From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Sun Dec 10 2000 - 17:49:34 MST
Dan Fabulich (ably) wrote:
>
> When I said that Libertarianism requires a moral revolution, I was
> pointing out the rather obvious fact that if everybody around you
> believes that it is one's moral duty to relinquish one's freedoms, you
> included, they'll (surprise!) start up a government and initiate force
> against you.
I can't fully disagree. But I note that most of the people around me
don't really give the matter much thought at all. They've absorbed a
set of assumptions (memes) from local culture and act on them with
relatively little consideration. I'm not sure if its any easier to
change the meme programming than to get them to think.
>
> People have to vote libertarian, that is, they have to vote to
> dismantle the government, or revolt, or whatever, or else the
> government will exist and meddle (as people currently vote for it to
> do). But they'll never do that unless their morals change rather
> drastically.
>
Could you vote to dismantle government effectively in 1776? I'm not
sure that can be effectively done in today's climate. Again though, it
does not take a vast majority to produce real change. It does take a
sufficient number who act reasonably coherently and effectively.
> Samantha argued that it doesn't require that everyone get it... it
> simply requires that everyone let everyone else alone (unless they
> initiate force). In other words, they don't have to understand
> libertarianism, they just have to be libertarians in action. That
> sounds like a moral revolution to me. It's not happening this week, I
> promise you that.
>
Not libertarian in action so much as respecting people's rights to live
by their own lights as long as they aren't infringing on you. I suspect
that message could be pretty popular with large segments that aren't and
never will be well described as Libertarian or "libertarians in
action".
> Similarly, Michael Lorrey said that all it takes is for self defense
> to be acceptable and for the initiation of force to be unacceptable.
> But I don't know what sort of acceptability one would be talking about
> unless it were either legal acceptability or moral acceptability.
> Legal acceptability would follow only from moral acceptability; the
> people must choose to act to prevent initiation of force. Now they
> believe that it's everyone's moral duty to accept certain kinds of
> initiations of force and to initiate force against others under
> various conditions. This would have to change before libertarianism
> started to happen.
>
I don't think they actually believe any such thing. To believe implies
giving some thought to. This doesn't happen often enough. To
successfully oppose the de facto decisions most live by might get more
people to actually think about these things. That will be the beginning
of real change. A 10 million dollar question is how to live as freely
as possible within this largely unfree environment and to promote change
successfully.
> I'm saying that people have to decide to get out of everyone else's
> way for libertarianism to happen. They don't want that. They want to
> be controlled, and they want you to be controlled as well. Unless
> they change their minds on that, unless there's a moral revolution, it
> won't happen.
>
The first key to changing someone's mind is to be sure they recognize
that they have one and that they bear responsibility for some of its
contents and the results deriving from those contents. I'm not holding
my breath.
- samantha
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