To those of you who think civil disobedience is the answer (quote a friend of mine):
If you have kids and you’re putting yourself in danger of being arrested: stop now. Given the choice between “Dad in prison for ‘freedom’” and “Dad who’s around” I guarantee your kids would choose a present father. Figure out what’s going on for you to make you want to put yourself in danger. You don’t have to get arrested in order to be free. You can free yourself without being a martyr.
Freedom starts with your personal relationships, and if you are in jail, you most likely aren’t serious about being free.
An atheist amen to that, brother.
I’m ambivalent on the matter of civil disobedience. One of the more interesting arguments I’ve heard (a few months ago, not sure where–maybe the civil disobedience roundtable): Civil disobedience is an acknowledgment that the state is something other than a violent gang or a collection of thugs. No one promotes civil disobedience against the mob.
Starts with your personal relationships… fine… then what? The math is pretty clear that Statists are out breeding you. If you have a better answer let me know…
However to me it seems civil disobedience is one of the most effective ways of “awaking” people to the fact that Government is force. Maybe its different for you… but I don’t see myself talking to Lockeans who believe in the Social Contract or that force is necessary to establish a free society. What I see is a bunch of people living in a strange delusion that governmental action involves rainbows and lollipops.
Someone of Facebook argued with me about this at length. She said that if I’m not willing to go to jail for my anarchist beliefs, then I’m a coward. Never mind that my main belief is that I should be around for my children. Apparently children don’t matter, except as abstractions whose rights lie somewhere in the future, if anywhere.
I just came in from FDR, looking for FDR blogs that are still active. I’m finding a lot that aren’t, so I am happy to find one that is. (That being said, I haven’t been very successful at keeping one going over the years, either.)
This blog has been on somewhat of a hiatus, but it helps motivate me to see I actually have readers.