I Must Speak Out. The Best of The Voluntaryist Selected and edited by Carl Watner. Fox & Wilkes San Francisco

Transcription

1 I Must Speak Out

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3 I Must Speak Out The Best of The Voluntaryist Selected and edited by Carl Watner Fox & Wilkes San Francisco

4 Copyright 1999 by Carl Watner Published in 1999 by Fox & Wilkes 938 Howard Street, Ste. 202 San Francisco, CA ISBN (pb) ISBN (hc) Printed in the U.S.A.

5 veritas numquam perit. Truth never dies. Dedicated to: Julie William Tucker Callia Anya

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7 Contents (articles are by Carl Watner unless otherwise attributed) xi. Why I Write and Publish The Voluntaryist Part I: Statement of Purpose 3. What We Are For? What Do We Believe? 4. What Is Our Plan? 7. The Fundamentals of Voluntaryism 11. Cultivate Your Own Garden: No Truck with Politics 14. From the Editor: Like a Voice Crying in the Wilderness A Restatement of Purpose 18. What We Believe and Why Part II: Voluntaryist Critiques of the State 25. The Ethics of Voting by George H. Smith 33. If This Be Treason, Make the Most of It! 35. The Myth of Political Freedom 37. The Case against Democracy: The More Things Change, the More They Remain the Same 41. Notes on War and Freedom by Ramsey Clark 42. A Note to the Commissioner by Anonymous 44. The Tragedy of Political Government 47. Will Rothbard s Free-Market Justice Suffice? by Murray Rothbard 49. On Keeping Your Own: Taxation Is Theft! 50. Who Are the Realists? by Roy Halliday Part III: Voluntaryist Strategies 55. Neither Bullets Nor Ballots by Wendy McElroy 57. Methods by Francis Tandy vii

8 viii I Must Speak Out 61. Living Slavery and All That by Alan P. Koontz 63. The Voluntaryist Insight: from The Political Thought of Etienne de la Boetie by Murray N. Rothbard 69. The Power of Non-Violent Resistance by Jerry M. Tinker 78. How Can We Do It? by Robert LeFevre 82. A Way Out Victory without Violence 83. Freedom Works Both Ways by Dean Russell 85. Persuasion versus Force by Mark Skousen 91. The Illegality, Immorality, and Violence of All Political Action by Robert LeFevre 95. Thoughts on Nonviolence by Karl Meyer 97. A Visit to Rhinegold by Harry Browne 109. An Open Letter to Harry Browne from John Pugsley 122. Election Day: A Means of State Control by Robert Weissberg 127. Consent, Obligation, and Anarchy by A. John Simmons Part IV: Voluntaryism as a Matter of Integrity and Conscience 139. The Decision Is Always Yours Freedom as Self-Control 146. A Further Note on Freedom as Self-Control 147. To Thine Own Self Be True: The Story of Raymond Cyrus Hoiles and His Freedom Newspapers 159. The Case against T-Bills: And Other Thoughts on Theft by John A. Pugsley 165. I Don t Want Nothing from Him! 167. The Day the World Was Lost by Milton Mayer

9 Contents ix 171. Voluntary Contributions to the National Treasury: Where Does One Draw the Line? 176. Drawing the Line by Blair Adams 177. Why Homeschool? Excerpts from Correspondence between Helen Hegener and Carl Watner 181. This Far: No More! by Anonymous 183. A Definition of Freedom by Julie Watner 184. Vices Are Not Crimes : Defending Defending the Undefendable 186. Libertarianism and Libertinism by Walter Block 197. The Cunning of Governments and the Contributions of Citizens by Fred E. Katz 200. Participation and the Lie by Alexander Solzhenitsyn 202. Why I Refuse to Register (to Vote or Pay Taxes) by Anonymous Part V: Voluntaryism vs. the American Government 207. A Plague on Both Your Houses 219. To All Patriots and Constitutionalists: Some Critical Considerations on the United States Constitution 223. Propaganda, American-Style by Noam Chomsky 225. An Octopus Would Sooner Release Its Prey: Voluntaryism vs. Educational Statism 234. Who Controls the Children? 246. A Declaration of Personal Independence by a Friend of Paine 250. Major Crimes of the United States Government: By Their Fruits Ye Shall Know Them : Voluntaryism and the Old Order Amish 281. Sweat Them at Law with Their Own Money : Forfeitures and Taxes in American History

