Using Low Approval Ratings to Our Advantage

Courtesy of Reddit:

Replace every use of the word “government” with the word “politicians”. For example: “I dont think we need the government to solve poverty” becomes “I don’t think we should rely on politicians to solve poverty”.

I think this is a great idea. People tend to have lofty ideas of government, but politicians are almost universally despised and distrusted. Folks tend to forget that the government is made up of politicians.

Talking Point: “Consent of the Governed”

The logic used to justify the State sounds ridiculous when applied to other situations.

For example, we hear that the State has “the consent of the governed” because the majority of people support it. If that is true, how can gang rape be considered rape if the majority of those involved consent to it?

This was inspired by this recent Megyn Kelly meme.

Talking Point: If the Jews don’t like it, they can leave Germany

[Warning: this talking point contains references to Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. This means that many will completely shut their minds off upon hearing those references, so use with caution.]

Those who have put in time promoting a stateless society have likely encountered what has come to be known as argumentum ad Somalium. It sounds like, “Hey, if you hate government so much, just move to Somalia.” It is implied that, since Somalia has been without a centralized State since 1991 and since economic conditions there are poor compared to our own and since statelessness obviously caused said poverty and no other factors could possibly have contributed and things were so much better when they had their disgustingly corrupt State — it is implied that you should go reap what your philosophy supposedly sews and leave the place the local State claims control over. If you stay, you consent to be governed.

A great reply to this, courtesy of a Redditor, is that Hitler was appointed Chancellor by a democratically elected President in a Constitutional Republic. The laws and programs persecuting, deporting and eventually slaughtering Jews were all perfectly legal. If the Jews didn’t like it, they could leave Germany. By remaining, the Jews consented to being persecuted and killed. Therefore, the German government was not to blame. It was the Jews’ own fault.

Those who champion the “social contract” often do so with their own nation in mind and not the myriad other authoritarian dictatorships extant today, not to mention those throughout bloody history.

After replying with the above comparison, I like to continue, “You can see how absurd that is when you apply it universally. Now, would you like to engage in a conversation with me and address my assertion that the State is illegitimate, or are you just going to dismiss the whole matter by telling me to move?”

Talking Point: Taxation Is Good, Taxation Is Evil

So you say taxes are good? Very well, let’s explore that.

Something cannot be both true and false at the same time. In ethics, something cannot be both good and evil. This violates the indisputable law of non-contraction (indisputable because you cannot dispute it without assuming it to be true).

If taxation is morally good (not morally evil), then everyone ought to be doing it. I ought to get some people together to sign a document, and use said document as authority to begin confiscating property from those in the geographical area we define. This will be “good” and legitimate and even necessary, because the same is said of the State (the U.S. federal government, for example).

But what’s this? The U.S. federal government prohibits me from doing so? When I do it, it is wrong and punishable? This means that taxation is both good and evil, both necessary and superfluous, both permissible and impermissible. In other words, it is self-contradictory, invalid and illegitimate.

Talking Point: Which is worse?

Which is worse: using marijuana, or physical assault? If you answered “physical assault”, how do you justify the use of physical assault by law enforcement officers in response to individuals using marijuana? If you answered “using marijuana”, how do you justify that?

Which is worse: buying/selling marijuana, or kidnapping? Same follow-up questions.