave.

At first blush this seems reasonable. One could choose a different community to live in where the policies are akin to one’s own preferences. Many people are just plain thankful that they are lucky enough to pay that little in taxes instead of much more, or that they don’t live in someplace without indoor plumbing. Those are things to absolutely be grateful for, but the indignity of being coerced to labor against one’s will would not change by moving to any new state.

If one relocated deep in the jungles of Brazil and began creating wealth, it would only be a matter of time before the government came to collect the bill you owed. Build a home on an uninhabited island in the Pacific, and expect the local government to come looking for “its” money eventually.

When people stare down the fact that they have no choice but to give up their money to somebody, toward ends they often don’t even want, never asked for, or don’t morally agree with, they begin to sense that something foul is afoot, and they’re right.

Itemizing taxes to the individual taxpayer’s level is certainly a good start on the road to a free world. Hopefully it would encourage people to demand from their politicians the ability to opt out of services which they didn’t morally agree with, or even just those that they didn’t actually want or benefit from. Eventually they may even discover that they don’t want to pay the salaries of their rulers and would prefer the logical conclusion of a stateless society over the forced labor under government, and then, as an old teacher of mine used to say, we’d really be cooking with natural gas.