Imagine, for a moment, that you were like me, and that you had a burning desire to find out if there was any legitimate libertarian movement in the USA. Imagine that you worked for the Libertarian Party for years, until you realized that the Libertarian Party is purposefully wasting its donor's money, in ways that CANNOT POSSIBLY result in electoral victories. Well, this then would rightfully lead you to understand: If the Libertarian Party wasn't fake, and had somehow managed to win an entire state legislature of offices, then everyone would have a model of "What happens when libertarians take political control of an entire state legislature."
Maybe, the Federal Reserve's owners would have deep state operatives buy off or murder enough of those state legislators to cause the others to "back down" and continue the status quo. Maybe, there is no winning, because "the enemy" is simply far more entrenched, and far more willing to use violence as an effective tool of coercion than we libertarians are. OK, fine.
But I don't think this is the case. I think Libertarians(including "anarchists") actually have a weaker, stupider, lesser desire for liberty than totalitarians have for totalitarian control.
One one hand, you have "anarchists" who have no idea what opportunities exist within the status quo, because they never cared to find out. They haven't "gotten to the bottom" of anything, much less their own stated philosophy. ...But the same is true of most "objectivists": they also don't care to "clog with their whole weight against the system." They're too content to (not even) "cast a strip of paper, merely." (The quotes are from the famous libertarian minarchist, Henry David Thoreau's famous essay "Resistance to Civil Government.")
The simple proof of the above is that the totalitarians retain power, even though we've had more freedom in the past than we currently have, in spite of having more wealth and better electronic technology than we've ever had before. (The cybernetic technology that existed before computation was actually superior to that of today, because it was "single purpose" books that programmed human brains in such a way that they formed viable pro-freedom networks.)
There's also a problem with uninformed Randism (it's not a problem with objectivism I have, it's a problem with uninformed objectivism colored by Ayn Rand's highly subjective and strategically-inept personal opinions). The Randroids (and I speak as one, more or less) usually don't have a big enough moral problem with the status quo to act in radical defense of their philosophy. They don't mind the fact that the FDA will probably kill them (as it will, you and me). This leads them to support crony capitalism, or at least, to not fight against it, tooth and nail (as the Founding Fathers they claim to admire so much, once did).
Nothing makes this ignorant appeasement as clear as the Randites' uncritical defenses of corporate grocery stores, and other defenders of the status quo. (Whom Norbert Wiener labeled "The Lords of Things As They Are.")
Wal-Mart supports the existing crony capitalist political establishment. If they didn't, that establishment would fall in less than one election cycle. However, they play dumb, and pretend they don't support the existing establishment. (This allows them to remain friends with totalitarians and freedom-lovers, so the ignorance of both groups is a win-win for them.) How does the existing establishment maintain power? Primarily, by restricting access to the ballot, and stacking the composition of juries against defendants. These two tactics are mutually-inclusive. (For this reason, when we fail to assist those willing to run to get on the ballot, we eliminate approximately 25% of an optimal strategy. You might say, "It's only 25%, and it's a 25% I'm uncomfortable with and unskilled at, so who cares?" ...but it's often the "margin of difference" between victory and failure.)
How do well-intentioned, politically-inclined patriots(libertarians=classical liberals=objectivists) fight the government? They have to gather thousands and thousands of signatures of registered voters in local districts to gain access to the ballot. (You don't have to do this for it to happen. ...You just have to passively support it, and others will go out in the middle of winter and do the dirty work of talking to thousands of people.) WELL, WHERE WILL THEY GATHER THOSE SIGNATURES? Signatures can be gathered very slowly, door-to-door, or somewhat more quickly at public thoroughfares with lots of foot traffic, ...like All-American grocery store parking lots(Wal-Mart, Whole Foods, Jewel, Target, Home Depot, K-Mart, etc).
Ooops. All-American grocery stores no longer exist in the USA! (An exception should be noted: Netherlands-owned Giant Foods on the East Coast is pro-free-speech. They tolerate polite speech in their parking lots, as a matter of corporate policy, ...including the circulation of nominating petitions, and initiative petitions that have the capacity to stop the imprisonment of innocent people. Hats off to Giant Foods!)