10 x I Must Speak Out 291. Whose Property Is It Anyway? 295. Is Taxation Is Theft A Seditious Statement?: A Short History of Governmental Criticism in the Early United States 306. The Illusion Is Liberty the Reality Is Leviathan : A Voluntaryist Perspective on the Bill of Rights Part VI: Voluntaryism in History 319. The Noiseless Revolution 326. Health Freedoms in the Libertarian Tradition 332. Hard Money in the Voluntaryist Tradition 343. Thinkers and Groups of Individuals Who Have Contributed Significant Ideas or Major Written Materials to the Radical Libertarian Tradition 349. And Every Man Did What Was Right in His Own Eyes : Voluntaryism in the Old Testament 355. Libraries in the Voluntaryist Tradition 359. Voluntaryism on the Western Frontier 366.Voluntaryism and the English Language 377. Weights and Measures: State or Market? 381. Voluntaryism and the Evolution of Industrial Standards 394. One of Our Most Human Experiences : Voluntaryism, Marriage, and the Family 405. For Conscience s Sake : Voluntaryism and Religious Freedom 414. The Most Generous Nation on Earth: Voluntaryism and American Philanthropy 428. Plunderers of the Public Revenue : Voluntaryism and the Mails 442. Beyond the Wit of Man to Foresee : Voluntaryism and Land Use Controls 457. Stateless, Not Lawless : Voluntaryism and Arbitration 474. The Road to Hell Is Paved with Good Intentions: Voluntaryism and the Roads

11 Why I Write and Publish The Voluntaryist by Carl Watner (from No. 93, August 1998) As I compose this article, I have only a few more issues of The Voluntaryist to write and publish before I reach No Once completed, that effort will have spanned nearly seventeen years of my life. During that time I have been imprisoned for forty days on a federal civil contempt charge (1982); married Julie (1986); witnessed the homebirths of our four children; operated two businesses here in South Carolina (one of them a feed mill I have been running since my marriage; the other, a retail tire store and service center I took over in early 1997); have been responsible for the building of our family s house; and participate in the homeschooling of all our children. Although The Voluntaryist has been an important and constant part of my life all this time, the first article that I wrote and published preceded The Voluntaryist by nearly a decade. It was Lysander Spooner: Libertarian Pioneer and appeared in Reason Magazine in March As I reflect upon my writing career, I recall one of my very first self-published monographs Towards a Theory of Proprietary Justice. In it there was a piece titled Let It Not Be Said That I Did Not Speak Out! There is obviously something in my mental-spiritual-physical constitution that needs a publishing outlet. It is important to me to set forth my ideas, especially when they are so very different from the vast majority of people that I associate with most of the time. If everyone seems to be heading toward a precipice, they need to be warned. If I am pushed and shoved along with them, even if I am powerless to stop the crowd, it is important to me and my integrity that some record be left of my resistance and of my recognition that we are headed toward danger. Let It Not Be Said That I Did Not Speak Out! was published in 1976, and appears now in the pages of The Voluntaryist for the first time: When the individuals living under the jurisdiction of the United States Government awake to political reality, they are going to find themselves living in government bondage. Every act of government brings us closer to this reality. The only logical future is to expect life in a socialized state. Henceforth, to be a citizen will mean to be a slave. To speak the truth without fear is the only resistance I am bound to display. To disseminate without reserve all the principles with which I am acquainted and to do so on every occasion with the most persevering constancy, so that my acquiescence to injustice will not be assumed, is my self-assumed obligation. The honest among us realize that the resort to coercion is a tacit confession of imbecility. If he who employs force against me could mold me to his purposes by argument, no doubt he would. The alternative is then simply living by the libertarian principle that no person or group of people is entitled to resort to violence or its xi

