91 lines
6.4 KiB
Plaintext
91 lines
6.4 KiB
Plaintext
Statism — Love It Or Leave It
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<p>For many years I’ve been seeing proposals for implementing<br />
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libertarian reforms that look superficially appealing and plausible,<br />
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but on closer examination run hard aground either on some pesky<br />
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reality of politics as it is or the extreme difficulty of waging a<br />
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successful revolution. Since I’m a <a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/libertarianism.html">libertarian</a>,<br />
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you may well imagine that I find this annoying. How do we get there<br />
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from here?</p>
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<p>For the first time, I think I’ve seen a path that is both<br />
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principled and practical. Not the whole path, but some firm steps<br />
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that both accomplish good in themselves and open up great<br />
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possibilities. And the best part is that it’s a path most statists<br />
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can’t object to, one that uses the premises of the existing federal<br />
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system to achieve a fair first test of libertarian ideas within that<br />
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system. Even opponents of libertarianism, if they are fair-minded,<br />
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should welcome this reality check. Libertarians should cheer it on<br />
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and join it.</p>
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<p>I’ve had troubles with other libertarians recently. Too many have<br />
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retreated into isolationism in the face of a war with terrorism that I<br />
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do not believe we can or should evade. The isolationists judge that<br />
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empowering the State when we use it as an instrument of self-defense<br />
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has consequences for the long term that are more dangerous than<br />
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terrorists’ aims are in the short term. I sympathize with this view,<br />
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but when all is said and done, Al-Qaeda shahids with backpack nukes<br />
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from the ‘stans are more of a danger than John Ashcroft has ever been.<br />
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I have done my homework and if anything, I believe the U.S. Government<br />
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is <em>understating</em> the danger we face.</p>
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<p>But the dangers of empowering the State to fight a necessary war<br />
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make it more, not less urgent that we pursue all possibilities for<br />
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libertarian reform at home. Now, I think I see a workable one. What<br />
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if, by perfectly legal and proper means, we could take over a small<br />
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American state and actually try out our ideas there?</p>
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<p>Yes, I thought it was a crazy idea when I first heard it. An<br />
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entire <em>state</em>? How? But the <a href='http://www.freestateproject.org/'>Free State Project</a> has<br />
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done the math. I’ve looked at their arguments and trend curves, and<br />
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I’m pretty much convinced. It can be done. We can do it. The<br />
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key is very simple; enough of us just have to <em>move</em><br />
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there. Vote with our feet, and then vote in a bloc. And why<br />
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a state? Becausr that’s the only intermediate level of government<br />
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with enough autonomy to make a good laboratory.</p>
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<p>The Free State Project identified ten small states where 20,000<br />
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active libertarians would be a critically large voting bloc. They are<br />
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signing up libertarians and like-minded people to vote on the target<br />
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state and to move there when the group passes 20,000. The winning<br />
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state will be announced on 1st October; they’ve signed up about 5400<br />
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people so far, on a classic exponential growth curve with a six-month<br />
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doubling time that should get them there in late 2004.</p>
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<p>What could be more American than migrating to a thinly-settled area<br />
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to experiment with liberty? And this time we won’t have to kill off the<br />
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natives, because they’re not going to be organizing any scalping parties.<br />
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Most of the states under consideration have a strong local<br />
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libertarian tradition, and none of them are going to look askance at<br />
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the sort of bright, hardworking, highly-skilled people most likely to<br />
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be pro-freedom activists.</p>
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<p>Some people won’t like this idea, though. The national media<br />
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establishment, which is statist down to its bones even in the few<br />
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crevices where it isn’t leftist, will inevitably try to portray the<br />
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Free State migrants as a bunch of racist conservative redneck gun-nuts<br />
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(all these terms being effectively synonymous in the national media)<br />
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intent on turning the poor victim state into one gigantic Aryan<br />
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Nations compound (especially if it’s Idaho, as it could be). Expect<br />
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network-news interviews with locals teary-eyed with worry that the<br />
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incomers will be hosting regular cross-burnings on the courthouse<br />
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lawn. Awkward little inconsistencies like the libertarian opposition<br />
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to drug laws, censorship, and theocracy will be ignored. This prospect<br />
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is especially ironic because, in most of the possible target states,<br />
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it is our lifestyle liberalism that is actually most likely to produce<br />
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a culture clash with the natives.</p>
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<p>The more intelligent members of the political class won’t like this<br />
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either. The brighter and better-able one is to extrapolate<br />
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second-and-third-order effects, the more likely the potential success<br />
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of libertarianism at a state level is likely to scare them —<br />
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conservatives nearly as much as liberals, and conservatives perhaps<br />
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more so when we challenge them to emulate our success with<br />
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small-government policies that they speak but don’t really mean.</p>
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<p>But I don’t think this will be easy to stop. Libertarian<br />
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demographics being what they are, 20,000 of us in a small state will<br />
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be a <em>huge</em> concentration of technical, creative and<br />
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entrepreneurial talent. We’ll found software businesses, studios,<br />
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innovative light-manufacturing shops and engineering companies<br />
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by the bucketload. We’ll create favorable regulatory conditions<br />
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for old-line businesses like financial-services houses and for<br />
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bleeding-edge ones like the private space-launch industry.<br />
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We’ll attract more people like us. The lucky state, especially<br />
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if it’s depressed and mostly rural like a lot of the candidates, will<br />
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experience a renaissance. And we’ll get to make the difference.</p>
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<p>The real fun will start when Americans elsewhere start asking “Why<br />
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can’t <em>our</em> state be more like this?”</p>
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<p>Liberty in our lifetime? I think this might be how to get there.</p>
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<p><a href="http://enetation.co.uk/comments.php?user=esr&commentid=106488286262604201">Blogspot comments</a></p>
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