Why abstention is a politically and morally void argument:

baseballlibertarian:

I’ve wrote about this before but I think it needs repeating. 

Libertarians, anti-statists, and anarchists should all have a common goal, the end the state.  Freedom can only be maximized when there is no government intervention, force, and coercion.  Until then freedom will always be limited. 

But the fact of the matter is the state isn’t very likely to end itself.  Governments are far too powerful, far too many powerful people rely on government, and far too many people rely on the government for handouts. 

Many of the people who want to see the end of the state see participating (voting) in the process as consent to be government.  To which I completely disagree with. 

Voting is no different then self defense.  Libertarians believe in a non-aggression policy.  Force should never be used against another private property and self ownership.  But if your private property and self ownership is being aggressed upon and attack you have all the rights to defend yourself with whatever means possible, even force.  So while we might detest violence it is acceptable to defend yourself with it.  Voting is no difference.  We might detest the state but it is no difference if you try and vote for less government, less taxes, and less coercion.  That isn’t consent in the slightest. 

As Murray Rothbard put it….

Let’s put it this way: Suppose we were slaves in the Old South, and that for some reason, each plantation had a system where the slaves were allowed to choose every four years between two alternative masters. Would it be evil, and sanctioning slavery, to participate in such a choice? Suppose one master was a monster who systematically tortured all the slaves, while the other one was kindly, enforced almost no work rules, freed one slave a year, or whatever. It would seem to me not only not aggression to vote for the kinder master but idiotic if we failed to do so. Of course, there might well be circumstances — say when both masters are similar — where the slaves would be better off not voting in order to make a visible protest — but this is a tactical not a moral consideration. Voting would not be evil but, in such a case, less effective than the protest.

But if it is morally licit and nonaggressive for slaves to vote for a choice of masters, in the same way it is licit for us to vote for what we believe the lesser of two or more evils, and still more beneficial to vote for an [sic] avowedly libertarian candidates.

This is basic economics: Minimize your damn costs.

Rothbard: My conversion to anarchism was a simple exercise in logic. I had engaged continually in friendly arguments about laissez-faire with liberal friends from graduate school. While condemning taxation, I had still felt that taxation was required for the provision of police and judicial protection and for that only. One night two friends and I had one of our usual lengthy discussions, seemingly unprofitable; but this time when they’d left, I felt that for once something vital had actually been said. As I thought back on the discussion, I realized that my friends, as liberals, had posed the following challenge to my laissez-faire position:

They: What is the legitimate basis for your laissez-faire government, for this political entity confined solely to defending person and property?

Rothbard: Well, the people get together and decide to establish such a government.

They: But if “the people” can do that, why can’t they do exactly the same thing and get together to choose a government that will build steel plants, dams, etc.?

Rothbard: I realized in a flash that their logic was impeccable, that laissez-faire was logically untenable, and that either I had to become a liberal, or move onward into anarchism. I became an anarchist.

conza:

“The attempt to disprove the action-axiom would itself be an action aimed at a goal, requiring means, excluding other courses of action, incurring costs, subjecting the actor to the possibility of achieving or not achieving the desired goal and so leading to a profit or a loss.

And the very possession of such knowledge then can never be disputed, and the validity of these concepts can never be falsified by any contingent experience, for disputing or falsifying anything would already have presupposed their very existence. As a matter of fact, a situation in which these categories of action would cease to have a real existence could itself never be observed, for making an observation, too, is an action.”
   — Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Economic Science and the Austrian Method

Aw, Michael’s meme found its way to tumblr! I may not be an Austrian, but this meme came from a lovely little troll who hails from our campus libertarian groups (including the Mises Circle, an Austrian economics (book) club which has gained significant notoriety as of late) and I am thus very proud!

It is in war that the State really comes into its own: swelling in power, in number, in pride, in absolute dominion over the economy and the society.

Murray Rothbard (via libertyidaho)

Fear is, ironically, the most powerful tool when it comes to the state coercing people to relinquish their rights.

…the libertarian sees no inconsistency in being “leftist” on some issues and “rightist” on others. On the contrary, he sees his own position as virtually the only consistent one, consistent on the behalf of every individual. For how can the leftist be opposed to the violence of war while at the same time supporting the violence of taxation and government control? And how can the rightist trumpet his devotion to private property and free enterprise while at the same time favoring war and the outlawing of noninvasive activities and practices that he deems immoral?

Murray Rothbard (For A New Liberty)