Forums of the Libertarian Left

I had a discussion with a statist friend of mine while visiting Vermont and found it to be very frustrating, primarily because she didn't listen to that what I was actually say and straw-manned my arguments on numerous occasions, among other logical fallacies.

But what got to me the most was being accused of "doing nothing." The fact that I'm not out voting to "try to change things" Or that I'm not working for an organization or volunteering for some do-good statist non-profit collecting signatures to force some program or believe system upon others. She actually tried to tell me - and smugly downplayed the anarchist position as unjust - because I thought that majority rule was tyrannical. Basically, because I'm not doing the type of "do-good" things she is doing, I'm not contributing to "society" one way or another.

Never mind the fact that I speak to people one on one about anarchy whenever I get the chance. Or that I donate my time and resources to organizations looking to help people out whether it's donating money to folks who just lost their home in a fire or providing meals for those unable to get their own. I like to help out when I can, but why do I need to help out by "working to improve the system" and pretend that we don't use force as opposed to looking for a more humane way to solve problems out there?

This conversation was really frustrating for me and I found it to be incredibly self-righteous. To my friend, there was only one way to solve society's problems, and it was government. Every time I tried to start from some first principle she'd laugh it off then propose some outlandish situation to strike down all anarchist thought

Has anyone else had situations like this? I just hate how the person in the conversation who refuses to talk about the gun in the room and continues to deny or approve of the use of force just so long as "just" ends are achieved sits there and paints the person who wants to objectively analyze the situation, tries to logically look at the situation and visualizes a just society just like the statist (yet refuses to appeal to authoritarianism, force and initiatory violence) as the bad one. AHHHHHH!

(can you tell I'm frustrated )

this used to happen to me a lot --not fun.

What I've found is that arguing up front for something more abstract like, say, "abolishing government" or even just "not having government" --and I'm not accusing you of this, but it is a common approach -- invites endless trolling and inane bullshit circular arguments of every flavor imaginable, including the kind of things your friend was saying. It's better to jump right in and focus on hierarchy vs. participatory society, supplemented with real-world examples of why we are not, in fact, a "democracy" in any meaningful way and why the existing state of things is intolerable and can only be changed by people taking control over their own lives. The rest -- such as the assertion that the State has no right to exist -- will hopefully follow as the person comes to see what's really at stake. (Then again it might not -- how many Noam Chomsky admirers still think "anarchism" refers to evil and chaos? At least one, in my experience. But then again they probably [??] wouldn't sign up to squash an anarchist uprising, and I think what really matters at the end of the day is how people respond to the ideas, regardless of what words they use to describe it.)

While the message shouldn't be watered down too much (some have accused Chomsky of doing this) it's important to find common values to build on, I find. Arguing with conservatives is harder because I find it tends to constitute dealing with non sequitur one-liners, unstated emotional assertions, and crude insults (a lot like the courtroom scene in Idiocracy ).