"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ~ H.L. Mencken
The Anatomy Of The State
We must, therefore, emphasize that "we" are not the government; the government is not "us." The government does not in any accurate sense "represent" the majority of the people. But, even if it did, even if 70 percent of the people decided to murder the remaining 30 percent, this would still be murder and would not be voluntary suicide on the part of the slaughtered minority.
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Thanks for posting this brilliant essay by Murray Rothbard. Seems it might have been on the board in the past, but not recently.
It is so easy for anarchists and/or libertarians (I've yet to read a viable definition outlining the difference) to become soothed into thinking that if "we" just get more heavily involved in the state (politics) at some level, "we" might just make a difference. Perhaps "we" should all go back and start voting again -- see if "we" can help the voting public to do "our" civic duty and get a higher grade of elected officials this time around -- if "we" will all just pitch in (and get all our friends and neighbors involved also).
Not.
I used quotes around "we" in deference to an excellent article written some years ago by Jeff Berwick. The article disappeared from the archives of his website once he began to dabble in partisan politics (he and Walter Block). There may be no connection between his dabbling and the disappearance, but I felt at the time that it was the most effective article Jeff ever wrote. I googled a copy that happened to be preserved at a non-related Yahoo Group forum. You can read it here: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FPE/conversations/messages/61165.
As I see it, the prime enemy of "the people" is their faith (dependence) in central political "authority" -- the state. It is that faith that must be exorcised. The "authority" (there is no authority if there is no faith) appears about to implode upon itself, and will no doubt take many casualties in its wake. Until that takes place we are relatively powerless to put an end to the abstraction we call "the state".
But faith is the real enemy. That is something we can identify and address. Rothbard in this article "contributed his fair share" (pun intended) toward exposing the state -- the large group of psychopaths who make up that brainless abstraction. Sam