(This article/video is for mainly for those who already understand basic Voluntaryist principle and libertarian property ethic. It may be difficult to grasp for those not yet familiar with Voluntaryist thought, property norms, or the bedrock principle of individual self-ownership, but even so, I hope those readers not yet familiar with these ideas will gain some new and useful insights and knowledge.)
Here’s the video accompaniment to this post. Both this article and the video are meant to complement one another.
A. A plan that, by design, entails the violation of one or more individuals’ self-ownership for the “greater good” is legitmate. We have to be pragmatic.
B. A plan that, by design, entails the violation of even one individual’s self-ownership is illegitimate. Principle must not be violated, or it cannot properly be called principle.
Pick one.
As Aristotle said so many years ago, in so many words:
You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.
I’ll break this down very simply. The law of non-contradiction says that “A is A.” In other words, ice cannot be a liquid at the same time it is solid ice. Pretty easy, right? An orange cannot be an apple to the degree in which it continues to be an orange. A is A and not B. You can’t have your cake in front of you and have eaten all of it at the same time. (Well, I guess unless you ate it and then cut your stomach out...but you get the point) Logic is logic. The end. A is A.
It can thus be logically concluded that a political plan, insofar as it violates Voluntaryist principle (namely, individual self-ownership, the bedrock axiom of the philosophy) cannot be a Voluntaryist plan.
The easiest way to prove that Kokesh’s “platform” is non-compatible with Voluntaryism:
Kokesh will assume “temporary authority” and “ownership” of unowned resources via illegitimate means (political mandate). (Ironically, Kokesh himself has called this means of achieving power, whether for ethical or unethical purposes, illegitimate.) He will use this “authority” to carry out the plans of his platform. One of those plans involves vast acreages of land in the national parks system.
Kokesh will turn national parks into independent, non-profit organizations, open to “the public” (a meaningless term to voluntaryists) via property assignments mandated by himself and his inner circle. This means, in effect, that vast swathes of unowned “public” lands will be, solely by Kokeshian decree, unhomesteadable, even to those local individuals who possess the most direct link to the land, and already are, or wish to, mix their labor with it. Who will direct these non-profits? Well, that is up for Kokesh and his self-appointed “custodians” to decide.
As such, Kokesh’s plan to arbitrarily assign ownership of these vast acreages of land to a board of directors of his choosing, to be “owned” by “the public,” as non-profit organizations, by necessity violates the individual self-ownership of any and all individuals who may wish to homestead these unowned lands, or utilize the land or its resources as private property.
That’s it. Kokesh has contradicted himself twice:
1. In claiming that the electoral process both is, and is not, a legitimate means by which to acquire authority/land/resources.
2. In claiming that his platform is Voluntaryist in nature, in spite of its by-design-necessary violations of Voluntaryist principle.
Aristotle don’t care if someone runs for prez! Aristotle do care if someone says “A is B”! It’s not! A is A.
Myself, I don’t give a good god damn if someone “runs for office.” What I do take issue with is when someone calls an objectively authoritarian plan a Voluntaryist one. There’s no debate here. Doing things which by necessity violate self-ownership and Voluntaryist property norms is not Voluntaryism. A is A. Run as a statist, or a “big L” Libertarian, but don’t pretend to be a Voluntaryist, while promoting this type of platform.
Sadly, it seems anyone who asks specific questions about the platform is dismissed, told to “read the platform again,” or called names in puerile, grade school fashion.
Before I go (before the final point) as a sort of aside, I want to address one rebuttal I am sure will come:
”Adam’s plan would at least be MORE VOLUNTARY than what we have now! Isn’t less oppression better!?
To that I reply:
If there is a game that, when played, swings three large hammers from the ceiling and smashes three people—sometimes the player of the game himself—on the head, and another game that only smashes one or two people on the head, is voluntarily choosing to play the second game really a moral choice? Certainly there are less heads being smashed, but when the games don’t even need to be played, isn’t the only real moral option not to play?
To that my detractors will reply:
”Yes, but if we don’t play, someone will! The hammers are going to fall no matter what!”
And to that I reply:
Yes. As long as people like you keep playing the game.
Kokesh himself has sad that voting for the “lesser evil” is a trap. And yet, that’s exactly what we are being told to do, in being urged to vote for Kokesh’s 2020 platform.
We are already winning. Don’t fuck it up by voting!
Look at this shit!
In 2016, 43 ~ 45% of individuals in America ”did not vote.
This means that the “candidate” who really won, was NOBODY! We are winning! Let’s bring that non-participation percentage up in 2020.
Why pay homage and lend an air of legitimacy to a broken-by-design, irrevocably corrupt, murderous, filthy human destruction machine, called “government” by trying to “change it from the inside” instead of saying “fuck you” to the whole goddamned thing.
*If you want to try and change the Third Reich “from the inside,” be my guest. Me and Aristotle, however, feel sorry for you. A system and electoral process that is foundationally morally illegitimate and evil can not, at the same time, and in the same sense, be foundationally morally legitimate and good.
A is A. A is not B.
*
~KafkA
Graham Smith is a Voluntaryist activist, creator, and peaceful parent residing in Niigata City, Japan. Graham runs the "Voluntary Japan" online initiative with a presence here on Steem, as well as DTube and Twitter. (Hit me up so I can stop talking about myself in the third person!)