I find it extremely lame that some celebrities pretend to be badass, edgy and rebellious, only to then turn around and enthusiastically advocate their own enslavement (and everyone else’s enslavement, too). And somehow it seems more ridiculous when democrats do it, since they pretend to be more enlightened, “progressive” and anti-establishment. “I’m cool, I’m tough, I’m bad, da man can’t keep me down! … and by the way, I want this narcissistic, power-happy, war-mongering, pro-establishment, psychotic white bitch to rule the world!” Really?
It’s bad enough for actors to do it—they’re essentially professional liars anyway. But when supposedly rebellious musicians—rock stars, rappers, etc.—try to play the “tough guy” role while advocating subservience to political masters… well, that’s just freaking pathetic. (The “Vote or Die!” thing was pretty much a parody of itself.) Sometimes it can be hard to tell whether such “badasses” are just unprincipled sell-outs, kissing the royal ring in return for the master’s favoritism, or if they were utter frauds to begin with. Either way, if you try to convey an image that says, “I’m a unique, non-conformist individual, independent and open-minded,” and then you follow that up with, “and here is who I want ruling me,” then you’re just an embarrassment to humanity.
Similarly, when most celebrities latch on to some “cause” or other, it’s almost always some super controversial and daring issue (yes, that was sarcasm), such as, “I don’t like cancer,” or “I'm against bullying,” or maybe, “I want poor people to have more money.” Of course, those are perfectly worthy causes, but if you think any celebrity is courageous and awesome for publicly coming out as being strongly “anti-stuff-that-everyone-knows-is-bad,” that’s pretty sad.
(I have to throw in a positive mention of Colin Kaepernick here, who refused to stand for the mindless human livestock ritual that happens before NFL games. I have no doubt that I could find plenty to disagree with Colin about, but at least in this case he dared to publicly do something that he knew would make a lot of people hate him. However misguided you or I might think his beliefs or opinions are, at least he wasn’t a spineless sellout who did whatever massuh told him to do so he could get a pat on the head.)
To be blunt, fame and fortune tend to make people into unprincipled whores. The “powers that be” can usually just bribe successful people into not saying or doing anything that conflicts with the masters’ agenda. More often than not, as soon as someone has something to lose, his soul will be sold to the devil, and that is why so many celebrities kiss the asses of the political masters.
That is also why I don’t bother trying very hard to “convert” famous people, or people who are already successful in the mainstream. They got where they are with the status quo the way it is. Why would they risk losing all that by challenging the status quo? The hordes of famous sell-out lapdogs are not the path to freedom. I’d be stunned if there were half a dozen spines in Hollywood all total. Smart tyrants make it a priority to buy influence with those high in entertainment and academia—the two main sources of indoctrination for the peasantry.
But getting back to my main point here—“rebellious” posers clamoring for a new political master—I can’t leave out all the spineless, scared wusses in the “liberty movement” who are now doing the same damn thing by cheering for Fuhrer Trump. Aside from the fact that the guy is an unprincipled sleaze ball who talks like an utter moron to win the support of insecure, angry imbeciles; aside from the fact that there is nothing remotely consistent or principled about his juvenile babblings; aside from all that, the fact that some supposed advocates of freedom are trying to get anyone into a position of political power is just pathetic.
Apparently they think that they can still count as badasses because their candidate is a loud-mouthed, obnoxious asshole. They are weak little children who just want a baby-sitter who says swear-words, because then they can feel cool.
“I believe in freedom! … And I really want THIS guy on the throne!” To pretend to value freedom, or to pretend to be an anarchist, only to then turn around and seek a political savior to protect your sorry ass (or your race, your culture, your “nation,” or whatever other pack-mentality bullshit you’re scared of losing), just makes you an epic wuss. And yes, I know that they like to pretend that they’re just being “realistic,” and choosing something slightly less destructive than the alternative, for practical reasons. But for most of them, that’s a lie.
