Politics Is Seductive

This post will conclude my thoughts about Issue 3.

EDITORIAL

In this Voluntaryist editorial “Climbing Off The Bandwagon,” Wendy McElroy explains why there has been somewhat of a focus on the Libertarian Party so far. She tells us that until political anarchists understand that engaging in the political process is counter-productive, there is little use in discussing alternative strategies. Once they have said all they can say to make the case for political anarchists, then they will begin to write more about alternatives.

She tells us that

“Politics is seductive. It offers the illusion of quick, easy victory within a respectable vehicle…In contrast, many Voluntaryist strategies, such as education and non-violent resistance, are long-term and demand courage and patience without always offering an objective measure of short-term success [such as vote totals].”

Later in the editorial she adds,

“I do not enjoy tearing people or institutions apart. It is because I understand the necessity of breaking the anarchist fascination with politics that The Voluntaryist editorials will repeat so often the same theme – government cannot bring freedom.”

SIDEBAR: Paul Jacob

In this issue, there is a boxed insert soliciting funds for the Paul Jacob fund. At the time, Mr. Jacob was refusing to register for the draft. He ended up spending 5 ½ months in prison for violating the Selective Services Act. Since then, he’s been very active in the political realm, even serving as the Libertarian Party National Director in 1987-88. Lately, he’s been involved in controversy surrounding ballot initiatives. I guess he decided not to move away from politics.

BOOKS OF INTEREST
Carl Watner writes another book review in this issue, part 2 of 3 on Gene Sharp’s books. This review is on the Gene Sharp book titled Gandhi As A Political Strategist: With Esssays on Ethics and Politics.

According to Carl, this book goes into detail about Gandhi’s political strategies. This is even more intriguing since Gandhi never held political office. Gandhi understood that it is the cooperation of the people that makes it possible for governments to have power. If the people withdraw cooperation, the entire system collapses.

He also makes the point that for Gandhi, it’s not about seizing power; it’s about denying power through non-violent non-cooperation. This is apparently where the voluntaryists get the idea that “if one takes care of the means, the end will take care of itself.”

Whenever I read or hear about Gandhi, in my mind, I have images of the movie that Ben Kingsley starred in. As far as I know, this movie was a decent history of his life (as far as any movie can be), so if you like to watch movies over reading, this movie might be a good way to learn a bit more about the man and his life.

VOLUNTARYIST EVENT

Finally, I noticed at the end of this issue that the Voluntaryists co-sponsored a one-day conference that featured Gene Sharp, Carl Watner and several other speakers on the topic of non-violence.

The conference included all of these speakers, reading material and even lunch for a mere $10! You can’t even get a large Papa John’s pizza these days for that price without a special coupon. Which reminds me, what do you think about cutting off a slice of Papa John’s slogan and turning it into a Voluntaryist slogan focusing on the importance of the means to the end:

Voluntaryism: Better ingredients, better societal change

Who makes up the electoral audience?

This post begins my immersion in Issue 3 of The Voluntaryist. This issue begins with an excellent personal history by Burgess Laughlin, a fellow who was involved in the Libertarian Party from 1979 to 1982. His story is titled “Why I Quit the Libertarian Party.” He’s another person like me who just got the hell out once he realized the futility and inconsistencies involved.

(I found Mr. Laughlin online and he has written a couple of books since publication of this essay. He's also involved in a couple of blogs.)

In his introduction to the Voluntaryist piece, Laughlin mentions reading several authors who made him seriously consider a stateless society even before getting involved in politics. However, he still fell prey to the idea that he needed to “do something” and ended up in the Libertarian Party.

One of the authors he mentions reading early on was Lysander Spooner. My experience was the other way around - I got involved in politics before I heard about Spooner. Thanks to the internet age, at the time I did hear of him, I was able to download and read NO TREASON.

I was completely enthralled. I remember being so surprised that someone was writing this stuff in the 1800s. Why hadn’t I ever heard of these writings? Why didn’t anyone tell me about him? Why had no one else I knew heard of him either? How could a man with writings this interesting, this important and this intriguing be so completely hidden from my view?

This only added to my frustration about our educational system of course.

But back to Mr. Laughlin. In a section where he explains his insights into electoral politics, he talks about the inherent make-up of the audience for a political campaign. He writes:

“Electoral politics is an ineffective educational tool because the people in the electoral audience are most likely to be statists. They pay attention to electoral politics because they think they benefit from government coercion. The people who are disgusted with government in general and electoral politics in particular are unlikely to listen to campaign speeches and ads. Promoting libertarian ideas to most voters is like advertising milk to alcoholics.”

Yeah, and if they even go for the milk, they'll end up adding the government alcohol right back in so they can make White Russians. Sure they taste good, but they don’t solve the problem of the political alcoholic, do they?

It's All About The Legitimacy of Government

Continuing with The Voluntaryist, Issue 2, I wanted to post a few thoughts on the editorial titled LET MY PEOPLE GO, which was co-written by George H. Smith and Wendy McElroy.