12 xii I Must Speak Out threat in order to achieve their ends. This means that everyone, regardless of their position in the world, who is desirous of implementing their ideas, must rely solely on voluntary persuasion and not on force or its threat. Individuals make the world go round; individuals and only individuals exist. No man has any duty towards his fellow men except to refrain from the initiation of violence. Nothing is due a man in strict justice but what is his own. To live honestly is to hurt no one and to give to every one his due. Justice will not come to reign unless those who care for its coming are prepared to insist upon its value and have the courage to speak out against what they know to be wrong. Let it not be said that I did not speak out against tyranny. As much as any other piece I have ever written, it probably best explains why I have devoted so much time to The Voluntaryist over the years. There is an episode in Ayn Rand s Anthem in which the protagonist, Equality , discovers a room full of books, someone s personal library, that had escaped the book burning that undoubtedly had accompanied the creation of the collectivist holocaust in which he lived. It was among those books that he rediscovered the word I which had disappeared from the current lexicon. My hope is that The Voluntaryist message that a nonviolent and stateless society is both moral and practical will survive, just like the books that Equality found. Hopefully, if someone in the future finds copies of The Voluntaryist newsletter or this anthology, they will help to rekindle, rediscover, or elaborate the ideal of a totally free-market society. One doesn t need to be a pessimist to see that those ideas might one day disappear. Even in our own time, only a small part of the population embraces libertarian ideas; and only a small number of libertarians would consider themselves voluntaryists people who reject voting and the legitimacy of the State. Even the individualism of several centuries of American history is in danger of being obliterated by State propaganda. With luck, The Voluntaryist will play some small part in preserving a record of those times in history when men were free to act without State interference, and were self-confident enough to know that the State possesses no magical powers. May knowledge and wisdom come to those who read The Voluntaryist. Long live voluntaryist ideas. More information and a complete table of contents of The Voluntaryist, issues 1 100, are available from The Voluntaryist, P.O. Box 1275, Gramling, SC v

13 Part I Statement of Purpose The Voluntaryists are advocates of non-political strategies to achieve a free society. We reject electoral politics, in theory and in practice, as incompatible with libertarian principles. Governments must cloak their actions in an aura of moral legitimacy in order to sustain their power, and political methods invariably strengthen that legitimacy. Voluntaryists seek instead to delegitimize the State through education, and we advocate withdrawal of the cooperation and tacit consent on which State power ultimately depends.

14 The only real revolution is in the enlightenment of the mind and the improvement of character, the only real emancipation is individual, and the only real revolutionists are philosophers and saints. Will and Ariel Durant, The Lessons of History (1968), p. 72.

15 What We Are For? What Do We Believe? by Carl Watner (from No. 29, December 1987) Past editorials and articles have made it clear that The Voluntaryist is unique in that it is the only regularly published libertarian publication to advocate non-state, pro-free market attitudes coupled with an anti-electoral stance and a predilection for non-violent means. In fact, we could probably argue that The Voluntaryist is the only journal in the world that consistently upholds individualist anarchism (by which we mean self-government), rejection of electoral politics, and the advocacy of non-violent means to achieve social change. This after all is what we signify when we use the term voluntaryist. The Voluntaryist is seldom, if ever, concerned with personalities, but we are concerned with ideas. Our interest is in the enduring aspects of libertarianism. Among these ideas we would include the concept that taxation is theft; that the State is an inherently invasive institution, a coercive monopoly; that war is the health of the State; that power corrupts (especially State power); that there is no service demanded on the free market that cannot be provided by market methods; and that the delineation and implementation of property rights are the solution to many of our social and economic ills. Not to be overlooked is our insistence on the congruence of means and ends; that it is means which determine ends, and not the end which justifies the means. Voluntaryist thinking forms a link in the chain of ideas started many centuries ago. We have reviewed some of the significant sources of radical libertarian thought in Issue 25. Our roots are to be found in antiquity, when moral thinkers realized that character building, the building of morally strong individuals, was the essential basis of human happiness as well as the prerequisite of a better society. Self-responsibility was inextricably linked to self-control. The ideas of personal integrity, honesty, productive work, fulfillment of one s promises and the practice of non-retaliation set the stage for social harmony and abundance, wherever and whenever these two attributes of social life were to surface in the world s civilizations. These ideas helped set the stage for the voluntaryist outlook on means and ends. A person could never use evil means to attain good ends. For one thing, such an attempt would never work. It would be impractical and self-defeating. For another thing, it would be inconsistent with personal integrity. A person would not resort to lying and cheating, for example, even if he or she mistakenly thought such base means could result in good ends. Evil means, like these, would always be rejected by an honest person. Impure means must lead to an impure end since means always come before ends. The means are at hand, closest to us. They dictate what road we shall set out on and thus eventually determine our destination. Different means must inevita- 3

