Can Liberty Be Advanced Through Violence? By Butler Shaff er
(2010-12-11 at 17:22:06 )

Can Liberty Be Advanced Through Violence? By Butler Shaff er

We Cannot Solve Our Problems With The Same Thinking We Used
When We Created Them. --- Albert Einstein

A Republican candidate running for Congress in Texas has set many minds
and mouths atwitter with his suggestion that, should state tyranny ever
become a problem in America that could not be resolved by political
means, the use of violence, while "not the f irst option," would be "on
the table."

There is a deep-rooted frustration and anger among millions of Americans
directed at the entirety of a political establishment that is forever
employing lies, deceit, contradictory reasoning, violence, increased
regulatory and taxation schemes, Federal Reserve monetary policies, wars,
expanded police and surveillance powers, and other practices that advance
corporate-state interests at the expense of ordinary people. Those upset
with such behavior have tried resorting to the politically-acceptable
means of bringing about change. They have gone to voting booths to
support candidates who promise to "get the government off your backs,"
or "no more taxes," or to not engage in "nation-building." With but a
handful of exceptions, those elected turn around and violate such
promises, leaving the disenchanted voters to seek out other political
saviours at the next election.

The current "Tea-Party" movement began as yet another expression of
popular disaff ection with our politicized society. It was, however,
quickly co-opted by the same right-wing franchise of the political
establishment that participated - in bipartisan eff orts with its left-
wing branch - in the construction of the modern empire. Just as in the
1994 Republican Party congressional victories, persons of Libertarian
Sentiments will discover that dressing a Tea-Party candidate in a three-
cornered hat will not change his fundamental character as a Pimp For
The Prevailing Order.

When the futility of using institutionally-approved methods for making
change become increasingly evident to people, it is not surprising that
many might look to violence as the only eff ective solution. Students of
social psychology often speak of the "frustration-aggression" hypothesis,
wherein a repeated interference with goal-directed activity may result
in a resort of violence. As Fred Berger expressed it, where

...certain segments or groups within the population are systematically
exposed to these weaknesses in the ability of the legal system to provide
or protect security, those subjected to such treatment come to feel "left
out" of the social process, come to regard themselves as the "victims" of
the social and political scheme, rather than full participants in it...
Such conditions tend to foster counter-violence and retaliatory disorder.

In a world in which it has become evident to so many that the
institutional order exists to promote the interests of the few at the
expense of the more numerous, is it so remarkable that such an awareness
would be responded to with anger and violence? To regard oneself as being
endlessly at the mercy of increasingly malevolent forces that one is
otherwise unable to control or resist, can produce a sense of
hopelessness that may lead to violence directed against its
perceived source.

How is one to respond to the systemic violence that is the lifeblood, the
Very Essence, of the State? Society has always been a struggle between
the "invisible hand" of a peaceful and productive order that arises,
without direction, as the unintended consequence of people pursuing their
own interests, and the "iron f ist" of institutionally structured violence
we have been conditioned to equate with "social order." I have defined
"government" as "an institution of theft, predation, rape, destruction,
and mass murder, the absence of which, it is said, would lead to
disorder."

To understand political systems, and to learn how to protect oneself
when dealing with them, one must cast aside all of the illusions and
lies in which we have been trained to see them. They are defined, even
by students of government, as agencies "enjoying a monopoly on the use of
violence within a given territory." There is Nothing, Nothing, that the
State ever Does that does not derive from a Presumed Authority to Employ
Whatever Amount of Deadly Force its Off icials Deem Necessary - or just
Convenient - To Achieve Its Ends.

Contrary to the mantle of "public servant" in which they like to cloak
themselves, government employees - from the President on down to Janitors
- Insist Upon Their Power To Compel Obedience By Force.

The mainstream media and high-ranking government off icials have been
feigning righteous indignation over the city off icials in Bell,
California, who paid themselves gargantuan salaries - one as high as
$800,000 per year, and with retirement pay nearing $1,000,000 annually.

What is most upsetting to such critics, however, is not the enormity of
their racket, but that these local off icials failed to conform themselves
to established methods for the looting of taxpayers. Like the Claude
Rains police chief in the movie, Casablanca, who informs Humphrey Bogart
that he is "shocked to discover gambling" going on in his business - as
he receives his gambling payoff from the croupier - the town government
of Bell will receive a selective criticism of its behavior. Government
defense contracts; hundreds of billions of dollars in "stimulus" gifts to
favored business interests; the refusal of the Federal Reserve system -
or of Congress - to reveal the benef iciaries of its monetary policies,
these and other politically-correct forms of looting will pass without
signif icant comment from right-thinking people.

Nor, in contrast with the Bell racket, will much be made of the fact that
a current candidate for governor in California has spent $141.5 million
of her own money in an eff ort to get elected. Why? As one who understands
that people act in order to be better off after acting than they would
have been otherwise, what returns does this woman expect from her
investment? Who is insisting upon an explanation from her?

