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from TheConsciousResistance Website
from the upcoming book "Manifesto of the Free Humans" from John Vibes and Derrick Broze. The book will be released
on April 7, 2017.
Most people in the U.S. measure the political parties and philosophies across a horizontal line, from liberal to conservative. Others see the political spectrum as a square with totalitarianism in the top corner and freedom in the opposing corner.
We tend to disagree with most political spectrums because they misunderstand the eternal struggle of freedom versus tyranny and mistakenly believe that either the right or left side is closer to freedom, or that one is better than the other.
This tyranny manifests itself as non-voluntary,
...and any other form of authoritarianism.
The opposite of all these
power schemes is
Anarchism.
In reality, there is actually a larger set of possibilities beyond the pre-approved guidelines.
In other words, you are asked to choose between black and white, leaving you to think that the only colors in existence are black, white and maybe gray, when in reality there is a whole palette of different shades and tints that are completely left out of the discussion.
The statement,
...is a classic false dichotomy, because it only presents two options, both of which amount to violence, while completely neglecting the possibility of remaining neutral.
Likewise, the traditional
left/right paradigm is also a false dichotomy which forces people to
choose between two seemingly different, but equally authoritarian
sides.
Alliances with right and left have failed every time because ultimately the followers of the corporate political parties are still playing into the mainstream paradigm. This leaves them open to manipulation and adopting what Konkin called anti-principles.
The mainstream left and right will always sell out the principled, but misguided anarchists who seek alliances with one side over the other.
We should absolutely reach out to both the right and the left and attempt to bring our message to them as much as possible, but we must be careful not to sacrifice our principles. We should work to bring them towards our principled stance.
Rather than believing the answer lies in one end of the political spectrum, freedom minded individuals should work to ally with like-minds from all sides. The danger is in believing that one end of the spectrum holds the one path to liberty and that the other side is the problem.
This is the same false
dichotomy that we sought to escape when we first abandoned the
left/right paradigm and mainstream politics.
However, many of these people who broke through the mainstream left/right paradigm are now falling for another false paradigm leading to the same cycle of frustration and division that is seen in the mainstream political circus.
The legitimate frustration felt by those seeking solutions has caused some on both the left and the right to become even more extreme in their dogmas and in their support of government.
These individuals fail to
remain consistent and instead fall prey to the deception of Statism
once more.
In America, Democrats and Republicans regularly trade positions and switch stances on important issues. For example, for a period of time after World War 2, prior to the red scare and the Cold War, the Republicans were known to take strong anti-war positions.
The red scare and Vietnam War pushed conservatives towards a more pro-war position while the Democrats reacted in opposition, and subsequently became known as the anti-war party during the era of the New Left.
In reality, neither corporate party is truly anti-war. They simply adopt anti-war rhetoric to gain the support of people who wanted peace.
In terms of economic policy, "liberals" were traditionally advocates of free markets, while in today's political climate most identifying with that label advocate strong government control of the economy.
What this tells us is
that both ends of the spectrum do not stand on principles, but are
constantly manipulated by media hype, the whims of politicians, and
calls for "pragmatism" in the face of both real and imagined
political or cultural enemies.
Many of those who now identify as Alt-Right came out of the 2008 Tea Party movement and the subsequent growth of the American Libertarian movement fueled by Presidential candidate Ron Paul. The former Congressmen from Texas was a student of Murray Rothbard and has actually been very outspoken against the Alt-Right.
After the Libertarian movement failed to capture the presidency and end statism, many activists found themselves disillusioned with not only the political system, but with libertarian principles.
Whether or not these people ever truly understood the message is debatable, but in the end this crowd went on to support Trump and has come to be associated with wanting to violently impose their vision of "freedom".
The Alt-Right has become obsessive with combating their enemies:
In their obsession with
their enemies they have lost sight of the goal of freedom.
This often has the unintended consequence of emboldening bigoted people and taking away attention from legitimate instances of hate and bigotry.
This group's roots are in the progressive movement that believed the election of Barack Obama in 2008 was their moment.
After eight years of,
...the progressives lost faith in Obama.