As you can see by the way they talk, most of them really and truly want Nanny State to save them. They don’t just talk about how “Tyrant B” might stomp on them less than “Tyrant A.” No, they specifically support “Tyrant B” so he will use the violence of the state to protect them from all the uncertainties of life (like scary brown people coming to the U.S.). And to justify their authoritarian security blanket, they use the exact same template that every statist always uses:
“We don’t really want to, but now we neeeeed to have the state committing widespread aggression … um … for the common good, for the nation, or really bad things will happen! In the long run supporting this kind of massive government power will make us more free! Principles are usually good, but now we have to be practical, and empower the ruling class to save us all! The ends justify the means! We have no choice! If we don’t inflict widespread authoritarian violence on the world there will be chaos and mayhem! We neeeeeed to use the Ring of Power, just this once!”
No, cheering for Trump and his neo-fascist bullshit doesn’t make you a cool, tough, brave badass. It makes you a spineless, cowardly sell-out. All the tyrants had to do was go down their list of fear-mongering tactics until they found something that you are scared of, and then you would abandon any shred of principle you might have had, and cower in the corner like the wuss you are, begging big government to save your sorry ass. Here’s a tip: when you advocate state violence by state agents to enforce state “laws” about state borders, that makes you a goddamn statist.
“Muh borders! Muh culture! Muh country!” Those who join gangs usually do so because they are cowards—because by themselves they feel weak and helpless, and desperately want to feel powerful. And those rallying behind Daddy Trump are no different.
Sorry, Trumpites, but none of your pack-mentality, collectivist excuses will change what you are: a bunch of fearful, impotent state-worshipers, trying in vain to manufacture an excuse that sounds rational, in order to justify the empowerment of the ruling class and the widespread use of authoritarian aggression. You're just a bunch of fake-ass “libertarian” posers letting their inner scared, helpless wimps shine through.
By all means, go run crying back to Big Brother “government.” Crouch down and lick the hand that enslaves you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you ever pretended to advocate freedom.
@larkenrose
Great post!
Since I know you're one of the real people on this platform promoting self rule, I hope you don't mind me linking this here.
Riseup.net is the real deal and has been living the same message you're trying to send since 1999. That's longer than many people reading your posts have been alive.
I hope you'll consider helping to spread the word because they have a solid cause and need help.
https://steemit.com/news/@williambanks/riseup-net-needs-your-help
Larken, any thoughts on Stefan Molyneux's shocking 180 from AnCap to Trump booster and white nationalist?
Didn't this article pretty much count as my thoughts on that?
If you say it does...
It does. I didn't mention individual names, just because I don't care about personalities; I care about principles.
I guess I'm still baffled by SM's about-face...I don't know how someone who promoted voluntarism up until age 50 turned so quickly and for Nat'l Socialist TRUMP...this after telling Ron Paul (who at least was a solid and unapologetic libertarian) supporters in 2008 & 2012 that they were wasting their time.
Apparently not. Two more articles please! Your ideas are muddled and your opinion unclear :-P
Seriously just follow the money trail. Last year before winter he was under 280k youtube subscribers. After he started making the trump vids his count has nearly doubled in a half year. 1 year talking about Trump verses over a decade of preaching anarchy. While never directly endorsing the man, it has likely earned him a solid new stream of income.
That thought did cross my mind...
@Kingkrawdad I use to listen to Stefan Molyneux and even had some conversations with him! Until it became very obvious that he only believes Government statements as factual and everything else is false and should be ignored.
Point and case Stefan believes the Government "official story" about 9/11
Nothing brings out the crazy in America like a Presidential election...where known and wanna-be murderers, thieves, and liars are seen as salvation by their future victims...