I have long been of the view that parents have a moral obligation to keep
their children from living under Tyranny. As such, how do I go about the
task of helping to make their world one in which they may enjoy the
conditions of peace and liberty? My experience convinces me that
participation in electoral politics is more than futile: it only adds
energy to the system; it conf irms the central premise of all political
thinking, Namely: important change can occur only within the halls of
government.

Besides the fact that the electoral process is unavoidably rigged in
favor of the status quo, it also assures that, no matter who you vote
for, the government always gets elected. Voting is designed to give
people the false sense that they are in control of the machinery and the
policies of the state.

Emma Goldman got it right when she said that "If Voting Changed Anything,
They Would Make It Illegal."

My opposition to voting arises from the same sense as my opposition to
other forms of violence. Implicit in efforts to persuade the state to act
according to your pref erences - whether through voting, lobbying, or
threats of force - is the idea that, should you prevail, others will be
compelled to abide by what you have chosen for them. Voting is anything
but the peaceful alternative to violence: it is premised on the coercive
machinery of the state being employed on your behalf should you prevail
in amassing a greater number of people on your side than do others.

More direct forms of violence - as some suggest to be the ultimate
solution to statism - is likewise inconsistent with a condition of
liberty. Violence is an expression of reactive anger, born of unrequited
frustration. Violence is the Very Essence of the State: can one expect
mankind to free itself of political destructiveness by adopting its
very essence?

We will not become free when the state goes away. Rather, the state will
go away once we are free. "Freedom" is a very personal quality, wherein
the individual enjoys a centered, integrated life, free of the conflicts
and contradictions that make up our normally neurotic lives. We must
learn to respect the inviolability of one anothers lives and other
property interests if we are to enjoy this inner sense of being free. A
need for liberty is what we have in common with one another, but we will
only grasp this fact when each of us is free of the inner forces that
keep us divided and in conflict.

We have conditioned our minds to think of ourselves in conflict-laden
ways, be they nationalistic, religious, racial, gender, or other forms of
separation. Our political masters have trained us to think of one another
in "we or they," "us" against "them" categories, divisions that are -
like the scapegoats upon whom we play out our conflicts - changeable to
suit the political needs of the moment. The fear of unseen "communists"
that helped fuel the Cold War, has morphed into the concealed
"terrorists," with each serving the same purpose: to Expand the Power
and Plundering of the State.

Only By Our Individual Ending Of Such Divisive Thinking And Discovering
The Inner Sense Of Non-Contradictory Wholeness That Respects The
Inviolability Of Our Neighbors Lives And Interests, Can We Become Free.

"Liberty," on the other hand, is the condition in which free men and
women can live together in society. Trying to twist or manipulate unfree
people into social systems - even those grounded in a verbal support of
liberty - will never foster liberty. This is why the Constitution was
doomed from the start: there was too much conflict and contradiction in
the minds of most people to allow for the assemblage of free men and
women. It is also why, once we have discovered the inner meaning of
freedom, constitutions - and the governments they create - will be wholly
unnecessary for a condition of liberty. This is part of the meaning of
F.A. Harpers observation that "The Man Who Knows What Freedom Means
Will Find A Way To Be Free."

How can a person whose mind and conduct is grounded in a divisive
thinking that considers violence as a means to wholeness, be regarded as
"free"? Free of What?

Is it not evident that a resort to violence can never be a means to
liberty; that such methods presume a fundamental separation of interests
that would reduce society to the Hobbesian dystopia of "all against all"?

If a group sought to dismantle the state by violent means, is it not
clear that it could accomplish such ends only by amassing coercive
powers superior to the state itself; that it would have to become a
super-state? And if this group were to be successful, it would dare not
dismantle its own machinery, lest another group sought to recreate the
previous apparatus; it would have to remain diligent in policing the
thinking and actions of others who might be inclined to favor a more
structured society.

One can no more advance liberty through violence than he can regain
sobriety by embracing an alternative brand of alcohol. The state is a
system that enjoys a monopoly on the use of violence. It is no answer to
this destructive menace to introduce a competitor who employs the same
means and seeks the same ends, namely, to construct society on the
principle of the power to compel obedience to authority.

Albert Einstein got to the essence of the problem when he declared that
"force always attracts men of low morality." I understand how being
frustrated by others as we pursue interests we are entitled to pursue
can generate intense feelings of anger. But it is not out of reactive
rage or desperation that we can discover our individual freedom and the
resultant liberty we can share with our neighbors. It is such
divisiveness that keeps us enslaved to the state. We need to discover
what we share with one another, namely, a respect for our individuality
that can arise only from the integration of our rational and emotional
energies into a focused intelligence. If mankind is to avoid the fate of
being the first species to intentionally make itself extinct, we must
transform our own minds, and abandon our ageless and contradictory
efforts to force others to be free!

November 1, 2010

Butler Shaffer teaches at the Southwestern University School of Law. He
is the author of the newly-released In Restraint of Trade: The Business
Campaign Against Competition, 1918—1938 and of Calculated Chaos:
Institutional Threats to Peace and Human Survival. His latest book is
Boundaries of Order.

Copyright © 2010 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or
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