Wal-Mart, Whole Foods, Target, Home Depot, K-Mart, and nearly all other "corporate stores" disallow unamplified, interpersonal speech necessary to circulate a petition in their parking lots. In doing so, they protect a political system that imprisons 2.3 Million mostly-innocent people for first-time victimless non-crimes. That protection of an aggressive police state constitutes aggression, because it is not innocent. They know full well what they're doing. How do I know this? Because Wal-Mart regularly uses the political process to both illegitimately and legitimately obtain things they want. All of the prior corporations I listed ABUSE eminent domain. (You can see this in the comprehensive annual financial reports that are available for every single county in the USA.) Moreover: in every single initiative and referenda state, Wal-Mart has regularly ALLOWED initiative petitions in their parking lots for issues that narrowly benefit Wal-Mart (such as petitions for allowing alcohol sales in "dry" counties that previously prohibited alcohol sales, so they can sell alcohol in their stores). I have nothing against this. ...Except that they then silence every other person with any sort of a petition in their parking lots, in every state where this is allowed. So, they understand that freedom of speech is the only way to change government (as well as the foundation of properly-functioning democracy), but they silence even mild, polite, ballot access speech on the land they own. (Usually, their customers are so stupid that they don't even realize that petitions are necessary for political participation: they mistakenly think that all you have to do to appear on the ballot is file some papers at the county building.)
So, the Randroids typically say "Well, Wal-Mart has a right to control their venue," ...to which I point out:
- Interpersonal un-amplified speech doesn't interfere with the proper use of the parking lot, and no serious person makes that claim. However, the dishonest Wal-Mart managers and authoritarian police often make this claim, because it seems reasonable if you aren't actually witnessing what's going on, but only reading about it in a police blotter, after some intrepid patriot has been arrested.
- Rand claimed that those who controlled public thoroughfares and disallowed free speech should be boycotted by an informed electorate. ...But there's your problem! The shitty government schools have created such a stupid, un-American, illiterate, uninformed society that most people have no knowledge of what is right, and the electorate is "uninformed." Those that do understand and desire to stand up for what's right often don't do so because they have no idea how to do so. Those who understand what is right, and know how to use the political process to stand up for it, and have the time and money to stand up for it, are a vanishingly small number of people (basically, myself and my ten best friends). Then, you realize that the few people like myself are threatened with arrest and abuse from the management of Wal-Mart and other grocery stores, as a matter of corporate policy.
- Why is the corporate policy of all corporate land-owners anti-American? Several reasons:
3a) Their corporate lawyers have been conditioned to be totally anti-American, because they got government school educations. So, the people trusted with knowing something about the Law, justice, politics, and the value of speech are conditioned to hold an anti-America political philosophy that does not value free speech. Moreover, they are all members of the bar association, and the bar-licensing of law has made the law into a political monopoly, where those who oppose the political establishment risk being disbarred (since many or most politicians in most states are bar-licensed lawyers).
3b) The corporate lawyers referred to in (3a) prior will lose their jobs if they cost Wal-Mart money (or are disbarred and can no longer represent Wal-Mart). They will lose their jobs if they even cost Wal-Mart money. So they give "safe" counsel. In the absence of strong American principles, the presence of people trying to reinstate American principles in society might well cost such companies a few dollars in sales. ...But rather than take a strong, pro-American view of "It doesn't matter, absolute free speech is worth it!" ...the company's leadership itself has no dedication to American values whatsoever!
3c) Why do those companies have no dedication to American values whatsoever, at the level of their cowardly corporate lawyers or their boardrooms? Because they're actually perversely-incentivized in a number of ways. First, they benefit from eminent domain, and are a very part of the corrupted political landscape themselves. This includes so-called libertarians like John Mackey, the owner of Whole Foods (ironically, he contributes money to the National LP to engage in defeating his own idiotic security, petitioning in Whole Foods parking lots and getting kicked out in the process). Wal-Mart is even worse. Of course, in States where Wal-Mart is forced to allow petitioners due to State Supreme Court precedents (California, Washington State, and Massachusetts), they still make plenty of money and stay in business. Also: the Netherlands company "Giant Foods" is actually pro-American, and tolerates speech as a matter of policy! (and their stores are bigger, nicer, and higher-quality than any of the un-American America-based stores I just mentioned!). ...Also: Home Depot tolerates the circulation of nominating petitions for Republicans, but not for libertarians! (Because the CEO is a Republican: they violate their own corporate policy and look the other way when it's a Republican, but not when it's a Libertarian!)
3d) The claims of the cowardly and anti-American grocery store chains are not plausible. They actually endorse, benefit from, and are corrupted by the status quo.
3e) In this way, STATISTICAL control is exercised over the American public, and the grievances of those who hate the Wal-Mart heirs has a grain of legitimacy: The average American idiot leftist is too dumb to know that Ayn Rand's philosophy would benefit them, but they see certain people benefitting greatly from our current VERY UNFREE system, and it's not them. Moreover: the Wal-Mart heirs literally will not be allowed to fail: the government would bail them out (unless they dared to stand up for what's right, and oppose that government).