16 4 I Must Speak Out bly lead to different destinations for the simple reason that they lead us down different paths. Thus it is that voluntaryists reject electoral politics as well as revolutionary violence. Neither of these methods could ever approximate voluntaryist goals the ideal of a society of free individuals. Nor do either bring about a change or improvement in the moral tone of the people who comprise it. Voluntaryists have a clear understanding of the nature of power what we have labeled the voluntaryist insight. We know that the State, like all human institutions, depends on the consent and cooperation of its participants. We also know that we are self-controlling individuals, with ultimate responsibility for what we do. We cannot be compelled to do anything against our will, though we may suffer the consequences for a refusal to obey the State or any other gangster who holds a gun at us. The State may do what it pleases with our bodies, but it cannot force us to change our ideas. We may lose our liberty behind jail bars (liberty being the absence of coercion or physical restraints), but we cannot lose our freedom (freedom being the inner spirit or conscience) unless we give it up ourselves. Voluntaryism offers a moral and practical way for advancing the cause of freedom. It rests on a belief in the efficacy of the free market and on a historic and philosophic antagonism to the State. It rests on an understanding of the inter-relatedness of means and ends, and on a belief that if one takes care of the means, the end will take care of itself. We are pro-free market, anti-state, non-violent, and anti-electoral. This, in a few short phrases, is what we are for; what we believe. v What Is Our Plan? by Carl Watner (from No. 29, December 1987) At a recent one day seminar at Freedom Country, the question was asked: What can a person do to make this world a better place? No single answer was articulated, but two different conceptual approaches were apparent. The responses of the participants could be categorized according to whether or not they believed a. a better society depends on better individuals, or b. better individuals cannot be raised until we have a better society (where, for example, educational services are improved, child abuse no longer exists, etc.). In other words, which comes first the chicken or the egg? Better individuals or the better society? Nineteenth-century reformers, especially the non-resistants and abolitionists, grappled with this problem. How were they to advocate the abolition of slavery? Should they wait for Congress to abolish slavery or should they try to eliminate the vestiges of slavery from their daily lives? Should they be immediatists or gradual-

17 Part I: Statement of Purpose 5 ists? Should they use legislative means or moral suasion? Should they vote or hold office or should they denounce the U.S. Constitution as a tool of the slaveholders? Those nineteenth-century thinkers whom I would label voluntaryist (such as Henry David Thoreau, Charles Lane, William Lloyd Garrison, Henry Clarke Wright, and Edmund Quincy in pre-civil War days, and Nathaniel Peabody Rogers) all believed that a better society only came about as the individuals within society improved themselves. They had no plan, other than a supreme faith that if one improved the components of society, societal improvement would come about automatically. As Charles Lane once put it, Our reforms must begin within ourselves. Better men must be made to constitute society. For society taken at large is never better or worse than the persons who compose it, for they in fact are it. The Garrisonians, for example, were opposed to involvement in politics (whether it be office holding or participating in political parties) because they did not want to sanction a government which permitted slavery. Their opposition to participation in government also stemmed from their concern with how slavery was to be abolished. To Garrison s way of thinking it was as bad to work for the abolition of slavery in the wrong way as it was to work openly for an evil cause. The end could not justify the means. The anti-electoral abolitionists never voted, even if they could have freed all the slaves by the electoral process. Garrison s field of action was that of moral suasion and not political action. He thought that men must first be convinced of the moral righteousness of the anti-slavery cause. Otherwise it would be impossible to change their opinions, even by the use of political force. Given this approach, it seemed that the anti-electoral abolitionists had no real strategy. In rebutting this criticism, Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, in a September 6, 1844, editorial in the Herald of Freedom, spelled out his answer to the question: What is your Plan? [T]o be without a plan is the true genius and glory of the anti-slavery enterprise. The mission of that movement is to preach eternal truths, and to bear an everlasting testimony against the giant falsehoods which bewitch and enslave the land. It is no part of its business to map out its minutest course in all time to come, to furnish a model for all the machinery that will ever be set in motion by the principle it is involving. The plan and the machinery will be easily developed and provided, as soon as the principle is sufficiently aroused in men s hearts to demand the relief of action. What is the course of action these abolitionists have pursued? How have they addressed themselves to their mighty work? They were not deterred by finding themselves alone facing a furious and innumerable host of enemies. They felt that the Right was on their side, and they went forward in the calm certainty of a final victory. They began, and as far as they have remained faithful, they continue to perform

