The War on... Whatever by randr10

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· @randr10 ·
$5.51
The War on... Whatever
Remember the War on Poverty?  It was waged by progressives in the sixties and the ensuing decades.  Remember the results of that war?  Poverty in the US actually climbed during those years, and the middle class has been continually gutted ever since.  We also had a War on Drugs during that time in a supposed effort to "reduce crime."  Drug abuse and crime also climbed throughout the entire period except for very recently.  

<center>![916px-Signing_of_the_EOA.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmfH6yM7oPxdFKArmt2tNPrxvGY4aj521SqxNzvARnwuQg/916px-Signing_of_the_EOA.jpg)</center>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*LBJ Signing the Economic Opportunity Act*

In more recent decades we've seen the War on Terror begun by the Bush Administration.  We're all seeing how that's going.  Terroristic acts climbed quite quickly following that declaration.  That's even if you don't include the civilian collateral damage that's been a consequence of US and other Western governments waging this war in third world countries.

Suffice it to say that if you want to stop poverty, crime, drug abuse, terrorism, war, or any other of society's ills, the worst thing you could possibly do is have the government declare war on it.  Well, maybe not the very worst thing imaginable, but the results will certainly be less than ideal, as history has shown time and again.  This includes not just the US government, but all governments.

I believe that the solutions to the above problems are peaceful and voluntary in nature.  I believe that you can't force someone to be generous, responsible or caring.  In other words you can’t force someone to be a good person.  People have to decide for themselves whether to be good or evil.  This is a fact that big government advocates don't seem to understand.  I'm sure most of them don't comprehend that if you pass a law you're in-effect pointing a gun at someone and telling them to do something, or else.  The thought of allowing people to make their own mistakes and take personal responsibility for their own thoughts and behaviors doesn't seem to enter into their equation for how they think society should be structured.

I like to call my beliefs libertarian.  I choose not to use the word anarchist (unless I’m talking to one) because of the loaded connotation of that word.  I also can't use the word liberal either because it has been adopted by the authoritarian left.  There has been a strong campaign to demonize the word libertarian as well, but I think it’s still the best one to use given our current cultural norms.  So now that I've settled on a word for it, how do we get to this libertarian society then?

One of the most damning problems with the libertarian ideal and its hopeful implementation, is that taking something like the Non-Aggression Principle to its logical conclusion means that the eventual goal would be to remove governance altogether.  What this means is that we need to overcome the statist mindset in the masses.  The Catch-22 here is that there are huge propaganda machines in place that include public schooling, control of or undue influence upon much of the news media, along with most of the entertainment industry marching in lock step with them.  Reversing all of this in the minds of people, many who hold some of these institutions dear to their hearts, is a tall order indeed.  

Overcoming this is an interesting problem, but one that must have a solution if a libertarian society is ever to be achieved.  To avoid ends-justify-the-means types of behavior, we can't wrest control of the state from the statists and steer the government in the direction we wish it to go.  The institutions are corrupt at their roots and therefore any attempts to control them will corrupt whatever we're trying to do, just like they corrupted the wars on terror, poverty, crime and drugs.  So while it's theoretically possible to do so, I don't believe that political action is ever going to amount to a net positive result on the road to a truly free society.  It seems that the system is just too corrupt.

So that presents the interesting problem of coming up with voluntary and peaceful ways to further libertarian ends.  Just like our ideal society will consist almost entirely of peaceful and voluntary interactions between people, our ends must be a reflection of that.  Deviation from peaceful to corrupt means to get there will both practically and philosophically damn us to live in a statist hell forever.  

I don’t know exactly how to go about achieving a libertarian society, but I do know how we can’t go about it.  We can’t use the state to get there.  We can’t use force to change people’s minds.  We can’t become statists in our quest to diminish the state.  Any suggestions on what we *can* do?  Please comment below with your thoughts, I'm genuinely interested in solutions that the crowd can provide.  Remember, they have to be peaceful and voluntary in nature to be practical to the purpose.

*Image: [Wikipedia](https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14770520)*
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vote details (7)
@fuad.rantau80 ·
$0.05
there is a need for the best policy to overcome the poverty in which the government's role in overcoming the problem.
if not immediately overcome it will be a war that is done by people hungry to the government
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vote details (3)
@randr10 ·
Thanks for the comment.  Would you feel the same way if poverty could be solved without the threat of violence by the government?  Remember that the government has been tasked with solving this problem all over the globe since time immemorial and it has never succeeded at doing so.
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@frdem3dot0 ·
$0.05
Even if the government would honestly try to fight poverty, they cannot solve it. All wealth is generated by the people. It is just a matter of how much a society produces and how much they are willing to share with people that cannot provide for themselves.
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@matthewdavid ·
$0.05
I have similar thoughts and questions about how to achieve greater freedom and erode the power of the state. 

Focusing on greater freedom is probably the way to go. If we try to "fight" the state, we focus on them instead of our real goal, which is greater freedom.

Crypto is a start. Decentralized systems that work well. Encouraging trade with friends, family and neighbors. 

I'm also doing small things, hoping that they turn into a big change.
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