If you've been following the #anarchy tag here on Steemit, you must have seen the disagreements about how to implement the ideas of liberty between @adamkokesh and other libertarians/anarchists such as @larkenrose and @kafkanarchy84.
@adamkokesh is running for President of the United States in 2020 on the platform of dissolving the entire federal government. While this sounds like a great idea, a lot of liberty-minded people question the ways which Kokesh plans to use. Namely, there is much disagreement about the question whether becoming president via the electoral process is a legitimate way of exercising authority according to voluntaryist principles.
For example, @larkenrose explained in a Steemit post that the plans laid out on Kokesh's website...
"[are] full of mushy, vague, unprincipled, semi-statist rhetoric, and [are] all about trying to get votes, hoping (and apparently expecting) to actually get himself elected, in order to implement his plan. As such, the entire campaign is not only a waste of time, but a giant philosophical contradiction and distraction from what actually matters: getting people to give up the belief in the 'authority' of the state."
Moreover, when Graham Smith (@kafkanarchy84) writes about Kokesh and the events of the past few months, he states:
"I view [Kokesh] as a dishonest politician, fraudulently posing (whether intentionally or not) as a Voluntaryist and garnering donations under said false Voluntaryist pretense (while simultaneously peddling the force-based political system/electoral process as legitimate) via half-truths, sensationalized stunts, and their resultant hyped-up, dishonest donation drives. He is abusing this platform so many of us love and have been with through all the ups and downs, via his Steem delegation. All of this Steem-milking seems to be for almost the sole purpose of political gain."
Now, without picking a side, I'd like to share a video I recently saw of an interview with David Friedman (son of Milton Friedman). See the video at the top of this post. In this interview, Friedman was asked:
"What paths do you see as helpful to achieve a free society that you envision: through political action and even violent revolution, or through government avoidance such as Bitcoin, seasteading, etc?" (5:08)
Logically, Friedman denounces the idea of violent revolution. But the interesting part of his answer comes afterwards. At the 5:53 mark, he talks about the strategies of creating a freer society:
"[...] I don't think there is one correct strategy. [...] I think one of the mistakes, if you look at political movements, not just libertarians, they spend an afwul lot of time fighting themselves. [..] And part of that comes from the idea that the movement has some pool of resources that have to be used in the right way. And that's wrong! If you think about the real world, there aren't any libertarian resources. There are only the resources of only libertarians.
And so Friedman goes on to compare libertarians who want to bring about change through the political process and libertarians who want to to it via education. The point he makes is that, if they're all fighting each other, nobody would be doing anything at all.
Then, Friedman makes his point:
"So the right way, it seems to me, is that libertarianism itself ought to be a decentralized project, in which different libertarians propose different ways of improving the world. And some libertarians are convinced by one and some by another. And each of them does those things that seem right for them, or the think they are good at doing.
To conclude, the interviewer asks Friedman if he sees value in political action in order to bring forward liberty. He then answers:
"Yes, I see value in lots and lots of different things that you can do. That's right.
I wanted to share this short video in the hopes of nuancing the debate by giving the perspective of another prominent anarchist. So, what do you think? Is political action a legitimate way of bringing about a freer society? And if it's not, would you still support (or just leave alone) the people who are still trying it that way? Personally I think Friedman brings up an important question in this interview about whether we should let each other compete freely in our liberty-minded strategies. I would love to hear your opinions!
"I think good things can come from misguided attempts. But that doesn't mean we should be trying for misguided attempts." I think this quote by Larken sums up my thoughts well. There is zero chance Adam can win and Larken is right that most real anarchists wouldn't vote for him anyway. But if the message reaches a few more people in the process, I'm not going to be up in arms over it. I like Jeff's take on attacking the state from all angles, albeit some of them end up being misguided attempts.
It's a complicated issue, but I agree with Mr. Friedman with one caveat. No matter what actions you take to further individual liberty as an individual or within a group, you must still remain consistent and ethical.
They should not defraud people, lie to them, etc. People need to be honest and moral. I have encountered quite a few people who said they were for individual liberty, but their actions proved otherwise over time. Eventually, their inconsistencies could no longer be ignored.
They quite often do a lot of damage too before being outed for who they really are. The last time it happened to me, many of my genuine friends were robbed of a lot of money by a scammer. I'm not saying anyone mentioned above is a scammer either, but we should continually guard against such people.
Trust but verify is a life long motto. It isn't something you do once with a person then never do again. We have to be vigilant and continually check ourselves and those around us for consistency. That is why I welcome people calling me out when anything I do seems to be inconsistent. I make mistakes too. We all do.
As friends though, we need to hold each other accountable. We need to verify over and over. It isn't a personal slight against anyone to do that either. The objective, individual liberty, is after all worth any price. It is that precious. I would rather my friends get angry with me for being inconsistent than have them keep quiet. I welcome correction.
Anyone that doesn't should be cast aside and definitely not trusted.
This is a reply I posted a few minute's ago.
Good point!
Excellent post. I didn't mention that. Sorry :)
Some are more like a reactive libertarians (also being educational libertarians) that are good in reactiveness.......And some want to unify things that can't be unified.
And then you get a problem.. sort of. Maybe that is also needed...don't know ;)
I don't usually voice a political opinion, so here goes - - If someone wants to run for office then do it. But do it as an individual, not as a group thinker/wanna be, not as an independent, republican, leftist, or democrat, or whig, or as a member of the whitecoat boot lick society, do it as an Individual.
Okay done.
Agreed. ``Libertarianism itself ought to be a decentralized project, in which different libertarians propose different ways of improving the world. And some libertarians are convinced by one and some by another. And each of them does those things that seem right for them, or the think they are good at doing.'' Exactly.