We need to advertise campaignforliberty.com on Facebook. 200 million users use facebook.
I wish there was another word for "We" - I'm starting to be averse to "We" and the groupthink it carries. How about stuff "individuals" can do. It means the same thing, strangely enough...
Sukrit Sabhlok: We need to advertise campaignforliberty.com on Facebook. 200 million users use facebook.
If it's not already there, I'd be a little suprised. Will have to check...
Btw - 200 million? How many real ones?
Would anyone be Interested in helping me create the site I am making focused at activism in New Zealand? http://whatisliberty.co.nz
It would be awesome if someone could help by writting some articles. They just need to be short (around 500 words) but powerful introduction of the ideas of liberty to persons that know nothing about the matter.
The articles on LewRockwell.com and the Daily Articles here might help. You can reprint the Mises articles, I'm not so sure about the LRC articles, although you could probably snippet them if you provide backlinks.
A lot of us have our own sites we struggle to create content for.
Start a new thread with a few topics you want articles and media on, and I am sure the community will give you lots of resources to re-post, or to use as inspiration for your own work.
If you find something evil that wobbles, push it. - Gary North
"You swayed me"- Got this twice on Monday on topics of health care and psuedo prohibitions still on Alcohol and tobacco.
Freedom is appealing when presented as it is. Not just an a view, but a clearer picture.
An attempt to summarize the problems with our current leadership.... looking for collaboration... copy, edit, distribute....
http://wiki.freetalklive.com/Tyranny
1. One tool I feel is sorely missing from the anarchist arsenal is ready collection of essays/wikis directed at particular groups, and speak their language: leftists, environmentalists, minorities, apolitical folks, neocons, centrists, those against the banking elite (but who don't understand that government is what enables it - Zeitgeist and The Money Masters viewers, etc.), those who hate the depredations of "big business," military personnel, the elderly, parents, teenagers, students, etc.
For example, for the hardcore nature-loving environmentalist who sees humans as in principle equal to animals (I'm thinking of vegetarians and vegans), an argument about how we should own every inch of the Earth would not make sense. The great thing about our case is that we do not need to talk about ownership to advocate it, since respect for private property rights and ownership of everything are results of not having a state monopoly. We can make a heartily convincing case even to a hardcore Earth Mother just by talking about monopoly. For this purpose, it would be nice to have ready-made articles or wikis that people could access out of a list to match to positions of the person they were trying to persuade.
2. I think we are inefficiently conflating advocacy and theory. If we fail to distinguish that which we advocate and that which is just a theory of how it would pan out or be most successful, we multiply our labors almost infinitely. For the mere purpose of getting people on our side, we just need to make the case that all monopolies are detrimental, not to make the case for property rights, the NAP, etc.- these will follow naturally in anarchy anyway.
We theorize that in anarchy, free exchange will be most successful and people will adopt universally, or near-universally. There is such a thing as an anarcho-communist, but what is an anarcho-communist? It depends on how you define it. If it is defined as the notion that, in anarchy, societies would organize themselves communistically on a voluntary basis, then we have no disagreement in what we are advocating, only what we are theorizing. Anarcho-communists by this definition would be our brethren, albeit misguided as to how things would turn out. Of course, if anarcho-communists intend on using monopoly force to implement communism, they are not actually anarchists.
As I hope the above example makes clear, what we want to push for is anarchy. Everything else we talk about is simply conjecture (however correct it may be) about the spontaneous order that would develop or be most successful in the absence of a state monopoly. To argue that NAP, property rights, etc. are what will inevitably come about is all well and good, but I contend monopoly is a far easier target. We ought to welcome true anarcho-communists, as they would help dissolve the state...they would just be wrong about the final outcome. In anarchy, we would set up our societies and they would set up theirs, but theirs would fail and ours would succeed. If they don't respect the NAP, they will have problems and quickly come around. Heck, we might even be wrong and their 100% voluntary communism would succeed in satisfying all people (hardy har). I don't see a problem either way.
For example, take the Earth Mother I mentioned above. We could certainly, after great entreaties, convince her that property rights would help the environment, but the very idea that humans ought to own everything would be fundamentally repugnant to her. She would only ever agree grudgingly, and in practice probably not at all. We need her as a true anti-monopoly anarchist first and foremost, and the path to that is pretty EASY!
Think outside the monopoly paradigm. Net-based microsecession | Why anarchy hasn't worked
Also, post on reddit.com - that's a great debate structure site where people are reasonably smart, but horrendously misinformed about the market. Fallacies run amock, and they are actually amenable to strong argumentation. Much better than Digg.
Here's how I see it:
Reddit is a much easier site to use.
Reddit politics section is the worst in terms of the amount of statists.
Reddit economics section is very good in that most of the people are relatively libertarian, and many are Austrians.
Digg has a smaller percentage of statists than Reddit. There is actually a small but thriving liberty contingent there. This is most likely a remnant from the Ron Paul campaign.
On neither site do people respond to logic. I have argued extensively on both. But I think "taking over" Digg and Reddit is INSTRUMENTAL in getting the liberty message out.
For better or worse, news aggregation sites are where the intellectual battle is fought these days, and if Digg and Reddit are permanent bastions for statism, that is terrible because for so many kids, it is their first exposure to politics.
