Candles In The Dark - Session 7.1 - Maxwell [Larken Rose] [Part 7 of 7]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QZedKD7zGi5v3d1zEJ4_bbVmHdVBT8aW/view?

^ Companion Guide PDF

6) Likewise, to destroy the notion of legitimate “government,” one need only to
prove that it is impossible for anyone to have the right to rule, and impossible for
anyone to have acquired such a right. And without the right to rule, all of
mainstream political thought logically falls apart and evaporates. Elections,
constitutions, legislation, taxation, “law” enforcement, representative republics,
etc.—all of it becomes meaningless mythology, and what is left is an understanding
that people are people, that right and wrong apply the same to everyone, and that
no amount of rituals and rhetoric can change that.
7) There are several different ways, using several different lines of questioning, to
prove that political “authority” is inherently illegitimate and fake, and that
“government” has no special rights, and therefore is not even real, but is simply a
gang of thieves and thugs pretending to have the right to forcibly dominate others.
8) While your punchline should be that “government” is never legitimate—which
you’re leading the statist to—that should not be your opening line. Instead, you
should ask the statist questions, starting with basic principles and concepts, which
eventually show him that his own beliefs and moral code logically rule out any
possibility of legitimate political “authority” existing. In other words, use the
Socratic method (asking questions) to help him find the punchline, instead of
trying to use your beliefs to drag him to it. (Several specific lines of questioning
which do this are covered below.)
9) Several disproofs of “authority” are explained in detail in “The Most Dangerous
Superstition,” by Larken Rose. For example, there is no ritual or document through
which any human being, or any number of human beings, can make an inherently
immoral act into a moral act. To put it another way, no election, or legislation, or
anything else, can make something evil into something good. That being the case,
politicians enacting “laws” has no impact on which behaviors are right and which
are wrong, which means their “laws” (and their “government”) have no “authority”
and no legitimacy.
10) A second way to disprove the possibility of “authority” is to show that it is
impossible for human beings to delegate rights that they never had to begin with.
For example, if no individual has the right to commit murder, then there is no ritual
or document whereby people can bestow upon someone else the right to commit
murder. And that logically implies that “law-makers” and “law-enforcers” have no
right to do anything which anyone else does not have the right to do (since no one
could have given them such a right).
11) A third way to disprove the possibility of “authority” is to show that it is insane
for any human being to feel a moral obligation to obey a perceived “authority”
when that “authority” issues a command that conflicts with that person’s own
moral conscience. In other words, it is completely irrational for a human being to
think, “I believe that doing ‘X’ is morally wrong, but I also believe that if authority
tells me to do ‘X,’ it is morally wrong for me not to do ‘X.’” But that schizophrenic
contradiction is absolutely essential to any belief in an external “authority.” To
believe in “authority” necessarily means believing in a moral obligation to do
immoral things, if and when one’s own conscience clashes with the “laws” of that
“authority.”
12) The specific lines of questioning below demonstrate how any statist’s own
beliefs and values can be used to expose the inherent contradictions of statism and
authoritarianism.

THE QUESTIONS
1) Again, the one main idea that voluntaryists should seek to share with statists,
and the one conclusion which all of the following lines of questioning lead to, is
that political “authority” is never legitimate, and never real. To put it another way,
neither political rituals, nor using special terminology, can give anyone the right to
rule over others, or can give those others an obligation to obey the arbitrary
commands of politicians. Those in power often have the ability to forcibly
dominate and control others, but they do not have the moral right to do so. And
since “authority” means the right to rule, that means that “governments” have no
authority, but are simply violent gangs that have tricked their victims into viewing
their own subjugation and oppression as necessary and legitimate.
2) When choosing which line of questioning to try on a particular statist, you
should consider what you already know about the beliefs and attitudes of the
person. Find a way to approach the issue from an angle that’s in line with what
they care about and value. Almost everyone has a laundry list of things the
government does that they don’t like. Start there. Find common ground...

** All questions would not fit here. Please see PDF link above.