“You must use the system to fight the system; so be willing to accept that the ‘means do justify the ends! Agorist methods with some education are just not enough!’”
9/17/2016
The fact of the matter is that saying we have to obey and comply with the system is to say we have to obey and comply with the armed gunman at a place of business we like to frequent. The only difference is that few people likely want to risk taking on the gunman because they might be a casualty and not live to see the positive outcome.
And while I agree that education and agorist methods are not THE solution, they are part of the whole solution. However, working within the system still grants legitimacy to it the same way not confronting the armed robber does or bickering with him to take less each time.
The principle of respecting self ownership, of respecting consent, is violated. So when the robber or government decides it needs more, it brings more guns or creates more reasons built upon ‘feel good’ or more appropriately, ‘feel bad’ emotions which cause people to avoid social ridicule for ‘not helping the children’ or ‘not protecting the less fortunate’, or even ‘not helping the elderly.’ These are used justify more visits or convince others to be robbers, collect more loot, and share it with the promise that they will then do something for those who participate and later use that logic for why others should participate too!
It doesn’t matter that a vile act has turned into something good. It matters that a vile act is used to do something good. So before it is interjected that a vile act can be used to defend, NO! That is called self defense. Semantics about things that are regularly understood as acceptable shouldn’t have to be explained every single time because of poorly executed linguistic tricks. Self defense is such in this case because the global standard is that everyone wants to survive as peacefully as possible.
To claim this is untrue is to say that a dog born with two heads is no longer a dog. It is still a dog with a mutation that makes it different. Therefore the desires of others to hurt, steal, rob, and enslave are false conclusions about how to successfully survive in a society that has to create wealth in order to maintain and improve the quality of their lives.
By not creating and working peacefully in ways that do not discourage the creation of wealth, these ideologically different minds stealing, hurting, and enslaving others diminish their future returns on such actions. This is true as people want peace of mind to know they can safely create. Yet the idea of the robber or government is that they somehow protect even those which dissent against them. Refuse to comply with something not given a peaceful choice to happily coexist without having to relocate is not a duress free and peacefully voluntary choice. Therefore:
"You'll never stop the robber without working closely with the robber peacefully because he is making the rules and controls his lackeys.”
“You'll never end government without working within it. So the best thing to do is to donate back the stolen tax money to charity or something while working to dismantle the government!"
For the reason I stated with the robber is precisely the reason why working within the system will not end the system. Point out the contradictions and keep in mind that dismantling the foundation of government is a long term solution just as it was in crafting it as a necessity in the minds of generations upon generations. Working within the system for 200+ years in the United States and 2000+ years worldwide has not yielded many decent results because of the justification of acting aggressively to coerce compliance with peaceful people for no other reason than to maintain control of them so their wealth may be used to pay others to control the potential threat of other rulers.
Legitimizing government to keep it or to end it by saying it is okay to justify any means because of the goal is why government slaughters people in the first place. This has always been true and history shows it.
"Just following orders; just doing my job!" Does that sound familiar?
That's not sacrifice for anything worth-while! To work within the system is to send a mixed signal. One might as well start WWI again and send 50,000 more men over the trench line to be mowed down by machine gun fire for 5 feet of ground gained which will be retaken with mustard gas. That’s not bravery. It’s stupidity, absurdity, and absolutely counters the goal of peace and order that is the noblest intent of government despite the means to rob every one beneath such jurisdiction regardless of consent.
But perhaps until people are able to clearly define a set of universally applicable moral definitions, they may not see this the same way. {See Morality Defined, a free eBook to get started understanding this.}
Consistency is just as important as clarity. And working within the system is still dependent on oppressing people with taxation to do a good thing. The only difference is that others dependent on that system have already convinced those working within it to compromise their principles or be distracted enough to not clearly defined them as they worry about fighting for something they don't clearly understand well enough just yet to explain simply.
-JLD
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