How to Refute the 5 Major Fallacies of Statist Arguments

Daniel Dowling
Activist Post

Freedom is ensured by intelligent thought and courageous action upon that thought. Unintelligent thought, or action not coupled by thought in the pursuit of comfort, security or pleasure, is the first chain in the link of slavery. If slavery is all one has ever known, then they will accept their chains as freedom and will protect them at all costs; subjective reality is powerful. There is no amount of force that can compel a person to seek truth and freedom, but, in the conspicuous absence of truth in the largest channels of influence, even the smallest seed can spark a sea change in a person, given time and space. Anything that defies State-rhetoric will be puzzling and curious to one who supports the State, and it will also be taken as an opportunity to regurgitate State-programmed defenses with pride and gratification.

All supporters of the State are necessarily chauvinistic and rely heavily upon emotion and force, so, the utilization of emotion and force in arguments with these types will not resound and will fall upon deaf ears, like scream-talking at a rock concert; nobody will hear you, and you’ll only hurt yourself. It is in these instances that sound logic must be employed to thoroughly examine all points of Statist inquisition. To fuel the angsty rage that is so common in defenders of the State is to further the cause, so in a conversation or debate, respect must be prioritized; respect is diametric to the State, and is powerful, yet subtle. If the questioner is not willing to allow you time and space to flesh out an argument and interrupts incessantly, then it is your responsibility to egress gracefully; otherwise, the debate will become an ego-masturbation for both parties and nothing useful will have occurred. The foremost mission of any libertarian or anarchist is to effect peace in a broken world, and this clearly cannot be accomplished by brute force. Arm yourself with logic, and with temperance in your speech and kindness in your heart, any seeds of truth that you sow will have a much greater chance of germinating.

The following is a sample of 5 commonplace questions directed at libertarians or anarchists that, if handled logically and gracefully, can become learning experiences for both parties.

1. “Show me a time where anarchism has ever worked in history?!” This is often stated emphatically, as if it is an end all be all in the discussion.

Statists often employ this doozie when all else has failed in their attempts to defend a broken and dead idea, but it does not hold water. Very simply, you can point to any egalitarian and native tribe with no formal or written law, but a spirit of prevailing voluntaryism. These tribes exist throughout Africa, and anywhere the false concept of government has yet to permeate the culture.

Anarchism has worked wherever there was a failure in government response. Every time a natural disaster strikes, is the rescue and clean up effort organized by government, or people? Do people help people after these disasters because they are governed by law to do so, or is it because they are men and women who are naturally predisposed to help others in need? This is one instance of anarchism that is especially relevant today; the gross failures of government agencies in recent times of disaster (Sandy, Katrina) have assured us of the ineptitude of government, but until we as a people have declared self-sovereignty and reliance upon people rather than artificial systems, the State iniquities will continue and people will suffer.

If this does not satisfy, and the Statist presses for large countries that have operated under anarchism successfully, all one has to do is turn the tables. What State has ever successfully operated without extorting and murdering its denizens, and waging war for resources and power? This has never occurred, and if they try to use the lesser-of-two-evils fallacy, point out the false dialectic. The ends can never justify the means; this is immoral and unintelligent. If you can’t think of a better way to live without harming people or threatening people in order to enforce “charity”, then stand aside and let peaceful people do it for you, but don’t you dare tell me I should be put in jail for noncompliance with a system that thrives off of death and extortion. The State is a hideous monster that extracts wealth for redistribution at the threat of a gun — this is the opposite of peace and has nothing to do with welfare; and if one claims that this is necessary because people are inherently bad and cannot govern themselves, then have them examine this….

People are bad so they need to be governed by people are bad so they need to be governed by people are bad so they need to be governed by…

There is no magical effect in a system set up by people to control people — these are all people, and anyone who claims that the system is necessary for order is illogical by the simplest of reasoning. The whole is not greater than the sum of the parts — all of the parts of government are people, and there is no metaphysical leverage that modifies the output of these interconnected men and women in government. Government is too many cooks in the kitchen. There is no magic in a construct of man that protects man from man; it is simply false, and this has been proven in every government time and again throughout history.

2. “But how would anything ever get done? You have to have resources and financing to accomplish anything, you know, and this is why we need government.”

