The phrase “tilting at windmills” is often meant as a swipe at someone who incorrectly perceives a non-existent or idealized enemy and pursues a course of action based on that misunderstanding. The phrase was inspired by the the character Don Quixote, who battles make-believe giants taking the form of windmills dotting the countryside in Miguel de Cervantes’ novel.

For minarchists, constitutionalists, and so-called patriots, their primary path for reigning in the abuses of the federal and state governments has been through the conventional political process — electoral politics, lobbying, and petitioning. It’s been a long path too, since 1787, when the nation’s second constitution was formulated.

More precisely, limited-state supporters have tried to scale back the powers of the federal government since President George Washington marched conscripted troops on Pennsylvania whiskey tax resistors in 1794. Many look back at the early days of the federal government with starry-eyed vision of a glorious republic that was the hallmark of what a government ought to be. Never mind that, at the time of its inception, there was never a common interpretation of the what the constitution meant or how far the federal powers reached. What they forget was that while, yes, the government was relatively small and insignificant in most people’s lives, that was because it was a new government. It was paying off a tremendous war debt and was biding its time to gain legitimacy. As Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton noted, the purpose of the whiskey tax had less to do with paying down the debt than “to advance and secure the power of the new federal government.”

Long Odds, Losing Payoff

Despite over 200 years of trying to reform the system, government at all levels continues to grow at an ever-expanding pace. Since the likes of Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson, advocates of limited government have failed to restrain government to its self-imposed, self-enforced, and self-interpreted constitution. Today, over half of Americans “now receive significant income from government programs,” according to one study. (That estimate is understated because even those who work in the private sector and have nothing to do with government contracts can also ride on the government’s dime if they support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example. They get to shift the costs of those wars onto future generations through deficit financing.) The figure above has nearly doubled since the 1950s, when just over a quarter of Americans relied on government for significant support. With aging baby boomers set to retire in the coming decade, the number is only going to increase. Limited-state advocates were unsuccessful 50 years ago, when government had far less influence. Now, with a 100 percent fiat printing press at its fingertips and 12-year indoctrination camps under its control, the chances of rolling back government by using government are even bleaker.

With data like this, is there any reason to believe that Americans who directly or indirectly receive government handouts are going to support limiting those handouts? After all, Social Security and government heath care recipients, who represent the largest direct beneficiaries, “earned” their entitlements.

Anecdotally, I know someone who believes a clandestine band of government officials orchestrated the 9/11 attacks for the fortune of the military-congressional complex yet actively sought and attained a position at one of the largest military contractors in the world. When asked to reconcile this belief and taking a job with a believed co-conspirator in the 9/11 attacks, it was “for the benefits,” I was told.

The election process requires 50 percent of the vote plus one. The odds of electing small-government advocates en mass is even longer considering those who receive government support are more likely to participate in the electoral process than others. Also consider that those who receive government support have family and friends. Is it reasonable to expect people, no matter how principled, to vote to dump their loved ones off Social Security or deny their grandparents access to a Medicare doctor? In my heart, if I had to cast the deciding vote, I could not do it. Maybe I am a hypocrite (fair enough), but I don’t think I’m much different from traditional voters. The social and familial pressures I’d face would be unbearable.

When I talk to people about reducing or eliminating a government program, it’s always the same objection. “What about the poor and the elderly?” I have no doubt that they would be cared for since nearly everyone has the same objection and government actively creates poverty. (I would be a little concerned if no one expressed concern for their well being.) Those concerns are appeals to our decency and ethics. Yet, the most prominent case being made for smaller government is on teleology grounds, a utilitarian argument, in effect conceding the ethical high ground to violence and theft. How backward.

A possible reason most limited-government supporters do not make a deontological (or ethics-based) case for liberty is because it would reveal their logical contradiction. They cannot support liberty, peace and a limited state, which necessarily is based on aggressive violence by its very existence, as any non-consensual territorial monopoly would be. Limited-state supporters and maximum-state supporters, thus, have already agreed that aggressive violence is necessary to solve social problems. The only disagreement is over how much violence is necessary.

