Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Egypt: What a Shame

By, Chris Rossini


When I look at the above image of the protests going on in Egypt, the words "What a shame" come to mind.

What a shame that people still believe the fable that government is there to take care of them, to "represent" them, and to "serve" their interests.

What a shame that people must go to such extraordinary lengths to maybe get some kind of token reform. All the productivity that could have occurred during that same time has now gone down the drain.

What a shame that people (all over the world, not just in Egypt) keep chasing the impossible goal of "making government work." 

Every combination imaginable has been tried: Monarchies, Dual Monarchies, Parliaments, Congresses, Constitutions, Separations of Powers, Socialism, Fascism, Full Democracy, Representative Republic, Military Dictatorship, Bills of Rights...

Yet the verdict is still the same: State Power (in every form) is the enemy of humankind.

Sadly, the human animal is a very slow learner. Humans will touch that hot stove, get massively burned, and then go back to touch that stove again.

Governments, in the 20th century alone, killed hundreds of millions. No other organized group of men could possibly accomplish such a feat...Yet, here we are putting our hands on that stove and hoping for a different outcome.

Meanwhile, Liberty, which is the alternative to this madness, just sits there, patiently waiting for man to fully comprehend and embrace it.

With liberty, majorities don't matter. If you do not wish to associate with a particular person, company, or group, you simply abstain.

We see examples of how this works in our daily lives right now. When was the last time you saw a Jiffy Lube tear gas everyone who refused to stop in? Have you ever seen a Chiropractor driving down the street shooting water cannons at people who refused his services?

Every single person could make a decision that "I'll never go to Jiffy Lube as long as I live," and Jiffy Lube could do nothing about it. Should that decision be made by everyone, it would have no choice but to close its doors.

No pickets....No chants....No fairy tales like "making your voice heard" or "the will of the people". No injuries, arrests or tanks trampling over bodies. Just a simple decision not to interact...not to exchange...not to associate.

What a shame that such a world is just sitting there and waiting.

Let's all do our part to shorten that wait.


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9 comments:

  1. Great post Chris.

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  2. Didn't realize you were one of US.

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  3. Yes, but who would build the roads? /sarcasm

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  4. While I completely sympathise with your posting, I think it is simplistic in the sense that historically, people have been willing to gather in government-like structures to take everything from those people who have inadequate defense. And, no, I'm not a neocon or neocon-like libertarian.

    So far, the defense part has not been solved by anarcho-capitalism. It doesn't matter what author anyone quotes as having a "solution;" if the problem had been truly solved, we wouldn't have to live in tyranny today.

    I believe we will need technology that either allows us to separate ourselves adequately from the thieves, or a technology that allows an individual to defend himself against a large onslaught in order to achieve total anarchism.

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    1. @ Unknown

      There seem to be two approaches one can take as to how to work towards a libertarian society: the ideology approach and the technology approach. The ideology approach claims that we need to get the majority of people to understand liberty. The technology approach claims that we need to develop technologies to secure us from government oppression. I say, why not pursue both?

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    2. No reason not to pursue all options. I'd say that so far, the "understand liberty" approach has failed miserably. The promise of largess at others' expense systemically biases most people's ethics away from liberty. We have thousands of years of evidence for people collaborating to take wealth by force; I just don't see that changing.

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  5. Here here!!!!! I'm all for roughly 7 billion governments as Jeff Berwick would say!

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