This editorial begins by mentioning the Dallas Accord, an agreement made in 1974 between the minarchists and anarchists within the Libertarian Party.

It sounds like it was meant to shut-up the annoying anarchists who just really didn't like anything at all about government. Apparently the majority on both sides ended up thinking that if they could just stop arguing about that, for just a little while, then both groups could work together and focus on growing the Party itself.

And once that growth happened, and government became smaller as a result, THEN a discussion on government itself, and how to get rid of it, could occur.

I can almost hear the snickers of the minarchists in this situation, can't you?

Please note, I'm not making fun of the anarchists here, it's just that I can now see how different the goals are for the two groups.

Anyway, the authors' biggest concern continues to be the time and energy wasted inside the party by those who have figured out that there is no moral legitimacy in government.

This excerpt probably says it best:

"Voluntaryists believe that anarchists have important contributions to make in strategy as well as in theory. We believe in the potential of nonviolent anarchist organizations to challenge State power on a level impossible for political parties. The basic theory is there, awaiting development. The strategic insights are there, awaiting implementation. Where, then are the anarchists? Many of them, including those of the highest caliber, are stuck in a regressive and increasingly bureaucratic political party, soliciting votes like common political hacks, engagins in vendettas, and fighting delaying actions against Party conservatism which approaches with the inevitability of death."

Even Libertarian History Repeats Itself

Issue 2 of The Voluntaryist is now completed. If they are all this chock-full of interesting items to relate to the present day, I don’t know if I’ll ever get finished with this project. But don’t worry, I am taking time to continue riding my bike.

Issue 2 contains the very first interview published. The interviewee is a person named Dyanne Petersen, who I had never heard of before. Of course in this day and age, it’s easy to find information about someone, particularly if they were out and about even peripherally in the world of politics. I learned she passed away in 2003 and here’s one link on Wendy McElroy’s blog from this year that mentions her, but other than that, you can do your own search to learn more. Or, if anyone reading this blog knew her, please share any stories or thoughts in the comments section.

This interview is titled FROM POLITICS TO VOLUNTARYISM and it sort of recounts her move from the Libertarian Party to anarchist/voluntaryist. In this interview, she referred a couple of times to the 1980 campaign which is when Ed Clark was on the ticket for President. In this year the LP was on the ballot in every state and this campaign still holds the record for having the highest vote total for an LP presidential campaign.

Ms. Petersen publicly resigned in August of that year from a position she held in the California LP which apparently caused a bit of a stir. What I found personally interesting is that she felt the need to just not quietly go away. I did something similar in that I wrote a letter to the party leadership and also put it on the discussion board I mentioned in My Journey. Dyanne and I both thought of the party as an educational vehicle so I guess it makes sense that we would try to go out in a manner that might educate others.

I find it interesting, and kind of sad, that many things she said in her interview are the exact things I said and experienced. This was 20 years later. History repeats.

She talks about how the LP was moving towards vote totals being the measurement of success and how that can automatically dilute the message. She gives two examples of how she thinks Ed Clark evaded questions instead of giving an all-out libertarian answer because he didn’t want to alienate voters. Votes were what mattered, as opposed to sharing the ideas.

Relating this to my experience, I remember being on an email list that was really for Arizona Libertarians and Ernie Hancock wrote something very similar to what she was saying about vote totals. I don’t remember exactly how he said it, but it was right after I had experienced my run for office and it really hit me hard.

This was one of several instances that were rapidly piling up where I suddenly saw the inconsistencies and futility involved in politics. Oddly, I think Ernie has stayed very involved in the LP and I’m not sure why but maybe it’s because of people like me, who might hear some things he says because we are involved and then we can move away easier. Perhaps Ernie will see this and give us his thoughts.

This brings up another issue: do we need the LP in order to bring more people to voluntaryism? Or does it chase more people away from investigating the ideas of freedom? I know from the interview that Ms. Petersen regrets her time in the party, she feels like she wasted a lot of energy on political issues that were not spent in directly communicating libertarian ideas with people, like working for ballot access. Of course the hope was that after that work was done, then lots of educational campaigning would occur, but instead it just moved everyone to using vote totals as the measure, which leads to diluting the message in order to get the votes.

One more item I wanted to point out from this interview is the discussion about other activities and groups outside of the LP. She points out that ex-Party members often want something to be involved in. Obviously when someone gets involved in the party, they are the kind of person who is interested in “doing” something. So I wonder if this is not part of the problem in so far as there is so much to do within politics and campaigning that it keeps people busy and feeling like they are accomplishing something for freedom. And then when you reject the whole institution of government, you’re kind of left with a feeling of “what now?”

I think there is a lot more going on now though. I know there is a lot of action going on in New Hampshire as a result of the Free State Project (but interestingly enough, I think there are still plenty of battles between the anarchists vs. the political libertarians there).

There are also loads of internet sites, podcasts, blogs, etc. that are promoting libertarian/anarchist/voluntarist ideas and, one item in particular that I’ve been seeing but not sure yet how it all relates, is something called agorism.

I guess I better stop this post now because if I keep going I may start repeating myself.