stephanie brail

I was commenting on a post on TF Metals Report and thought it was perhaps worthy of sharing on my blog here:

I truly believe that the most enlightened form of government would be a libertarian one. This is because it would be based on the notion that people are inherently good, evolved and capable of governing themselves. I love the libertarian theory of non-aggression. It basically states that you do not coerce or force someone to do something for someone else, because aggression is wrong. This includes forcing someone to do what you might think is the right thing for someone else. The only proper use of force is to stop someone else from using unlawful force against someone.

Taxes are by their very nature, coercive, and in my ideal, idealistic world, we’d not only abolish taxes, but make the entire government funded by donation only. Those that want to fund the military would do so. Those that want to fund education would do so. Corporations would have incentive to donate because they would be known as “good citizens” for doing so.

Now. We live in the “real” world and I don’t think we are “evolved” enough yet to handle true liberty. So I feel a hybrid government is best right now. And I also tend to be less libertarian when it comes to things like regulating nuclear power or public transportation.

That said, I feel we need to find a way to bridge the divide between right and left. One thing is to remind people that they don’t need to achieve *everything* through the government. You can, for example, be a collectivist right now, in our capitalist society. I have a good friend who is an avowed communist. He’s an old hippie. He wants everything to be like a commune. He lived on a kibbutz in Israel and likes that lifestyle. I told him, “This is America. You are free to do what you want. If you want to live in a communal environment, then join one or start your own. Don’t force it on me, that’s all.”

He is starting his own little community. This is what he wants. And that’s the beauty of America – we have the freedom to choose.

So does it need to be either-or? Why get so angry because others have a different idea of government than you? And why not create those social structures in alternative, creative ways? If you want to see universal health care, start up a non-profit and give away health care for free. If you want to see better education, then volunteer or give money or start an organization. If you hate corporate greed and worker exploitation, create a worker-owned company. They do exist here and now.

Yes, the federal government has done some good things, but it’s also done a lot of bad things. Since we don’t control our taxes and they are taken from us, they are used for a lot of things we might disagree with, whether that’s welfare that keeps people disempowered or military spending. We have to take the good with the bad if we are funding a large federal government.

But the bottom line is this: Whether or not the federal government has done good things in the past, it is broke now, and likely to implode. Either that, or it will turn into a very horrible, oppressive beast if we don’t watch out and protect our liberties from incursions like the Patriot Act (which was an issue with the left under Bush now sadly forgotten under Obama).

Arguing over Democrats vs. Republicans isn’t really productive, because both major parties are to blame and both have corrupt leaders. (There are good guys on either side, of course.) We are all going to have to pull up our shirt sleeves and do it ourselves. It’s what I call “DIY Government.”

PS The Internet, by the way, wasn’t just a federal government project. It was a MILITARY project and evolved out of “ARPANET” – the whole purpose of the distributed network model was to have a network that would not be taken down if one area was destroyed in a nuclear strike. So the Internet came out of the Cold War and the Department of Defense, and had we not been funding war and the military, we might not have the Internet. Which just goes to show you, nothing is black and white, and many things are double-edged swords.