18 6 I Must Speak Out their mission by doing the duty that lieth nearest to them. They soon discovered that Slavery is not a thing a thousand miles removed, but that it is intertwined with all the political, religious, social and commercial relations in the country. In obedience to the highest philosophy, though perhaps not knowing it to be such, they proceeded to discharge their own personal duties in this regard to bear an emphatic and uncompromising testimony against Slavery, and to free their own souls from all participation in its blood-guiltness. They laid no far-reaching plans but obeyed that wisdom which told them that to do righteousness is the highest policy, and that to pursue such a straight-forward course would bring them soonest to the desired goal. Their question was not so much how shall we abolish Slavery? as, how shall we best discharge our duty? Edmund Quincy in a February 24, 1841, editorial by the same title, in The Non-Resistant, pointed out that social institutions are but the projection or external manifestation of the ideas and attitudes existing in people s minds. Change the ideas, and the institutions instantly undergo a corresponding change. In words reminiscent of Bob LeFevre s emphasis on self-control, Quincy went on to write that There is a sense in which the kingdoms of the world are within us. All power, authority, consent, come from the invisible world of the mind. External revolutions, accomplished by fighting, have in general affected little but a change of masters. We would try to bring about a mightier revolution by persuading men to be satisfied to govern themselves according to the divine laws of their natures, and to renounce the [attempt to govern others] by laws of their own devising. Whenever men shall have received these truths into sincere hearts, and set about the business of governing themselves, and cease to trouble themselves about governing others, then whatever is vicious and false in the existing institution will disappear, and its place be supplied by what is good and true. We do not hold ourselves obliged to abandon the promulgation of what we believe to be truths because we cannot exactly foretell how the revolution which they are to work, will go on, or what will be the precise form of the new state which they bring about. A reformer can have no plan but faith in his principles. He cannot foresee whither they will lead him but he knows that they can never lead him astray. A plan implies limitations and confinement. Truth is illimitable and diffusive. We only know that Truth is a sure guide, and will take care of us and of herself, if we will but follow her. The Voluntaryist essentially upholds the same ideas as these nineteenth-century thinkers. We advocate moral action, rather than politics and elections because moral suasion lays the axe at the root of the tree. We believe that moral action alone is sufficient to nullify State legislation. Legislation is not needed to abolish

19 Part I: Statement of Purpose 7 other legislation. Harmful and unjust political laws should simply be ignored and disobeyed. We do not need to use the State to abolish the State, any more than we need to embrace war to fight for peace. Such methodology is self-contradictory, self-defeating, and inconsistent. Difficult as it is to totally divorce ourselves from the State, each of us must draw the line for him- or herself as to how and to what extent we will deal with statism, whether it be driving on government roads, paying federal income taxes, using government funny money, or the post office. Several things are imperative, though. We must support ourselves on the free market, never taking up government employment. We must also remain uninvolved in politics, refusing to vote or run for public office. We must never accept a government handout or government funds (even when justified on the pretext that the money was stolen from you or that you were forced to contribute to a government program). No one is forcing you to accept money which the government has stolen. In short, what we are advocating is that every one take care of him- or herself and care for the members of his or her family, when they need help. If this were done, there would be no justification for any statist legislation. Competent individuals and strong families, particularly the three-generation living unit, are some of the strongest bulwarks against the State. (And it should be remembered that families need not be limited by blood lines. Love, which brings outsiders into the family, is often more important than blood ties.) If people would only realize that it is the individual and only the individual that directs the use and control of human energy, the world would change as individuals change themselves. Change starts with you and me! This means good family, friends, healthy living habits, lifelong learning, and rewarding and satisfying work; which in turn lead to good neighbors, a good community, a thriving economy, and a natural environment. That pretty much sums it up. What is our plan? a better world begins with a better you! v The Fundamentals of Voluntaryism by Carl Watner (from No. 40, October 1989) The Voluntaryist is unique in uniting a non-state, non-violent, free-market stance with the rejection of electoral politics and revolutionary violence. The arguments that follow here are what I would call the pillars of voluntaryism. They are the bedrock, the solid foundation, of our philosophy. This presentation is intended as a condensation or summary of the logical bases for the voluntaryist position.