Ignoring Imaginary Giants

As I see it, electoral politics is our Quixotic imaginary giant. It’s a distraction. No matter how many laws are on the books, all that matters is government currently has the legitimacy and the power to enforce them. If we undermine its legitimacy, its power won’t matter. They will still hold the gun in the room, but we will all know they have no bullets. We don’t need to convince a majority of our ideas either. We need a determined minority who will withdraw their consent in spirit and in practice. Many already have. It’s easy to get started. They practice their trade outside the strictures of government regulation, enjoying the benefits of an unregulated open market. Others can do the same and in such a way as to build trusted, decentralized networks of traders and entrepreneurs who directly and immediately benefit from these ideas.

I don’t propose abandoning the electoral process entirely. So long as a majority of people give the concept of democracy some weight, it provides a free soap box to spread our ideas. I wouldn’t look to electoral progress as a sign of our influence either, as the conventional political process is a lagging indicator of intellectual progress. Part of the reason that conventional politics can only be practiced marginally is because it demands “compliance with, acceptance of, and payment to its institutions,” as Samuel Edward Konkin III said.

Government enjoys the tacit approval of Americans to belligerently harass them and confiscate their wealth so the military and government-founded corporations can belligerently attack and confiscate the wealth of poorer peasants in other countries. There is nothing redeeming about it. It is extortion. But people put up with it because the devil they know is better than the devil they don’t know. We can cast a light on the possibilities of what freedom looks like by practicing it ourselves and leading by example. What could be more libertarian?

If we want to win, we’ve got to stop playing by the government’s approved rules. “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal,” as Emma Goldman quipped.

Instead of trying to free an entire country, we begin somewhere we have control — ourselves — making steady pragmatic progress individual by individual, and eventually social institutions will reflect these values we hold.

I’ve got to give Lew Rockwell some much-due credit. He doesn’t shy away from his support for the stateless society. There is no doubt it has cost him support since the “Restore the Republic” message has a much larger audience. Judge Napolitano, who I hear makes five figures for public appearances, really banks. (How weird is it that I don’t know Napolitano’s first name, by the way?)

On Thursday, Feb. 25, Rockwell published three anti-state articles on his own site. I wouldn’t go so far to call them pro-anarchism articles, but they do undercut some false rhetoric about the beloved republic.

The first article, “Doomed from the Start,” is from Thomas DiLorenzo, who explores some of the misbeliefs that the framers of federal constitution ever meant to limit the powers of the national government. He writes how the Jeffersonian notions of state secession and nullification were deliberately attacked by the nationalists to ensure an expansionist government. Alexander Hamilton and his “disciple” John Marshall, who served as the chief justice of the Supreme Court for three decades, worked to undermine the any constitutional restraints.

It was Hamilton who first invented the expansive interpretations of the General Welfare and Commerce Clauses of the Constitution, which have been used for generations to grant totalitarian powers to the central state. He literally set the template for the destruction of constitutional liberty in America the moment it became apparent at the constitutional convention that he and his fellow nationalists would not get their way and create a “monarchy bottomed on corruption,” as Thomas Jefferson described the Hamiltonian system.

Hamilton’s devoted disciple, John Marshall, was appointed chief justice of the United States in 1801 and served in that post for more than three decades. His career was a crusade to rewrite the Constitution so that it would become a nationalist document that destroyed states’ rights and most other limitations on the powers of the centralized state. He essentially declared in Marbury vs. Madison that he, John Marshall, would be the arbiter of constitutionality via “judicial review.”

The second article is titled “The Government Is Just a Referee? Hardly.” It is probably the least informative with new thoughts, but it does provide a good quote.