Many of this same crowd had their bubbles burst once more in the summer of 2016 when "Independent" Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders handed his revolution over to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Now they spend their time focusing on micro-aggressions, "call out culture", and the bigotry of their perceived enemies on the right.
Just like the Alt-Right,
they have become obsessed with their "enemy" and have lost sight of
developing solutions to the two-party system.
In fact, many in the alt-right, and even some confused Anarcho-Capitalists have recently been promoting the idea of throwing political opponents or "counter-revolutionaries" out of helicopters into the ocean, an inhumane practice that was notoriously employed during Pinochet's reign of terror.
They justify this outright call for violence by citing insidious libertarian infiltrator Hans-Hermann Hoppe's "physical removal" proposal.
Hoppe is a conservative monarchist who masquerades as an anarchist and espouses authoritarian views that are in total opposition to true libertarian values.
In his book "Democracy - The God That Failed" Hoppe outlines his vision of a "free" society:
Hoppe goes on to express his distaste for "alternative", non-traditional lifestyles:
What Hoppe is describing is obviously a dictatorship, yet his supporters will insist that these type of aggressive tactics towards political enemies are necessary in order to save "western civilization."
Hoppe's supporters have also said that he is being misinterpreted, but it seems fairly clear he imagines physically removing people from his ideal society, not just his own property.
One common refrain from the alt-right is that they are here to save western civilization, or white culture, or European values, while disparaging "Eastern civilization". This outlook tends to mask bigoted views and completely ignores the violence of the West and the accomplishments of the East.
In reality, both eastern
and western cultures are responsible for great achievements and
systematic violence.
According to their logic, the ideologies of their political enemies, whether it be communism, environmentalism or whatever, are viewed as acts of aggression in themselves, and thus they believe that they would be defending themselves by using violence against their enemies.
While it may be true that
certain ideologies can be precursors for acts of aggression, simply
holding an idea is not an act of aggression, and does not warrant a
forceful response.
This was seen clearly during protests surrounding the 2017 inauguration when white supremacist Richard Spencer was punched by a black-bloc protester while he was being interviewed on the street. The attack was largely celebrated by left leaning activists who felt that Spencer's ideology was an act of violence which justified a forceful response.
This is, of course, the same argument that the authoritarian right uses to justify violence against their political enemies.
Spencer's ideas may be
absolutely disgusting, but if we allow violence to be used against
his ideas, then that means anyone can arbitrarily decide that an
idea is a threat to their existence, and then use philosophy to
justify violence on any person they choose.
No physical act of violence has been taken, but a threat has been issued.
When someone has made it clear they want to use violence against you,
If so, we would argue that criminals are already in power and thus violence could be justified against them.
We do not think such an action would achieve the goal of a free and ethical society so we choose not to initiate force. But some might propose that Statism is such a threat that they should use violence against those who vote.
On other end of the spectrum someone might say that Anarchists are a threat to "law and order" so violence is justified against them.
You see where we are
going with this. This is a slippery slope that leads to barbarism
and a reversal of our progress as a species. Remember, good ideas do
not require force. We can convert hearts and minds with reason and
logic, as well as leading by example.
Journalist outlets once responsible for hard-hitting investigative news are now simply perpetuating the same false dichotomy while pretending to be anti-establishment, as they too have fallen victim to the trap of division.
The divisive "alt" media
has become no different than the divisive corporate media, with
extremists on both ends having endless arguments and rarely
discussing solutions.
Compassion and a pursuit of independence are both admirable qualities, but they can be used against us. The right perceives compassion as negative because they can see how the left is manipulated, but at the same time, they do not see how they are being manipulated through their desire for independence.
Likewise, the left
perceives independence as negative because they see how it is used
to manipulate their political enemies, but they can not see how
their compassion is used against them.
It is possible for
rational people to be both compassionate and independent without
being manipulated by government or being divided amongst one
another.
People are unique individuals with a broad spectrum of beliefs and values.
For optimum peace and
prosperity each of these unique individuals should be able to live
according to those beliefs and values, so long as they do not impede
on their neighbors freedom to do the same.
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