Look at joblessness and homelessness and food insecurity and our crumbling national infrastructure and soaring rates of pollution and decrepit education systems and…the list can go on and on. If people under the illusion of government ever accomplished anything charitable, the resources for the task were summoned under the threat of violence, which is neither civil nor tolerable, and anyone who would prop up this stance is amoral and guilty of the “ends justifying the means” fallacy.

Secondly, has there never been a single organization that accomplished anything altruistic outside of the shackles of government? People become unreasonable when defending a bad idea because it is false, and if the idea is not true, then there are no reasonable means to argue for it. This is an especially incendiary remark to hear when vomited from the mouth of a so-called Christian. How much humanitarian work has been accomplished through churches alone? Wells have been drilled, roads have been built, shelters have been erected, wounds have been healed, starving bodies have been nourished and minds have been educated in more instances than can be counted, all without the “aid” of government, and more to the point, all despite government. The hoops and ladders one must flip through and vault over to establish a charity are ridiculous, to say nothing of the police that arrest people for feeding the homeless.

People generally care about people…Except for the people that commission people with money generated at the threat of violence towards other people to protect those same people against people at the threat of violence because people are bad — this does not add up. In the latter case, they just care about false intellectualization of principles they did not invent, but nonetheless had attached to their egos and refused to let go, in order to protect their egos. It is important to be sensitive when speaking with these types, because no amount of force can or will change their minds, but it will only prompt them to protect their assumed ego identity with all the falseness that can be mustered. The most effective way to teach is the ” watch and learn” method, aside from revealing the glaring untruths that the State operates on. Beautiful people making real differences in their families and communities is an inspiring thing, and it cannot be denied by even the staunchest advocates of the State.

3. “Get real. So what happens when you have a rapist murderer come into your community of voluntaryists (supercilious emphasis on voluntaryists) who starts raping and murdering all of your children?! What then!”

So, you really think a large group of people who are smart enough to find a way to live peacefully and share without subjugating the entire group’s freedom would just have their heads in the sand and asses in the air when it come to the laughable “lone predator scenario”? I’m not a non-lethal weapons expert, nor a security expert…I’m a writer. But, I do know that those types of people exist, and I also know that there is a good chance that a few of those people might be willing to associate through the principles of voluntaryism. There is this ridiculous notion that as the State fades away, so does justice, but this idea is almost criminally insane. The State is the chief perpetrator of wickedness!

Every aspect of bureaucracy is corrupted and tweaked to extort, from the highway robbery speeding tickets and traffic fines that provide military-grade weaponry and Corvettes for police, to the militarized IRS that terrorizes people who refuse to pay into a war machine and abortion funding nightmare, to the cleptomaniacal creep-mutants known as the TSA… Do we even have to mention the endless wars for oil and drugs that kill tens of thousands of innocents and civilians abroad each year?

The State’s judicial system puts away more non-violent offenders than harmful predators because the “justice” system is actually just another construct to extract wealth…at the threat of violence! Broken record, I know. Private for-profit prisons (profiting from “justice”- a novel concept!) are actually selling their slave labor to corporations who reap the man-power for $1.25 an hour… This is overt slavery, and it is extremely profitable. Still don’t think you have anything to hide from dragnet state agencies like Homeland Security and the NSA? So, who would you trust — A convening group of real people in the community where a transgression occurred, or, an apotheosized priest in black robes who makes obscene amounts of money and gets paid through the extortion and robbery of his fellow man in order to protect the interests of the so-called elite who cut his paycheck? This black-clothed man or woman is also in cahoots with the private prison industry that undeniably supports overt slavery. If one takes the time to do the research, this case is closed.

4. “But if our government and national defense collapses because of all the damned anarchists, then what happens when China and Russia want to come steal our land?”

