match my philosophy to my politics :) I'd like to share this:
I am catching up on reading I slighted as a youn'un, and either
reading or re-reading _Civil Disobedience_ (school is a rather
merciful blur; perhaps I did read it).
http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil.html
Almost every line is gold so far. But here's something I think is
especially interesting to those of us who are voluntaryists/anarchists
and yet who still engage in politics - it is not a passage I remember
having seen quoted, like so many of the others:
"But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call
themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government,
but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of
government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward
obtaining it."
I think that's probably the best formulation of the radical
libertarian approach to politics I have seen. Thoreau also points to
voting as essentially an opinion poll, and as a lagging rather than a
leading indicator of public sentiment (he points out that by the time
people vote en mass against slavery, for instance, it will already be
well on the way out.
Great stuff!
--
Susan Hogarth
http://www.lpradicals.org