Given the government’s failure at its refereeing role, it seems fair to ask: Is it better to have a biased, powerful referee who helps his friends win, or is it better to have no referee at all? Obviously the optimum situation would be to have an impartial and competent referee; but it seems that fewer and fewer people still believe that it is possible for the government to play this role. History has shown us that the impartial arbiter inevitably evolves into the protector and benefactor of certain players in the game. And because the government as referee can use guns, fines and imprisonment to enforce its will, it is indeed a formidable benefactor for its favored ones, and a formidable oppressor for its disfavored ones.

The third anti-state article, “Romans 13 and Anarcho-Capitalism,” deals with who constitutes “the governing authority,” according to the Christian belief. The Bible’s “Romans 13″ reads:

Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.

This sound pretty authoritarian to me, and has been used by those in power to justify their assault. I don’t know much about The Bible, but it’s my guess that passage and the “turn the other cheek” verse were written and or preached after Christianity became the dominant religion. Just a hunch.

The author, Jim Fedako, said, “As Christians, we are to obey the legitimate governing authority, but it does not follow that the authority must be the state. Paul’s instructions are the same no matter who is in charge. And in an anarcho-capitalist world, we would only be forced to obey the governing authorities whose properties we chose to enter.”

I don’t call myself an anarcho-capitalist for the reason Fedako believes property defense is a Lockean absolute demand rather than a Rothbardian degree of proportionality.

I was watching the Howard Zinn documentary The People Speak based in part on his book A People’s History of the United States. A speech, “Ain’t I a Woman,” from Sojourner Truth proved to be very powerful and inspirational — even for a guy.

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that ‘twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what’s all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what’s this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That’s it, honey. What’s that got to do with women’s rights or negroes’ rights? If my cup won’t hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn’t you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ’cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain’t got nothing more to say.

(Image credit: Wikimedia Commons)

The life of Joseph Stack, the man the FBI believes flew his single-engine airplane into an office complex housing the Internal Revenue Service, ended in tragedy Thursday. It has been reported that at least one other man inside the Austin building was killed following the impact and many others were sent to the hospital to treat injuries.

To the loved ones of Mr. Stack and his victims, I offer my condolences. For Stack, I have nothing but condemnation for his acts. His brutality was needless and heartless.

I agree with Stack that what the IRS does is evil. Taxation is extortion.

What is easy to overlook is that the vast majority of people who advocate for government intervention into peaceful people’s lives do not see it that way. That’s just the way it is, they say.

Part of it is a lack of education. They have not read the books we have or heard the speeches we have. They have never studied agorism or read How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World by Harry Browne. And so they are still indoctrinated in government slavespeak.

Part of it as well is they believe that with enough government intervention and threats of violence, they can overcome circumstances they dislike in society. The only practical solution they see is violence. To offer voluntary and consent-based solutions to their problems seems so foreign them. In fact, in Stack’s suicide note of sorts, he said “[V]iolence not only is the answer, it is the only answer.”

So if the news reports are accurate and this man did do this, then he would have been acting under the same failed premises as those he intended to attack. He was a frustrated, desperate man who was willing to take his life rather than become a victim of the IRS any longer. But that is not how he will be remembered. He did not advance the cause of liberty one inch. He set it back. I’ve written before why violence is not the path to liberty.

For those of us whose highest political end is individual liberty, I believe one of our missions is to explain why violence and threats of violence are at best temporary antidotes to social ills — like heroin to an addict. Luckily, most everyone lives by the non-aggression principle everyday; it only takes making them aware of this and convincing them that the same principle applies to government too.

I would suggest reading Stack’s letter. An excerpt is below.

I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are. Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of shit at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along.

He was obviously an intelligent and lucid man. He was angry at an unmerciful system that cripples ingenuity and compassion. He hoped to be a martyr in the revolt; but really, he is just a killer.

(Image credit: News 8 Austin)

I think Glenn Beck, like Alex Jones, is a great entertainer. But they both take cheap shots at anarchists all the time.

On Beck’s Feb. 17 television program, he said in the clip below that anarchists and progressives “don’t really like America” and are for “total government.” Beck’s and Jones’ definition of “anarchist” might be anyone who wants less government than they might. The fact is anarchism, the way I understand it, advocates for the most limited and smallest possible government, self-government.

