Get Involved By Avoiding Politics

In other words, to understand that politics is nothing other than legalized theft -- http://ourtownsquare.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=... -- is to understand the utter falsity of Oliver Wendell Holmes' dictum: "Taxes are the price we pay for civilization."

On the contrary, they are the price we pay to otherwise go about the business of civilization, our ability to do so being directly proportionate to how much is stolen from us.

On the other hand, there is the point that, to paraphrase, "those who consider themselves too intelligent to engage in politics are doomed to be ruled by their inferiors." In other words, sometimes you need to get involved in politics to keep the politicians from attacking your freedom in just the ways mentioned.

I do however agree with the overall theme. If people really care about helping others, they do it. They don't get some fellows with guns to force their countrymen to live like them.

Absolutely.

I made a choice recently during some big life changes. I bought an old Victorian row house in Baltimore neighborhood that has its struggles becoming the best place it can be. Baltimore is one of the poorer cities in the US. My contributions are adding to a decimated tax base, and revitalizing an historic neighborhood.

The government is not doing this, individuals are (rugged individuals at that) In fact the government is largely responsible for the city's neglect over the past 30 years. The government is coming around, but at a snail's pace.

The government is hassling me with bureaucracy in doing what I see as my good deed. The nightmare of inspections, and permitting is really hurting my morale at times. Only recently did we get a police chief that is willing to fight crime in this extremely violent city.

Anyhow, I will stick with it.

Here is one of the houses on my block that was featured in this old house magazine.

House

http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/photos/0,,20170760,00.html

We ignore politics at our own peril. As Dr. Boudreaux is fond of pointing out, politicians do not always (usually?) act in our best interests. The public must keep the politicians as honest as we can, and often the only way we can do that is by voting them out of office (one incentive they respond to). Otherwise they will continue to run roughshod over our liberties (as they are doing in MD right now).

Government growth seems to be relentless at all levels. How does one stop others from getting involved with one's life and one's livelihood? Shouldn't one support a local politician who promises to keep property taxes at a certain level as opposed to another politican who wants to raise them?

I can think of the case of the antitrust suit against Microsoft. In this case, Microsoft's competitors like Oracle and Sun lobbied Washington to bring an antitrust suit against Microsoft. Microsoft stayed out of politics and minded its own business. Eventually, a judge decided the antitrust suit had merit and the rest is history. What should have Microsoft done in that case?

It seems it's a prisoner's dilemma. You have to be involved otherwise others will. What do we do?

On the other hand, there is the point that, to paraphrase, "those who consider themselves too intelligent to engage in politics are doomed to be ruled by their inferiors." In other words, sometimes you need to get involved in politics to keep the politicians from attacking your freedom in just the ways mentioned...

Posted by: Hammer | Apr 9, 2008 9:03:05 AM

Ah ha, Hammer, you have hit the nail squarely on its head. Becuase when Don write this:

I have no way to force him to live as I believe he should live.

He, for the moment, I'm hoping, has forgotten that there are too many 'muir-gils' in our society that will use their vote in order to have elected representatives that will legislate our conformity through the threat of force.

Much of our lives are influenced heavily by politics and to ignore this and avoid its processes are to do so at one's own peril. Don knows this in his heart but tries to play this thing above board in a handful of his latest contributions. Interesting, then, that some of his other commentary/contributions are about what exactly?

Microsoft ignored politics but politicians did not ignore Microsoft. The politicians were not going to be content to allow Microsoft to simply go about its business of making stuff that people wanted for a profit. They wanted a share.

I suspect that Microsoft no longer ignores politics, and that it has a full time lobbying group in Washington DC to protect its interests from the ravages of politicians.

Please note that the politicians most dangerous and threatening to Microsoft were all Democrats.

Looking back, the time I spent on the last several elections voting, deciphering positions, watching debates, evaluating character etc. was almost totally wasted. Really, its only value was entertainment, which is fine as far as it goes, but I'm not going to pretend that by doing my "civic duty" I actually affected anything. The difference between involvement and non-involvement is zero at best.

I certainly understand that voting for many is a form of self-defense, but doesn't that suppose that your involvement in politics can actually accomplish something? Unlike MS, I can not directly influence legislation. Voting for the lesser of two evils is like bringing an ice-cream cone to a gun fight, except that we imbue it with all sorts of platitudes and meaning so we don't remember that it's just an ice-cream cone.

The real problem with voting to protect yourself from politicians isn't just that your vote is statistically meaningless. I would say that it's highly unlikely that you could even make a rational choice with your vote, as campaign promises and past history have little bearing on how the elected will actually behave once in office.

I really haven't decided whether I'm going to vote or not this election, but whatever my decision I honestly believe that giving a homeless guy a blanket or helping a friend move will have a far greater effect than my vote will.

As Thoreau said, "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil for one who is striking at the root."

The root is taxation, the morality of which cannot be, and has never been, successfully defended on moral grounds. So strike at the root -- challenge every politician to defend taxation on moral grounds -- and you will strike at the very heart of the evil that afflicts hamanity:

http://www.barefootsworld.net/nockoets0.html

So do you want the muir-gils of the world to break out the violins? There are only 4 paths I can think if you live in what you believe is a fundamentally corrupt society.

1. Change the system within its parameters (get elected).

2. Violent overthrow.

3. Leave it

4. Complain and hope the system will die of its own course.

I believe most choose 4 since it's the easiest.

