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I Must Speak out Volume II I Must Speak Out Volume II I Must Speak Out Volume II The Best of THE VOLUNTARYIST 2000 - 2020 Selected by Carl Watner Edited by Carl Watner and Dave Scotese The Voluntaryist Box 275 Gramling, SC 29348 [email protected] CopyLeft The Voluntaryist Licensed to you, the reader, under the Creative Commons Attribution- ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-SA 4.0) Permission granted by Carl Watner to reproduce his articles. Please respect the property right of all other authors. ISBN 978-0-9798861-2-6 VERITAS NUMQUAM PERIT. Truth never dies. Dedicated to: Those Many Unknown Voluntaryists Who Constitute the Remnant Contents (articles are by Carl Watner unless otherwise attributed) Part I: Overview The Voluntaryist Spirit 3 Voluntaryist Resistance 14 On the History of the Word “Voluntaryism” 23 The Obviousness of Anarchy 29 by John Hasnas Voluntaryism 32 Part II: Voluntaryism as a Matter of Integrity and Conscience Points of No Return 47 Just Say “No!” 50 Violence and the Lie 53 by Alexander Solzhenitsyn How to Advance the Cause of Liberty 54 by Robert LeFevre Are Voluntaryists Hypocrites for Using the Roads? 56 How We Violate the Principle of NonAggression Daily - Without Even Realizing It! 59 Am I An American Citizen and What Might It Mean? 60 What Is the Point of My Libertarian Anarchism? 64 by Robert Higgs “My Yea Is Yea, My Nay Is Nay”: Voluntaryism, Integrity and the Question of the Oath 66 “You’re Not My Master; I’m Not Your Slave”: Voluntaryism and the Story of Absolutist Objectors 70 Soul Rape 76 Why I Oppose Government Enumeration 80 “I Refused to Lie” 85 The Creed of All Freedom-Loving Men: The Voluntaryist Spirit & Stoicism 90 Part III: Money, A Voluntaryist Perspective A Comparison of Monies 101 “Value Me As You Please” 103 Paper: No Substitute for Gold! 104 by Robert R. Prechter, Jr. How Would Money Be Produced In a Free Society? 105 by Jorg Guido Hulsmann Freedom to Choose Your Own Money 105 The Noose Continues to Tighten But No Government Lasts Forever 108 vii Free Market Money 113 by Robert LeFevre Golden Disobedience 115 by Sandy Sandfort Titles in Search of Property: Should Fractional-Reserve Banking Come to an End? 116 Part IV: Insurance and Protection Protection 127 by Robert LeFevre The Private Production of Defense 130 by Hans-Hermann Hoppe Voluntary Government as a Marketable Service: Reminiscences on the History of an Idea 141 by Alvin Lowi[1] Insurance Companies as Competing Governments: Whose Idea Was It? 148 by Richard Boren Let Us Imagine “Perfect” Protection 153 by Robert LeFevre “Call the COPS - But Not the Police:” Voluntaryism and Protective Agencies in Historical Perspective 154 Part V: Taxation An “Open Letter on Taxes” 175 by Ammon Hennacy Why Voluntaryism and Liberty Don’t Depend on Taxes or Government 178 A Moral Challenge 182 Moral Challenge II 183 Are Taxes Theft? 185 My Taxes 186 by Karl Hess The Catholic Church’s Confused Ideas About Stealing 187 by Mark R. Crovelli To Steal or not to Steal? 197 by F.A. Harper Taxation No Better Than Slavery 200 Slavery the Worst Form of Stealing 206 by George Bush Do You Really “Owe” Those Taxes? 206 by Anonymous Sophisticated Slavery 210 by Marco den Ouden Meeting the State Head-On 211 by Anonymous viii Taxation Is Theft: A Constructive Explanation 214 by Spencer and Emalie MacCallum Oh, The Joy(s) of Slavery! 215 Bandit Gangs, All of Them 220 The Rescue Project: We Coerce You to Prevent Injustice 222 You Don’t Own It or The Government as Landlord 229 Part VI: Schooling and Education School and State 235 by Benjamin R. Tucker Moral Ideas Tax Supported Schools Cannot Teach 236 by R. C. Hoiles Only Freedom Breeds Excellence 238 State Education Radically Wrong 245 by William Henry Ruffner What Might Have Been - What Might Be 247 H. L. Mencken on Public Schools 253 Voluntaryist Critics of State Education 255 by George H. Smith R. C. Hoiles Revisited 270 Part VII: Nonviolence, Strategy, and Nonvoting What Can I Do? A Constructive Mission for Voluntaryists in a Government- besotted Age 277 by James L. Payne Without Firing A Single Shot: Voluntaryist Resistance and Societal Defense 279 “If It’s Right, Do It!” 290 Laying the Axe to the Root of the Tree: Voluntaryist Strategies to End Human Slavery 294 Put Up Thy Sword into The Sheath 305 by W. H. Furness A Skeptic’s View of One’s Right to Defensive Force 306 by Spencer Heath MacCallum Abolitionism and Modern Voluntaryism 317 by George H. Smith Non-Voting 320 Is Voting an Act of Violence? 