We need to turn the tide on these sites over time!!
The nice thing about reddit.com is the shear number of bald-faced (usually socialist) fallacies people will use, which if you can deftly demonstrate to be wrong and they will usually concede. The reason people often concede and change their opinions on reddit is that they're used to discovering something new and unexpected in almost every post. Sure there are many many cases to the contrary, but compared to other forums reddit is a debater's paradise with it's compact tree-threaded comment system (which mises.org could really use IMO, and digg.com sorely lacks) and huge numbers of reasonably intelligent and politically interested readers.
I think they do respond to logic if it is presented reasonably well. I consider reddit.com to be outreach tool No. 1. Nowhere will you get a more fair hearing with more politically active people if you argue nicely, although it's still not very fair. There is a major dearth of people with understanding of Austrian economics and libertarian concepts there, and the few that are there are mostly not good debaters. Hint: they tend to assume you know what you're talking about if you use the more highbrow debating tactics, such as copious amounts of Latin in your posts
NewLiberty:We need to turn the tide on these sites over time!!
I have to disagree with that. A good example is what happened with Bureaucrash. The libertarian anarchists thought they captured the social network, but the conservative thinktank that owned it put in neocon management (Lee Doren, Mr. "How my neocon world works") that is completely not libertarian.
So all of that energy and time was wasted promoting bureaucrash. Many of those folks left and started fr33 agents. Now there is a primarily libertarian/anarchist social network.
So instead of trying to capture reddit or digg or wikipedia, use them to promote your own social networks and websites for libertarian/anarchist news.
I wholeheartedly support the ideals of classical liberalism, mises, and libertarianism however not voting is not making a statement, its doesnt help our cause it is a disgrace. It is the degradation of generations of dead heroes plain and simple. Vote Ron Paul or if you dont like him start a campaign, support whomever you want. Not voting is disgraceful.
With that said I also believe there should be a "none of the above" or slot to insert a name because limiting the options and forcing people to choose the lesser evil is tyrannical.
grace has nothing to do with it. neither do any dead heroes for the state. heroes for freedom are a different matter, but then, they do not have cause against libertarian anarchists who vote defensively or not at all, since they understand freedom.
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
liberty student:Promote Mises.org books and the bookstore.
I advertise mises.org on the most visible of every book I borrow from my college library.
Prashanth Perumal:I advertise mises.org on the most visible of every book I borrow from my college library.
Nice work!
First of all, great thread, I think there are many valid points.
Here are some of my ideas. I am from Czech republic, therefore a non-english speaking country. So I am currently setting up a blog where I will regularly post translations of articles from Mises.org (and perhaps rockwell.com and some other sites, depends on their permissions) to provide an access to austrian and libertarian thoughts to people that do not read in english. I think every person that has a good knowledge of some other language can do that. It is also a good exercise. Plus I´ll try to put together some articles of my own, although my reasoning is pretty weak compared to the guys on Mises so far. Btw. first article that I chose to translate is Art Carden´s Minimum wage, discrimination and inequality - simple and nonoffensive for a regular (social democratic in this country) person. Good intro I think.
Second point - as a college student I try to involve some austrian ideas in most of the school work. My bachelor´s degree thesis title was "Fair Trade coffee in the perspective of Austrian school of economics". Almost no-one in the school supported that idea (almost no-one knew austrian school and thought it´s some bullshit since it involves no math - pardon my language), but since I tried to make it as much understandable and consistent as possible, it was a success. And my friends and peers at school were also quite interested in it. My master´s degree thesis will be probably something similar.
Well I know it´s not much, but I think the most important thing for me, as an austrian economic apprentice, is to learn as much as possible, to be able to discuss all the topics. I tried to discuss libertanianism and anarchocapitalism with my friends before, but they usually got me on road privatization, pension system, national defense and such. More study needed indeed:).
Kabal:Here are some of my ideas. I am from Czech republic, therefore a non-english speaking country.
Kabal, you should contact Mike Gogulski at www.nostate.com. He is in Bratislava Slovakia, and he is a translator by trade. He can probably offer you some ideas and suggestions.
Kabal:Well I know it´s not much,
It is fantastic. If everyone did this much, things would change in a matter of months.
Good for you, and welcome to Mises.org
liberty student: It is fantastic. If everyone did this much, things would change in a matter of months. Good for you, and welcome to Mises.org
Thanks for the warmth welcome and support. So if anyone knows any Czech or Slovak speaking people that would be interested in articles on liberty, sound economics and such, here is my site. Not much in there so far (only Art Carden´s article), but work is in progress:-).
I have always seen through experiance that the best thing you can do is talk to other people through more simple concepts, then using libertarian speak. Also, it's good to have a partner in crime. Don't forget that many alliances can be made with "conservatives", "liberals", and even socialists. Political group's theories always have to agree somewhere, it's better to come together for a certain cause, then to make that person your enemy and to have nothing. If I had, one of my closest activist friend, would have done half the work we would've done individually. Plus it really kills the stereotypes of a certain group, and lets you understand their reasons much better. An ally can even start to understand your ideas better and reduce their hostility torwards it.
"Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom." Soren Kierkegaard
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