What is to be Done?

It is ideas that group men into fighting factions, that press the weapons into their hands, and that determine against whom and for whom the weapons shall be used. It is they alone, and not arms, that, in the last analysis, turn the scales. ~ von Mises (Liberalism, p. 51)

Terry Hulsey -- Lew Rockwell

Several months ago I asked readers for a suggestion of a practical tool for our age for use in withdrawing support from tyrannical government. It would be, metaphorically, a small crowbar that could be leveraged in the cracks of the armor of the state. It would be a simple and effective tactic, like Gandhi’s or Martin Luther King’s tool of nonviolence, but suited to our times.

My query implied that the discovery of this tool would come from thoughtful readers like yourself, not from the masses. There was no expectation that this tool would come from the Tea Party, any more than it might have come from Perot’s 1992 United We Stand America, or from a spontaneous revolt or Spartacist uprising of any kind. In short, as Lenin stated in his famous apostasy What Is to Be Done?, the change would come from the bourgeois intelligentsia.

I am gratified to report that such a tool just might have been discovered.

I arranged the suggestions that were offered in ascending order of personal risk, and happily, this tool is at the low risk end of the spectrum, and indeed derives its effectiveness precisely from being low-risk. But first briefly consider the other contenders.

Attitudinal shift

The first, and lowest risk, group mainly concerned adopting a new attitude toward the government and popularizing it. These suggestions included scoffing or passively provoking the authorities through delaying payment of fines and taxes, ignoring the authorities through not voting, and so on. The best suggestion of this group was simple mockery. This could be small scale, as a whispered snicker that’s more effective than a punch in the face; or it could be large scale, as in plastering Facebook or your favorite blog with videos of George Carlin on the state.

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