20 8 I Must Speak Out Introduction Voluntaryism is the doctrine that all the affairs of people, both public and private, should be carried out by individuals or their voluntary associations. It represents a means, an end, and an insight. Voluntaryism does not argue for the specific form that voluntary arrangements will take; only that force be abandoned so that individuals in society may flourish. As it is the means which determine the end, the goal of an all voluntary society must be sought voluntarily. People cannot be coerced into freedom. Hence, the use of the free market, education, persuasion, and non-violent resistance as the primary ways to delegitimize the State. The voluntaryist insight, that all tyranny and government are grounded upon popular acceptance, explains why voluntary means are sufficient to attain that end. 1. The epistemological argument Violence is never a means to knowledge. As Isabel Paterson explained in her book, The God of the Machine, No edict or law can impart to an individual a faculty denied him by nature. A government order cannot mend a broken leg, but it can command the mutilation of a sound body. It cannot bestow intelligence, but it can forbid the use of intelligence. Or, as Baldy Harper used to put it, You cannot shoot a truth! The advocate of any form of invasive violence is in a logically precarious situation. Coercion does not convince, nor is it any kind of argument. William Godwin pointed out that force is contrary to the nature of the intellect, which cannot but be improved by conviction and persuasion, and if he who employs coercion against me could mold me to his purposes by argument, no doubt, he would. He pretends to punish me because his argument is strong; but he really punishes me because he is weak. Violence contains none of the energies that enhance a civilized human society. At best, it is only capable of expanding the material existence of a few individuals, while narrowing the opportunities of most others. 2. The economic argument People engage in voluntary exchanges because they anticipate improving their lot; the only individuals capable of judging the merits of an exchange are the parties to it. Voluntaryism follows naturally if no one does anything to stop it. The interplay of natural property and exchanges results in a free-market price system, which conveys the necessary information needed to make intelligent economic decisions. Interventionism and collectivism make economic calculation impossible because they disrupt the free-market price system. Even the smallest government intervention leads to problems which justify the call for more and more intervention. Also, controlled economies leave no room for new inventions, new ways of doing things, or for the unforeseeable and unpredictable. Free-market competition is a learning process which brings about results which

21 Part I: Statement of Purpose 9 no one can know in advance. There is no way to tell how much harm has been done and will continue to be done by political restrictions. 3. The moral argument The voluntary principle assures us that while we may have the possibility of choosing the worst, we also have the possibility of choosing the best. It provides us the opportunity to make things better, though it doesn t guarantee results. While it dictates that we do not force our idea of better on someone else, it protects us from having someone else s idea of better imposed on us by force. The use of coercion to compel virtue eliminates its possibility, for to be moral, an act must be uncoerced. If a person is compelled to act in a certain way (or threatened with government sanctions), there is nothing virtuous about his or her behavior. Freedom of choice is a necessary ingredient for the achievement of virtue. Wherever there is a chance for the good life, the risk of a bad one must also be accepted. As Bishop Magee explained to Parliament in 1872, I would distinctly prefer freedom to sobriety, because with freedom we might in the end attain sobriety; but in the other alternative we should eventually lose both freedom and sobriety. 4. The natural law argument Common sense and reason tell us that nothing can be right by legislative enactment if it is not already right by nature. Epictetus, the Stoic, urged men to defy tyrants in such a way as to cast doubt on the necessity of government itself. If the government directed them to do something that their reason opposed, they were to defy the government. If it told them to do what their reason would have told them to do anyway, they did not need a government. As Lysander Spooner pointed out, all legislation is an absurdity, a usurpation, and a crime. Just as we do not require a State to dictate what is right or wrong in growing food, manufacturing textiles, or in steel-making, we do not need a government to dictate standards and procedures in any field of endeavor. In spite of the legislature, the snow will fall when the sun is in Capricorn, and the flowers will bloom when it is in Cancer. 5. The means-end argument Although certain State services or goods are necessary to our survival, it is not essential that they be provided by the government. Voluntaryists oppose the State because it uses coercive means. The means are the seeds which bud into flower and come into fruition. It is impossible to plant the seed of coercion and then reap the flower of voluntaryism. The coercionist always proposes to compel people to do something; usually by passing laws or electing politicians to office. These laws and officials depend upon physical violence to enforce their wills. Voluntary means, such as non-violent resistance, for example, violate no one s rights. They only serve to nullify laws and politicians by ignoring them. Voluntaryism does not