When I describe what statists believe sometimes people think I’m exaggerating or trying to make it sound even more ridiculous than it is. Because of that, when I can I like to use actual examples, from actual statists, as a study in how the indoctrinated mind works (or doesn’t work, as the case may be).
There was one comment in particular under my Steemit article yesterday which so succinctly expressed the insanity of statism that I wanted to dissect and analyze it separately here. In my article I asked those who oppose voluntaryism/anarchism, “which involuntary stuff do you want forcibly imposed upon ME?” One commenter responded with this:
That was his entire first comment. (I will let the commenter decide whether to share his identity here or not.) There is so much in those few sentences that is accidentally profound, and also insane.
1 - Given the context, the first sentence was rather odd. My entire article was advocating voluntary, non-violent society, so obviously I’m not one of the ones who needs non-violence “forcibly imposed” upon me.
2 - His first sentence is just a weird, convoluted way of saying, “If someone attacks someone else, force should be used to stop the attacker.” I agree with that. That happens to be exactly in line with the non-aggression principle, voluntaryism, and my entire article. But it is not in line with any “government” anywhere, ever. Every “government” is an aggressor, even if it sometimes stops other aggressors. So to speak of “government” forcibly imposing non-violence on people is just profoundly schizophrenic. While you’re at it, why not say that we need car-jackers so they can stop our cars from being stolen?
3 - The second sentence is equally bizarre in that it is a perfect description of the evils of “government,” although used as an argument in favor of “government.” Apparently he wants a huge powerful, well-armed gang of thugs … to make sure no one forms a huge, powerful, well-armed gang of thugs. Do I really need to explain why that argument is an epic fail?
4 - Similarly, the underlying tone of his entire comment fits well within the common statist template of, “But if we didn’t have government, we might end up with … government!” If the worst case scenario you can come up with for what I advocate (a free society) is that it might turn into what YOU advocate (a society controlled by a ruling class), you need to work on your argument.
5 - It’s humorous that he thinks that voluntaryism would lead to a “dictatorship,” but he thinks “government” wouldn’t. Not a big fan of history, apparently.
6 - Notice how he is also saying that his goal is to prevent someone ELSE from “gathering a bunch of thugs” and controlling everything. And his solution to that? For HIM to gather a bunch of thugs, call them “government,” and have them control everything. (My apologies if I insulted anyone’s intelligence by bothering to point out the glaring hypocrisy going on there.) If someone else then applied his exact same “logic” against him, and built a DIFFERENT bunch of thugs, then you have … several millennia of violent conflict and fighting over authoritarian power—i.e., human history. He is demonstrating the exact mentality which causes war and oppression: “I need an all-powerful gang enforcing MY preferences on everyone, so they don’t impose THEIRS on ME!” Immoral, hypocritical, and stupid, all in one shot.
7 - Then comes his grand finale, which is as glaring an example of psychological projection as you will ever see: he proclaims that, by advocating non-aggression and a voluntary society, I am really trying to “control the world and force everyone else to live the way [I] believe is best.” Hmmm. So apparently he thinks I will seize control of a non-existent ruling class, and use its non-existent authority and non-existent power to enslave the world. Meanwhile, he is directly and specifically advocating the existence of a ruling class which will “force everyone else to live the way [he] believe[s] is best,” as his own comments obviously demonstrate.
Ironically, unlike the commenter, the only thing I want force used for is to defend against aggression—as his first sentence implies. He didn’t even seem to notice how much he was arguing with himself. But that brings us to the most important part, something well beyond “Your argument sucks!” (which it does). What must exist in the mind of statists for them to make such convoluted, non-sensical, self-contradictory arguments? I consider myself an expert on that question, not only because I have spent the last twenty years studying the insanity of statism and the lunacy of the statist thought process, but also because … (swallows pride) … I WAS a statist for many years before that.
In short, statists want a mystical all-powerful good thing to add to the equation of reality that will save the world from the dangers that imperfect human beings create. They don’t trust their fellow man, and uncertainty scares them. Up to that point I can sympathize. If there was some magical force for good which could somehow stop all the bad people, I’d be all for it! But the statist’s solution to the unknown, and to the unpredictability of flawed mankind, is to take SOME of those flawed human beings and give them societal permission to forcibly control everyone else. As if that might improve things.
They don’t see the insanity of this because they don’t even think of “government” as mere mortals. The way statists speak of “law” and “authority” and “government”—as if those things are something OTHER than just threats of violence coming from a group of human beings—shows that they are trying to hallucinate into existence some super-human savior which has both super-human powers and super-human virtues. They will often even say, “People can’t be trusted!” My response to that is always to ask them which species will be running this “government” thing they say we need. Might it be …. PEOPLE?
If you understand that “government” is nothing but people, and that all the pseudo-religious documents and political rituals don’t make them into anything more, then you can’t help but see how patently insane all statist arguments are. (Personally, I’m embarrassed by how long it took me to notice that and to outgrow my own authoritarian indoctrination.) The comments dissected above are just one example of how the authoritarian mindset makes no sense at all unless “government” is a DEITY.
In summary, statism consists entirely of weak-minded, indoctrinated cowards hoping that a mythical, all-powerful god (“government”) will come along and protect them from an uncertain world while forcibly imposing their own preferences and values onto everyone else. I know, because I was one of them. Thankfully, I eventually escaped the cult of “government.”
And on that note, I will leave you with this video:
(Incidentally, of all of “my” videos, that might be my favorite, even though I never actually gave that talk, and even though I didn’t make that video. Many thanks to Harvey Lester who collected bits and pieces from different things I’ve done and compiled them together into something more clear and succinct than any talk I’ve ever actually delivered!)