People…This is an internal revolution we are talking about here. Goodness springs from within and cannot be effected externally, which is the whole idea of anarchism/voluntaryism. There will be no time when a whole country is anarchist and defenseless while another country is prowling about like Wile. E. Coyote looking for an opportunity to snatch us up, because ideas are not contained within national borders — those are imaginary things that don’t make a difference in the real world. Also, just because people are peaceful doesn’t mean they can’t kick ass — some of the friendliest and most generous people I’ve ever known have been certified badasses who would sooner die than be taken advantage of. The idea that our freedom must be sacrificed for any measure of safety is sheer cowardice; and it is not sound logic, because the thing that is forcibly prevented will always rebound against the pressure that attempts to stifle it. Think of a boiling pot. Try to put a lid over it and the steam will rise from any particular point, but when you attempt to force the steam to remain in the pot, it will spill over on all sides in deleterious fashion! Such is the nature of government, where no protection has ever been granted in all of its bombastic promises.

The idea that anarchy could be confined to one country is ludicrous, but the fear of attack for living peacefully is equally absurd. If you are scared to give and to associate freely with neighbors and loved ones for fear of extermination by those who oppose the idea, you haven’t yet experienced the power of love. Love is all creative, and love is the solution which makes every problem a growing experience, so to fear a movement that is entirely founded in love is to simply live in fear. Nobody has time for that because, for everyday we live in fear, the damage effected by fear-based decisions will push us closer the looming point of no return on this planet. Peace is needed now, and, as has been demonstrated by the last 10,000 years, authority outside of the self will prevent us from achieving it. Prevention is the essence of government.

“If you told me the world was going to end tomorrow, I’d still plant my flowers just the same” – some badass Zen Granny.

Live free or die. Tis better to die freely than to live in fear, for life goes on after death, and fear opposes life.

5. “But it wasn’t always this way. If we just got back to our founding fathers’ principles, it could be just like the glory days — ‘Murica!”

Aaaaand then we would wait another 200 years while liberties are gradually eroded, again, so that we can have this exact discussion…again..ad infinitum. Or not.

Government is a moral vacuum, and it is false because it does not exist in nature. Government will only exist for as long as people refuse the power of self sovereignty — the power must go somewhere, and it will always go to power-hungry individuals; this is the road to despotism, and it happens rapaciously. With the concession of one liberty there is initialized a vacuum that will not stop and will continue to suck until all goodness has been depleted from the minds and bodies of the people who consent thusly, and such is the state in which we find ourselves today, after so many generations.

A contrived solution conjured to satisfy the masses’ appetite for security will appear good on the surface, otherwise no one would buy it. However, there will be men and women with morals and intellect in tact who will see the folly and the hubris, and they will cry out in defense of sanity for others to observe the clear imprudence of such a scheme. For the majority who buy it without thought but with chauvinism, they will marvel at their apparent victory, and denigrate any of the opposition who were calling for reason. They may live their entire lives justified by the apparent success with minimal atrocities, but time will reveal the error, and after so much momentum had been drawn by the moral vacuum of a false idea, the fruits of such a system will be more than apparent. After so much time has elapsed past the initial lie that was bought and internalized, even the dullest among the population will cry out, ” This is clearly evil, we must abolish it!” but they will ask for nothing better than the original lie they were fed, and so they will sell out their future generations into slavery for temporary relief.

This is what happens when faith is put outside of nature and outside of reality. Falseness will cause harm in time, so it is up to us to exercise our intellects and spot the lie so that we may valiantly defend and create our own freedom in the present without selling out our future for a measure of comfort and security. Men and women exist in nature, as do their hearts and souls, and so these are the things that we must trust and put faith in, rather than the systems that are so distinctly separate from reality, which oppose the freedom and prosperity of real men and women.

The laws of the universe are written in our hearts. No fictitious entity can lay claim to a law that has been in effect since time immemorial, and so it is up to each of us to ask the right questions and to live truthfully and fruitfully so that there will be no perceived need for this crutch of a system to limp into the future with.

As men and women, we are born as creators, not preventers. The whole idea of government is prophylactic; and it not only doesn’t prevent harm, as we can see just how injurious it is, but it also prevents the full expressions of our being when the false concept is internalized and accepted. We are free. Free to give, free to contribute, free to associate, free to speak, free to succeed and free to fail. We are free to live beautifully, and in such a way that harms no one in order to achieve our loving ends. Freedom by its very nature is a choice, and so it is up to us to choose freedom in all aspects of our life, and expect it to be granted by no one other than ourselves. Freedom can be granted by no one other than ourselves.