3f) Wal-Mart doesn't give a fuck about even tolerating the possibility of changing the political system to one that doesn't fine the shit out of poor motorists, and imprison 2.2 Million innocent people ..as long as they can continue to occupy a privileged "already-in-existence-and-too-big-to-fail" status. John Mackey of Whole Foods has expressed a vague preference for individual freedom, so long as he doesn't have to actually take any personal risk in pursuing that individual freedom.
The American revolutionaries who risked hanging execution encountered the same problem. This is why they also targeted the British Loyalists who sheltered and supported the British stormtroopers, even if they did so passively:
You don't get to support systems of tyranny and get a free pass!
So, FUCK WAL-MART. I don't give a fuck how productive they are, or how many people they employ. If they support the system that put my brothers in jail for no reason(and they do!), they can go straight to hell.
The same is true of anyone or anything that stands in-between me, and my freedom.
The Founders and Minute Men had the right idea about "Persons inimical to the liberties of America"
So, I don't give a fuck what happens to Wal-Mart, and I certainly don't conflate them, or other corporate totalitarians with "capitalism." Wal-Mart is "in corporate partnership with the state."
If the person you loved most in your life was behind bars for life (or exiled), ruining his entire life, you'd feel the same way I do. (Ross Ulbricht; Leonard Peltier; Aaron Patterson of Chicago; Edward Snowden; and thousands of poor blacks, whites, and Mexicans too poor to make the evening News) ...or you're no man at all, and are "with the enemy."
Why does it have to be "all or nothing"? Why does it have to escalate to "war"? Why does it have to be "with us or against us"?
...Because we can't even SPEAK to our fellow man in a GOD-DAMNED PARKING LOT without the totalitarians who own Wal-Mart and Whole Foods calling gangsters with badges to beat us down, threaten us, or have us arrested. ...With the full knowledge that they're doing so to protect their own state-enforced monopoly advantage that most people (the Ayn Rand Institute included) don't even know exists. They can afford the cost of regulation (that's why they don't want libertarians getting on the ballot!) ...they've already factored in the costs of regulation, but the costs of competition are greater and more unpredictable!
You can ask somebody for the time in a Wal-Mart parking lot, and not get threatened with arrest. Heck, for five or six hours, you can circulate a nominating petition without them noticing you're there. This leads most people to mistakenly believe that Wal-Mart(and all the other corporations I mentioned) don't mind basic person-to-person speech in their parking lots. People assume that there is "freedom of speech everywhere" in the USA. This assumption leads them to make the mistake that "Things are more or less OK, and acceptable." They can't imagine petitioners and speech that doesn't exist (because it was crushed under the threat of police violence --at the behest of these foot-traffic-thoroughfare-owning corporations).
But is there an onus of bravery on Wal-Mart? Maybe they're afraid to challenge the existing government? No, that's not it, either. ...Wal-Mart and Whole Foods will gladly challenge the political establishment when there's a few dollars in alcohol sales on the line. ...But they will call the cops when someone tries to stand up for the individual's right to defend INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS via the ballot box.
Wal-Mart has even run such initiatives itself. They always tolerate those initiatives being circulated in their parking lots. (For some reason, all the bogus complaints of "it will offend some customers" or "you're blocking the door" or "we can't risk you getting hit by a car in our parking lot for liability reasons" suddenly disappear when it's THEIR petition being circulated. ...But when it's time to stick up for so prosaic an American right as the bare minimum polite, un-amplified public speech necessary to circulate the nominating petitions that are now necessary for basic candidate ballot access?
Corporate America is very clear: "SHUT THE FUCK UP, OR GET THREATENED AND ATTACKED BY POLICE."
The defenders of the status quo know exactly what they're doing, even if you don't.
Abstractly, sure, they should have a right to own and control their private property. ...But they're the very ones who have protected the property-rights-denying status quo that has stripped us all of OUR property rights.
The proper way to look at this is to categorize such intellectually-dishonest defenders of the status quo as British loyalists, and declare war on them.
Political contests can only have one winner. All who would attack people for non-offenses such as exercising control over their own body chemistry or personal finances are "with the enemy."
Since 1971, the Libertarian Party has tried to put politically objectivist choices on ballots. The Ayn Rand fans have always been correct in their prescription of what the end-result should be.
But they, and Ayn Rand herself, have always advocated cowardly appeasement, as the prison industrial complex slowly rose up around us. They've always told us: Now is not the time to rebel ...wait a few more years (as the government brainwashing indoctrination school-system builds its power up, and we lose ground).