The entire time I was reading this article I couldn't get videos of Matt Damon preaching to endorse one of these priests in the religion of the State. He also loves to trot out the "I have a genius IQ" card and then basically use that as a logical Appeal To Authority Fallacy. "I am smart, believe everything I say." When in fact they are fool and don't know it. A person latching onto their own intellect and self-imagined superiority often cannot see the truth ig it smacks them in the head, because they already "KNOW" the truth and everyone else is lesser than them. Matt Damon especially pops into my head as we see a great movie like Goodwill Hunting and how it totally throws STATUS QUO perceptions out the door to some degree. We even have the Bourne movies which plainly show government corruption, yet this same "Genius" kisses the rings of those who believe it is their right to control you and be your master. I've seen many other celebrities, but most of those are not lauded as being super intelligent. The others are mostly just celebrities. I don't really give a damn about celebrities. I've met a few and was underwhelmed.... "look it's a guy like me that happened to make a movie, and he has to use the restroom and eat too, just like me, and he can be a stupid idiot, just like me".
Puppet chump or puppet killery - either way rotchild is pulling the strings
Stefan seems to believe that the road to freedom will be a multi-generational one, which seems to serve as a rather convenient excuse in this particular instance. Since it would seem he sincerely doesn't believe it's possible to achieve a stateless society within our lifetimes, one could suppose that the vision he has for the future stateless society is just that, a dream, and has nothing to do with his real principles.
Most of us are likely guilty of the same crime, to some extent or another. We all understand that the state is inherently and irredeemably immoral, but we all support it through our payment of taxes, even if it is taken from us forcibly, our support is garnered just the same. All we're left with is the moral right to bitch about it and call the state for the theif that it is. They've still got all the fucking guns.
Personally, I think our only shot at getting rid of the state for good is getting rid of the very idea of the state UNIVERSALLY, because at the end of the day, that's all the state really is, an idea. A dream, and it too, has nothing to do with actual principles. If we can't accomplish that in one generation, we'll likely never accomplish it at all. The state has the deck stacked too high against us. They control the youth and as long as they have that much influence over the minds of the young lasting change cannot be achieved. We have to convince EVERYONE that the state is unnecessary and can never be anything but an organized crime network. If we can't get everyone on the same page, we're fucked. The rate of indoctrination is just too high and the numbers of reasonable people is just too low.
Actually, when even a significant minority of the population is voluntaryist, the state is doomed. In the U.S., for example, if a mere 10% (over 30,000,000 people) just didn't cooperate with the statist BS, the thing would collapse, regardless of how much the other 90% love their enslavement.
How do you figure?
You knocked it out of the park with this one, Larken! Great post!
Ok, This is pretty much a collection of all the thoughts I have been having this "election season", with the exception of it being well organized. This is really well written and cuts strait to the point without sugar coating a single thing. A great follow-up read to this would be, Democracy: The Joke's on You!
Yes, I agree completely. Steemit is a great place to be a poser :)
He says ... on Steemit.
I love your posts, especially your straightforward logic :-)
Recently, I found an excellent video by Jacob Spinney titled 'The State Is Not Great: How Government Poisons Everything'. If you don't know that, you may want to check it out. Keep up the good work.
Epic rant. You should be proud.
Excellent post!
#VoteNobody
This needs to be said often! Great post.
And this is a perfect summary. Choosing fear over principles and morality is the difference between an individual and a slave. Slaves don't have morals, because they have masters who make their decisions for them.
Have you thought about a strategy on how to transform an existing state or nation to a voluntary society? Could a political party or a politicians who promotes the decentralization of power, like secession from the union and direct democracy, be start to step by step achieve that goal, if over 50% of the people in that nation or state would agree with the moral principles of a voluntary society?
There is no transition or transformation from statist to voluntaryism. There is the collapse of the former. No "political party" is any step in the right direct. A nicer ruling class is still a ruling class, and people who are still focused on choosing political masters aren't even free inside their own heads.
I was talking about a political party with the goal to eliminate the ruling class in order to build a voluntary society, not one that is just a little bit nicer.
Yeah, I kind of diverge w/people like Larken when they say there is no point to attempting to use the state govts. to resist federal tyranny...or even running for federal office on a platform of dissolving the federal union (as I've heard Adam Kokesh plans to do in 2020).
How much better off would we be now had the South managed to secede? How much better will the UK be when they secede from the EU? Having one less layer of govt. to deal with is a plus imo...
