The Just Vote No Blog is non-partisan and totally secular, but it is liberty-leaning in the manner Claude Frederic Bastiat or Thomas Jefferson. As such, we look for concrete and realistic steps to bring about, individually and collectively, freedom from public dependence. For clarification, here is an example of public dependence: Say you and your children would like to spend Thanksgiving with your Mom and Dad who live in another state, and to do that you need to take an airplane. In this scenario you are sufficiently dependent on the TSA to need to allow agents to forcefully touch your children.
Concrete and realistic steps intended to rid ourselves of public dependence require hard looks at economic, cultural, psychological and other human factors. Hard looks mean taking an idea – any idea — say the non-aggression principle, and looking for real-life instances where that idea has thrived. If the idea is not thriving, then either the idea is faulty or its advocates are ineffective.
Hans-Hermann Hoppe – Ignoring the Labels
Hard looks at possibly relevant variables also mean listening, without immediately ascribing labels. And that brings this rant to its purpose, the mention of a provocative talk by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, titled Libertarianism and the Alt-Right, at the 12th Annual Conference of the Property and Freedom Society, September 2017.
Hans-Hermann Hoppe is probably best known for his position of Senior Fellow at the Mises Institute, right along with Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, Andrew Napolitano, Walter Block and other luminaries of the pro-liberty, pro-free market movement. However, the mere mention of Hans-Hermann Hoppe often temps labeling: Austrian School economist, libertarian anarcho-capitalist, alt-right, nationalist, homophobe, racist. As he says in his talk, the only label that seems not to stick is “self-hating Jewish Nazi.”
Now, let’s for the moment ignore the labels, even the labels of libertarian and alt-right, and focus on a few points in Mr. Hoppe’s speech. These points are presented here without opinions pro or con because the ideas are interesting and worth understanding.
Identifying and Understanding Conflict
* Scarcity is at the core of conflict. Conflict avoidance provides a good path to peace and prosperity. If there is respect for ownership of resources as the property of those that acquire it in a voluntary exchange, there is no conflict. If you say there are things to which you are entitled but did not acquire in a voluntary exchange, then there will be conflict. Examples of conflict-producing acquisitions: taxpayer-funded subsidies, invaded territory, rights other than property rights (in this context, your body/life is your property).
* In order to move from scarcity and conflict to peace and prosperity, human nature needs to be acknowledged. Human nature cannot be separated from culture, ability, or psychology. Force can try to obliterate the yearning for freedom of association, but often unsuccessfully. Example of failure: today’s neighborhoods are as segregated as ever, with unfortunate pockets of no-go areas that live by their own rules of force.
* Once force is identified as an element of conflict, the next step is to identify the enablers of force, and remove their sustenance.
The Enablers of Force
* The top enabler is the Ruling Elite: Military, Central Bankers, Big Corporations. The military possesses the power to acquire territory by force. Central bankers have the power to generate debt and dependence. Big corporations possess significant means of production that allow them to buy their political preferences, and thus impose their will on the populace.
* Intellectuals that populate the education/indoctrination systems. Today, the higher the level of one’s education the more extensive is one’s adherence to wealth redistribution, egalitarianism, and multiculturalism – all of which possible only via the force of legislation. Grants, student loans, free tuition render the intellectual class dependent on the state, and obliged to perpetuate the state’s objectives.
* Main-stream media, that serves as soft propaganda. The products of the education/indoctrination intellectual class move on to the professions, including journalism. They have been taught to believe, repeat, and proceed in the path of least intellectual vigor. If government says war is good, they repeat that endlessly. If government says the force of law is needed to bring about social justice and equity, they repeat that endlessly also.
Neutralizing the Enablers of Force
* Stop bombing other people. Such interventionist foreign policy benefits only the Ruling Elite. Victims of bombings die, and perpetrators of bombings suffer blowback.
* Withdraw from supra-national organizations. What a country, state, or city finds beneficial to their residents they can do without the interference of supra-national organizations such as the United Nations.
* Stop funding the higher ups that feed the central banks; who in turn facilitate war, debt, interest rate manipulation, and wealth redistribution. Fund your city and local institutions instead.
* Oppose the ongoing destruction of private initiative and the resulting dependence on government. As family and other social and cultural private support structures are destroyed, public assistance steps in with ineffective replacements. As tranquility is shattered by crime, unrest, cultural clashes and terror, public force steps in to provide marginal security.
* Understand real objectives of education that does not translated into good earnings in the workplace, generous public assistance programs, proliferation of protected classes, mass immigration, creation of civil rights concurrently with curtailment of individual and property rights. The objective is permanent poverty and eternal dependence. Get the state out of education; encourage youth to learn useful trades. Support immigration by invitation only; make sponsors – not taxpayers – responsible for new arrivals. Defund all strategies that lead to poverty and dependence. Prioritize funding and other support of your local jurisdictions and institutions.
* Do not put your trust in politics or political parties. Focus your efforts in arousing public anger at strategies that are not beneficial to anyone but the Ruling Elite.
* Learn to recognize political balderdash, and say “No, Hell, No!” when it is foisted upon you.
Addendum
Although no opinion on the above discussion is offered here, it is tempting to offer an observation. What has the Just Vote No Blog been saying all along? If something is being pushed on you, it is probably something that will not be to your benefit. When in doubt Just Vote No! Vote No, Hell No!
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