It is also a canard that anarchists don’t like America. The federal government is not America. The people who eagerly manage it are “mere bands of robbers, who have associated for purposes of plunder, conquest, and the enslavement of their fellow men, … and the more peaceable division of their spoils,” as Lysander Spooner said in Natural Law, or the Science of Justice.

(via Daily Paul)

Leonard Read, the founder of the Foundation for Economic Education, said principles are not compromised; they are abandoned. Principles, by their nature, are utilized or they are not.

That is an important reminder for those who believe the maximum role of government should be the protection of life, liberty, and property — which I think, logically construed, means self-government; however, I respect that others disagree. Our time is going to be most wisely spent improving ourselves and building relationships with like-minded liberty people. Even still, while the conventional political process is still dominant, there are ways for principled people to use political tools for their own benefit.

The conventional political dichotomy is a struggle between short-term opportunism and long-term progress. I think there is a simple reconciliation that can be made between the two camps. That is, under no circumstances, never ever, should we ever support an expansion in the role of government or a further restriction on a peaceful person’s liberty. Second, any policy support should be done with the explicit purpose of decreasing the role of government and directly benefiting peaceful individuals.

Any strategy or policy goals that we recommend or follow should be consistent with the purpose of restoring individual liberty and responsibility. I understand the importance of intermediate goals or markers to help fully achieve our ultimate purpose. But our means of achieving that purpose should not be contradictory to that end. For example, a lot of politicians try to justify tax cuts because they believe it will actually increase the total revenues to the government treasury. I believe this is wrong and sends an inconsistent message.

The goal of a tax cut should be to reduce the burden of government. Again, we should not advocate the re-legalization of cannabis on the grounds that it will raise tax revenues, but because prohibition is immoral and counterproductive. Expanding government and further restricting the liberty of others to correct another ill-fated government policy is an abandonment of principle. As Ron Paul said, “Few Americans understand that all government action is inherently coercive.” Reducing the level of coercion in people’s lives is a worthy goal.

Principles in Practice

The goals that we have should be radical — not liberal- or conservative-lite. This serves two purposes. First, it provides cover for not-so-radical views to be considered more mainstream, thus limiting the fear of ostracism people might have for holding these slightly less radical views. It provides an objective guidepost — like a lighthouse — for gauging the success of our efforts during darker times.

I would also like to suggest two methods of communicating these ideas. We should definitely take the time, on an intellectual basis, to refute anti-liberty or collectivist ideas. But we must acknowledge that the people advocating these mistaken ideas are not dimwitted. In fact, many know exactly how they benefit from these policies. They are ripping us off, so we must make direct, populist appeals that reveal that fact.

By its nature, government is crude and unaccountable, so there will be an infinite supply of aggrieved individuals. Ideally, that means that we don’t have to convert individuals fully to the virtue of liberty before taking action together. Over time, I hope that those who are “liberty minus one” or “liberty minus whatever” come to see the error of their ways.

Some Ideas to Bat Around

Sometimes, pick losing issues to get the message out by presenting a pro-liberty analysis. I’m not saying be a stick-in-the-mud. The situation might provide an opportunity to get some free media publicity or lay the groundwork for winning progress on the issue in the future. Liberals have deployed this technique by pushing socialized health insurance and environmental regulations.

Now, I don’t even know how possible this next one is. Those arrested for committing consensual crimes could be high-target prospects for the liberty message. When I’m passing out Fully Informed Jury Association literature on jury nullification, those called for jury duty are naturally receptive to the material I am providing. I’ll usually stay a little past the time when potential jurors are due to report in downtown Fort Worth in order to catch any stranglers. When I do, I just happen to pass out literature to defendants, and they are just as interested in the concept of jury nullification as potential jurors, if not more so. There has got to be a way of contacting those folks by getting ahold of  some public records.

(Image credit: john curley, with Creative Commons license)