Trying to legislatively eliminate the ruling class still implies that we need the RULERS to decide they shouldn't rule. And that will never happen.
Adam Kokesh will run for political office again, and I trust him that he would try to eliminate the ruling class step by step. He posted a part of his free book Freedom about localization a few days ago, titled How to Dismantle Government. It might be tough and one would need a good strategy, but I don't think that it can't be done. I also think that we should try everything imaginable to achieve a voluntary society.
https://steemit.com/freedom/@adamkokesh/how-to-dismantle-government
Sounds like a rational path to me. Its surprising to me how few people recognize the danger of centralized super-states, even after the last 100 years of bloody warfare between these kinds of nation-state empires.
I think many people already recognize the death and destruction caused by centralized power, but they don't see a reasonable way to take the power back.
Hmmm...most folks I talk to are aghast at the suggestion that we don't need a central govt...
Would these folks support voluntarism, if that would instantly end all wars of aggression currently fought by the US military regime, the unaccountable police state tyranny, the criminal (in)justice system, the criminal too big to fail robberies called quantitative easing which likely enslaves their children and possibly their children's children? Ask them if they enjoy paying taxes to fund all these immoral actions?
dwight, like 99% of the populace, no, these folks would NOT support voluntarism...
There's a lot work to do for the voluntarist community.
Statism is an irrational belief system...just like religion...its very hard to reason people out of beliefs they didn't reason themselves into.
ahh its a shame insults as good as these are still not enough to make some employees bite that hand
Great post @larkenrose. I've become so disillusioned with the whole liberty movement because of this. At least I can take solace in some of their former advice, and follow the principles, not the leader.
I dislike posers within the freedom movement who take the side of the cops when it's convenient: https://steemit.com/anarchy/@schattenjaeger/even-racist-anarchists-shouldn-t-side-with-the-cops
And I don't mean you, Larken.
By the time you got to "who take the side of the cops," I was pretty sure you weren't talking about me. :)
Hah, touché.
It's important, though, to be precise with our criticism of police. We need to be critical of what they are doing, in general, while avoiding critiques of how they do it.
If we get drawn into discussions on how police could do their jobs better, we are helping to obfuscate the fact that the brutality and murder is an unavoidable consequence of recognizing the authority of others over our own lives.
Thanks for not mentioning names. It is too sad when people we previously admired sell out, but you can call them out for it on principle without pointing fingers. As you did here brilliantly.
That guy on the right in the 2nd last picture reminds me of the colloidal silver induced Papa Smurf...
But his sign ought to say, 'The soilent majority stands with Trump'. :D
Fantastic article, Larken! I love the emotion behind it!
Like wow Larken, why do you pull your punches? I. Seriously tho, tell it bro! I can always count on LR to tell it like it is and let the chips fall where they may.
I am still a supporter of SM, all but this Trump statist crap anyway. He is either been paid off or just wants to capitalize on the election mania by focusing on a statist candidate. He's being a hypocrite in many respects, and he is showing when push comes to shove how willing he is to prop up the state by getting involved in their game. SM is truly a force to be reckoned with and he deserves respect for what he has contributed, however I'm not a SM cult member so I don't blindly go along with whatever he wants to promote. He taught me too well for that. Anyone with critical thinking skills has to question if he is being more effective for liberty and freedom by talking Trump so much or if he is only looking at his $$ bottom line.
Many felt Jeff Berwick also sold out when he decided to run for office in Canada and encouraged others to do the same. The one big difference is that Berwick was up front about why he was running (solely for publicity), and never compromised his principles by endorsing a statist. He also said from the start he would not assume office should he become elected.
I'm reminded of this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Norton
If only people realized that the whole system full of politicians is no different.
Great post Larken! Shared on my friends list. I have "libertarian" friends who promote the fuhrer Trump. Oddly none of the libertarians on my friends list promote the war monger witch Hitlary. So I don't waste time criticizing her. I criticize faux libertarians who insist the only good ruler is Trump. Sorry chumps. Trump is not a libertarian and far from it. He is an authoritarian. Look up that word.