...But waiting for a crash isn't the right thing to do.
Sure, there are limited property privileges under this system. ...But that doesn't mean it's worth saving.
If we proceed into the Singularity with no legal rights of any kind, we may just find that the shackles we could have broken are now forged in an iron so thick they would take a thousand years to break.
...and I haven't got that kind of time. None of us do. Machine systems far more capable than the most capable human are now in existence. They beat us in chess. Then, they beat us in the far more difficult political territory game of "Go," a decade before anyone thought it was possible.
Ayn Rand herself knew nothing about Cybernetics. She ignored Norbert Wiener's masterwork "Cybernetics" when it was published, and then ignored his explanation of the same science in his layman's work, "The Human Use of Human Beings." Slowly, classical liberalism was rolled back, and individual freedom with it.
We have driven off the road, where the road forked, and tow-trucks and police officers are now on their way to send us to the gulag for driving under the influence(of shitty government schools).
I suggest we immediately get back on the road, with rifles at the ready, in case we're too late.
It's long past time to head in the right direction.
The right direction isn't Trump(his nomination of the idiotic totalitarian Jeff Sessions for Attorney General is proof of that), but maybe he affords us a slight delay that will allow BASIC SURVIVAL.
When cybernetic systems do battle, there are "no rules." The side that fights themselves is the side that loses.
For this reason, libertarians should find common ground with Leftists who despise the soulless and cowardly corporations who have eaten America. They could change things if they wanted to. They don't want to.
Burger King's CEO allegedly hands out copies of Ayn Rand to their mangement. ...But what if they listened to Thoreau, and "clung with their whole weight against the system"?
The system would fall in 2 years. (Even if they had to investigate the Libertarian Party, come to the conclusion it was infiltrated and purposefully rendered harmless to the establishment, and replace its current leadership with their own people. --As they likely would.)
Failure is not an option. Crony capitalists are: "Any capitalists that provides aid and comfort to the existing American police state."
"The enemy" is the entire cybernetic system: the human beings, corporations, institutions, prevailing weather, real-estate, wildlife, and other factors that contribute to enemy victories.
As the highly-strategically-intelligent Morton Blackwell wrote: "You owe it to your philosophy to learn how to win."
I suggest that libertarians adopt a few intelligent beliefs and characteristics:
- Freedom is worth winning. It should be prioritized and won, in our lifetimes.
- Those counseling the belief that "winning freedom is a hundred year battle, but we should be patient" are fucking idiots whose beliefs are severely harmful to progress toward freedom.
- Anyone who helps win freedom is a friend. Anyone who impedes winning freedom is an enemy.
- We should fight for freedom --in all possible ways-- as hard and vigorously as totalitarians fight for "progressivism."
- There's a smart way to be involved in all known strategies toward liberty. Advocating political relinquishment isn't a strategy, it's an impediment to the electoral strategy that has given the USA more freedom than Soviet Russia (if you can't understand this, you're a fucking idiot of epic proportions, and/or probably very dishonest).
---5a) If you don't like the electoral strategy, then don't pursue it. ...But also don't impair it.
---5b) If you don't like "counter-economics," then don't pursue it. ...But also don't impair or impede it.
---5c) Whatever genral strategic approach you take, try to do it well, and if someone's doing it better, "learn from and replicate their efforts so others can imitate you, imitate them or allow them to direct your efforts as "sub-efforts", or watch from a distance and contribute money to their efforts." ie: "Lead, Follow, or Get the fuck out of the way."
---5d) Make certain you are not "doing what the enemy wants you to do."
---5e) Make sure you are not helping the enemy.
---5f) Build feedback loops into whatever you do, so you can measure your own effectiveness. Run your freedom organization like you're running a business: If it's not working, figure out what isn't working and correct it. Discover useful metrics that allow you to use "feedback and correction" into your strategy.
---5g) Disfavor strategies in which success cannot be meaningfully measured. (You handed out an unknown number of pamphlets to people, and they have no way of getting in touch with you? OK, you might as well have take a nice long piss in a strong wind. You have no idea how many of those pamphlets wound up on the ground, in the trash, or actually alienated the receivers. You have to include some MEASURABLE means of following up! And you have to know What __ amount of work resulted in what ___ amount of progress! ie: Handed out 1,000 pamphlets, and got 10 email signups, 5 phone calls, and 2 courthouse volunteers. --but this is just an example.)
Either you'll thank me later, or you'll be recorded in the History books as something similar to a British loyalist. I don't care which it is.
...But you won't stop me.