“Walk for a mile in someone’s shoes to live their life”.
Well, I’m a libertarian anarchist – a Voluntaryist. Decentralization is a philosophical tenet as well as self-determination and free association.
How did you become a voluntaryist?
That’s a long story. I started off a neoconservative/ paleoconservative mix. In 2009, I got interested watching Glenn Beck and finally got tired of GOPers bellyaching of “not finding a true conservative”.
I was more libertarian-leaning on foreign policy, on drugs, and abortion before Beck. I watched the Mises Institute’s videos in 2010 and begin to switch to a libertarian minarchist in 2014.
I began reading the works of Fredric Bastiat, Ludwig von Mises, Ron Paul, Larken Rose, Murray Rothbard, and etc. Caryn Ann Harlos posted a Stepfan Kinsella quote on February 24, 2016, that explains voluntary government is much as anarchistic as any anarcho-capitalist would want.
“So when you talk about government, the question is not how we classify it or what the best words are for state, government, etc., semantically: but rather: the question is: does the “government” that “minarchists” favor engage in institutionalized aggression, or not? If not, it’s not a state, and it’s not unlibertarian. If it does, it’s merely a type of state. Now the [anarcho-capitalists] believe you can have private institutions provide law, justice, defense, without necessarily engaging in systematic and institutionalized aggression–that is, without being a state. Whether you want to call such institutions “government” or not seems to me to be purely semantic, [especially] if we grant there is a distinction between state and government. The remaining question is simply what type of government the “minarchists” favor: do they favor a government that has the authority to commit institutionalized aggression, or not? If they do, then they are pro-state since such a government is a state. If they do not, they are [anarcho-capitalists], it seems to me, since private, non-state, non-aggressive institutions of law, justice, and defense is exactly what we [anarcho-capitalists] favor.”
You can say I became more radical since then, bordering on an agorist.
What would you like to see happen? What is your vision for your country and the world?
Well, I would like to see individuals interacting voluntarily without violence and without coercion with the threat of violence. It means no more relying on an institutionalized monopoly of violence.
As Mises said, (paraphrasing here) individuals can associate or dissociate with political entities as they wish.
How do you see these changes occurring?
Peaceful civil disobedience and counter-economics like dealing in gray and black markets with cryptocurrencies.
What can Self-Determination Advocates do to help?
Well, advocate for peaceful secession movements that seek independence not joining a centralized giant institutionalized monopoly of violence. Any secession movement should advocate decentralization and decrease the State’s power.
Secondly, self-determination is an individual thing and you cannot by vote override the minority of peoples’ rights. They have a right to stay in or leave the political entity or join another.
Self-Determination Advocates 