The Daily Owl, Ep. 26: You Gotta Be Human Before You Can Be A Libertarian
Otherwise, you're just gonna be an asshole. And a religious one, at that.
This morning as I was going through my Steemit newsfeed, I came across a post by my friend @schattenjaeger. In it, he talks about the sad reality that his mother is dying of cancer, and probably won't be around very much longer.
The article is very honest, matter-of-fact, and thought-provoking. Not to mention sad. What made the piece even more tough to read was the view @schattenjaeger took regarding libertarians and empathy.
I think he has pointed something out which deserves address. he stated, in so many words, that libertarians suck at compassion. I have seen it myself. While most of my die hard Voluntaryist friends are the most empathic and compassionate people I know, it would seem my friend has had a different experience.
The focus of this live broadcast is not to address this story in particular as the main focal point, but to examine the broader picture, and the foundational, critical reality: that it is being fully human that brings one to voluntaryism, and not voluntaryism, that beings one to being human.
If you just have a set of rote memorized quotes and rules, then you don't fucking get it. Those things are important, after you get the deeper reality which is that human life has value, and that logic is compassion is love. They're inseparable.
If some folks think compassion has no place, then some of you fuckers are doing it wrong ;) Maybe even me, too, often times. Well, I certainly hope not.
~KafkA
Graham Smith is a Voluntaryist activist, creator, and peaceful parent residing in Niigata City, Japan. Graham runs the "Voluntary Japan" online initiative with a presence here on Steem, as well as DLive and Twitter. (Hit me up so I can stop talking about myself in the third person!)
My live stream is at DLive
Like in probably any group organized around philosophy/religion, there are those who take the philosophy in question and use it as a reason/understanding to do better, and those who use it as a reason/excuse to do worse. I've met lots of those selfish, incompassionate libertarians, and lots of selfish, incompassionate Christians. But I've also met some very nice libertarians and some very nice Christians. I agree, one is what one is and will either amplify the good points or abuse the bad points; the philosophy/religion doesn't make one good or bad, as evidenced by the thousands of schisms over interpretation of religion - everyone thinks everyone else is doing it wrong. So it is with philosophies as well. People who are concerned with the letter of the law - be that law religious, philosophical, or state - are usually unconcerned with the actual morality of the law they are upholding. To them, the law itself is the thing, not the justice or lack thereof in the law. As often stated, slavery was legal - not moral.
I remember seeing a video several months back - I couldn't possibly remember whose - that talked about this idea of taking the NAP ultra-literally to the point where you're beating up people for accidentally stepping on the corner of your lawn or something like that. They said that the NAP has a corollary, and it's YAD - You're A Dick. So yes, if a kid climbs your fence to fetch a baseball or something like that, he's violating you and you could beat him up - but you're a dick if you do, and the greater society probably isn't going to want to deal with you very kindly once word gets out.
Also… "EQ?" Yes, you have been in Japan for too long. :P
Yep. That’s a good one. “YAD.”
And yeah, EQ. Emotional intelligence. It’s not a Japanese thing, but kind of a new idea floating around. Named as such as a play on “IQ.”
Well I don't see why you want to hang all that baggage on religion, in fact everything you've said about voluntaryism could be said about spirituality - if you think religion is a dirty word we can subsitute it a number of ways, but we do like to get together in groups and be compassionate, and sometimes people put rules and axioms before compassion but that's just messed up dude.
Religion often hangs its own baggage on itself, sadly. I understand many of us define religion differently, though. Maybe if you watched the video you could see what I mean, and how I define it, and thus come to a better understanding of my meaning here.
Oh my dear Kafka, I do not generally watch videos longer than 8 minutes, and thus normally do not comment either. But yours had such a nicely detailed description with what seemed to be an incongruent relationship between these two groups. Surely there are confused humans in every group and philosophy. I like Phoenixwren's answer, so I shall let that point stand for itself.
Now, called out on the blockchain as unwatcher, I shall make an effort to watch your video and see if you do any better verbally treating people as people with out regard to their labels. It is now situated safely in a new tab where it can remind me of its presence.
I too struggled many years with religion, and hope that I don't come off as dense, on the contrary, I am contrarian, and a proud practitioner of the NAP. Recently I have been exploring the religious roots of my ultimate spirituality, and work hard to liberate 'religious' brothers and sisters to the realms of 'freer' but still spiritual philosophies. But I shall strongly oppose any indication that a religious heart is illogical, and perhaps that was one more point that pushed me to comment without full information.
Cheers! Been following you since the steem silver round song competition!
Wow. Did you take the description personally or something? Yikes. I didn't "treat" anyone, any way. I expressed a view (which you have misconstrued fabulously) in the description. This is the reaction I usually get from religious folks, actually. And they usually don't check out the argument. Lol.
Like I said. Maybe actually hear the argument before judging it ;)
I should shut up. I'm going to watch it. This is supposed to be witty banter.
Treat like treatise or an academic treatment not like....I need to watch this video now....
I've watched the video, and found the next in the series haha.
I will watch that and comment there, as appropriate. I have many thoughts. When you define 'being religious' this way, it does change the discussion, but surely you must realize how that makes my knee jerk. See you over on the next one.
Addressing the letter of your post.
I think both a belief in God and the belief in the big bang could be considered a religion. If you believe in God you have to have faith that he was the progenitor of all things, the same goes with the belief in the big bang. Yet, there is no explanation for what caused God to exist or what caused the big bang to happen. Hell, for all I know God created the big bang, now wouldn't that be something?
Point being is that both are religions. So when you talk about, you've got to be a human first bear in mind that the legal system has a very specific meaning for the term human, it does not mean that you have to adopt their meaning for the word. We use legal words all the time in a common setting, and for the most part, we all know what we're talking about. Yet, just imagine if certain religious folks were to use evolutionary theory as a con to get men to believe they are monkeys so that they can have rightful dominion over them according to the letter of the biblical law.
Addressing the spirit of your post.
I'm so sorry for your friend and I agree with you 100% that the best voluntaryists are the ones who have empathy and treat each others as they themselves would want to be treated. I wonder if he's looked into b17, laetrile, amygdalin etc. This is not medical advice, merely an observation. Some folks I see on the internet consume seeds and or inject vials of this stuff which is supposed to destroy cancer cells, it may be something worth looking into. I've been consuming the seeds myself for some time as an experiment in hopes that it will lower my odds of getting cancer. The stuff can be highly dangerous, even lethal if consumed incorrectly. So, by all means, it's not something one should jump into without having done lots of research on the matter.
https://youtu.be/w8KPhT2xGL4
Did you watch the video, I wonder? I defined what I meant by "religion" therein.
Yep, but I wrote most of the comment before watching the video, I thought you might find it interesting nonetheless. If you are able to grab that .pdf from the internet archive, it's a pretty curious thing. I'm starting to think that voluntaryism might be in the background and that people have been unknowingly volunteering themselves into the scheme of government. Here's another one breaking down that list of words we were chatting about the other day, the mind control that we're all either subjected to, or subject ourselves to, goes very deep.
Yes, that was apparent.
What can I say --> I'm only
human.We miss the mark (sin) sometimes.
-In spirit, I agreed with you 100%-
🙄