322 Against Woman Suffrage 324 by Lysander Spooner Non-Voting as an Act of Secession 327 by Hans Sherrer Jeremiah’s Job 331 by Gary North ix Part VIII: How I Became a Voluntaryist Nobody Cares About Hoiles, Everybody Cares About Freedom 337 My Route to Voluntaria 343 by James L. Payne Werner K. Stiefel’s Pursuit of a Practicum of Freedom 346 by Spencer Heath MacCallum A Self-Educated Chicken 353 by Debbie Harbeson My Deprogramming 356 by Larken Rose How I Became A Voluntaryist: A Farewell to Tax-financed Murder 358 by Jeff Knaebel with Carl Watner My Journey to Voluntaryism 371 by Joyce Brand My Winding Road to Voluntaryism 374 by Ned Netterville From Vagueness to Voluntaryism: How I Got From There to Here 380 by Alex R. Knight III ‘A’ Was For America: My Journey to Voluntaryism 382 by Peter Eyre Looking Back and Forward 386 by Spencer Heath MacCallum How and Why I Became a Libertarian 394 by John Roscoe From Conservative to [Free-Market] Anarchist (Voluntaryist) 398 by Steve Patterson The Author’s Story Behind LOOKING BACKWARD:2162-2012 403 by Beth Cody “Anarchist’s Progress” 406 by Ken Knudson How I Became a Voluntaryist 409 by an Anonymous Lawyer How I Became an Anarchist 411 by Louis E. Carabini The Wisdom of Bob LeFevre 414 x Part I: Overview I Must Speak Out Volume II 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. 2 Part I: Overview The Voluntaryist Spirit by Carl Watner (From Issue 124, 1st Quarter 2005) [Author’s Introduction of February 2004: This hitherto unpublished essay was first written in June 1983, and then revised in August of that same year. It sat for two decades (receiving only limited private circulation) until it was read by Peter Ragnar of Avalon Mint and Roaring Lion Press. At Peter’s request it was re-edited with a view to posting on the world wide web. The author wishes to thank Alan Koontz (editing of 1983) and Julie Watner (editing of 2004) for their timely assistance in commenting on this essay.] Voluntaryism is a dual doctrine, having both a positive and a negative side. As a brand of anarchism, it is the doctrine that all coercive government (what most people would refer to as “the State”) should be voluntarily abandoned; that all invasions of individual self-ownership rights should cease. This is its negative side. Its positive side is that all the affairs of people should be conducted on a voluntary basis. It does not argue for the specific form that voluntary arrangements will take; only that the sovereignty of the individual must remain intact, except where the individual coerced has already aggressed upon the sovereignty of another non-aggressive individual. To voluntaryists, this dual doctrine represents a means, an end, and an insight. The end, predicated upon a theory of self-ownership and just property titles, is a peaceful anarchy, an all voluntary society. All the affairs of people, both public and private, should be carried out by individuals or their voluntary associations. The means to reach such an end state must be consistent with the goal sought. As shall be demonstrated, it is in fact the means that determine the end. So only voluntary methods of persuasion, education, and nonviolent resistance to State criminality may be used to bring about voluntaryist goals. People cannot be coerced into freedom. Finally, voluntaryism is a realization about the nature of political society, viz., that all States are grounded upon general popular acceptance and require the cooperation of their victims. These three aspects of voluntaryism mutually reinforce each other. The very goal of an all-voluntary society suggests its own means. The attempt to use governmental or political processes to reform or abolish the evils of coercion is not a voluntaryist means because it rests on coercion. The distinguishing marks of voluntaryism - that it is at once both nonviolent and non-electoral in its efforts to convince people to voluntarily abandon the State - set it apart from all other methods of social change. The voluntaryist insight into the nature of political power does not permit people to violently overthrow their government or even use the electoral process to change it, 3 I Must Speak Out Volume II but rather points out that if they shall withdraw their cooperation from the system, it will no longer be able to function or enforce its will. The voluntaryist spirit is thus an attitude of mind or a sense of life, if you will, which animates those engaged in the struggle for the recognition of self-ownership rights and the demise of the State.
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