Response to Gil: I emphatically do not believe that the society in which I live is fundamentally corrupt. Quite the contrary; it's generally very decent and productive and safe.

Don Boudreaux

Gil,

Leaving it [this country] is not a viable option for me because there are few places out there that are more free and in which I speak the same language. There is no FEC-type place where libertarians can excape to and avoid the creeping socialism that exists here either. And, since I do not condone violence as of yet, that's not an option for me either.

So, that leaves options one and four, which I think that libertarians attempt to combine and do through persuasion and education. Some people do not like freedom, though. And some want to impose their dislike of freedom on others through processes one and four. And some who disdain capitalism, who practice what they preach, do, in fact, opt to leave it through FEC communes. Perhaps more of you should leave, since you really have a true option to do so without undo costs on your preference sets.

"Getting involved" is both useless and morally unacceptable. Useless because there is no such thing as a politician who would rather just mind his or her own business. Morally unacceptable because that's what sticking my nose into other people's business is.

But I believe there is an alternative, and that is to simply ignore the political process. What if they held an election and nobody voted? What if they passed a law and everyone ignored it? As long as the political class has people convinced that everyone must be "involved" they control the game.

We can all go about our business, as you say, but each of us has a duty to protect liberty. We must always beware of the state and ask: is this particular act of coercive power designed to protect liberty or weaken it?

And even when we are "outside of government" we must do this. When our neighbors, family and friends fall prey to collectivist ideology, we must warn them, kindly, of the ever-present danger of winding back on the road to serfdom.

So those of you, including Don, who are OK not getting involved politically, is it because you don't trust yourselves? I guess I'm saying this in response to either Don's or Russ's post from awhile back that talked about how all politicians respond to incentives. He made the point that some think it's all about getting the "right" people in office, however you define "right", but really all politicians simply act in their own best interests politically and are forced to respond to their electorates.

I assume that many of you would like the government to do things differently. Presumably, to me at least, if you were in office, you could have even a small influence on the way government is run and help shape policy in a way the ensures freedom and minimal government intrusion.

So by not getting involved directly in that process (Don, I'd say that Cafe Hayek is a great way to get involved in that process indirectly) are you saying you're afraid that if elected you'd forget your priorities of freedom and small government? In other words, you’d run as the “right man for the job” but end up just acting in ways that keep you in office. Or is it that you don't think you'd be electable at all, because of your views on government, so you don't want to try? Or maybe, based on Don’s comment before, you don’t think it’s worth the effort because life is good enough and you don’t think you’ll be able to do enough? I don’t want to imply that any reasons are bad reason; it’s just that I just don’t fully understand them.

While I agree that helping individually is important, one still needs to get involved politically.

Responses like Randy's are exactly the problem, a pipe dream along the lines of "wouldn't it be great if everyone just shared and got along?" Yea, it would be great if everyone just thumbed their nose at DC when they said "you can't own a gun in town." The trouble is that even if a mess of civilians did so, there would be plenty who would enforce the law. Given that they enforce the law by killing you, it is a pretty fruitless exercise to simply ignore it and hope it goes away.

Certainly there are many vile politicians, but the answer isn't to just remove yourself from the system, for the simple reason that you can not. Try to opt out of paying taxes. Try to opt out of driving on the right side of the road. It isn't going to work. The only way to fix the issue is from within the system, or from without in the form of violent overthrow. Of course, once you overthrow the system, you will be obligated to create a new system to work in, which puts you right back where you started.

Politics is not necessarily morally reprehensible. What ends people use it for can be. What you are against, Randy, is the use of politics to force you to do what other's think is right. The problem is not the politician, the problem is the power they are allowed to exercise. Cut that root, and politics loses its dark side, as well as a great deal of its content.

Hammer,

Americans like to think of themselves as revolutionaries. The truth is that within a decade of the revolution a new political class had arisen which has been gathering power to itself ever since. Are you up for a revolution? Ready to purchase a decade of freedom with years of blood and sacrifice? I'm not. But neither do I see any reason to buy into the myth. The political class owns the country. I pay rent to them because I have no choice. I complain about it because it pleases me to see the troubled expressions on their pompous sanctimonious faces.

Yet at the same time people vote for the same parties because they want to choose the lesser of two evils. That is your general argument for ignoring the system, that there is not a "good" choice, right?

Well, instead of adding yourself to the voiceless mass of flesh and bone that is the mob of voters who didn't turn out, put yourself on the record as rejecting both parties and voting for some write in, or even yourself.

See, no one cares about those who don't vote. No one. Those who don't vote are merely chattel to be herded around, and if they resist, they are shot. You don't like a new law or tax? Too bad, you will comply, or you will die.


Now, as people who vote for other parties/candidates, those get noticed. Perhaps they are ignored in small numbers, but those are the swing votes that get wooed. Maybe it matters to the official after the election, maybe not. Maybe enough pull together to elect an independant to office. At the very least, however, you are moving in the right direction.

Hammer,

"...no one cares about those who don't vote."

The political class doesn't care about me even if I do vote. All I am to them is a rent payer (or "productive citizen" if it makes you feel better). But that's also good news - not great news, but good news. You see, they can't survive without guys like me paying the rent, and they know it. There is a real limit to what they can do and still keep their meal ticket.