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Or don't vote, and take every opportunity to peacefully undermine the government by educating people, participating in alternate currencies and black markets, striving to be self-sufficient, etc.


I don't believe in this. It's not that it doesn't make sense it's that it seems like fighting a losing battle. To me it seems the only way to change things is from within. Trying to affect change the way you describe makes you the "other" and its easy for them to take steps to either make your life harder or shut you down completely. It's this same kind of mentality that I think makes the whole copyright issue a losing battle. The more you fight it the more everyone loses. The minute you win a battle they make the means by which you won it illegal or a tedious process.


Don't get me wrong, you're definitely fighting a losing battle. Even (especially!) those who have utilized violence for their supposedly revolutionary goals are fighting a losing battle, and I'm suggesting foregoing violence.

But I completely disagree that the way to change things is from within. When has that ever actually worked? Sure, governments get overthrown from within, but that just results in another government (that may be better, but which also may be worse), and it doesn't change the attitude of the people toward the very concept of government, which in my opinion is the problem. Governments don't get smaller and more respecting of civil liberties. The United States is arguably the most valiant and educated attempt at creating a small and unobtrusive government, and in a very short period it has grown into arguably one of the largest governments ever to grace the Earth.

I think the only hope for lasting change is for the attitude of society toward government to change, and I do think that education and counter-economics are the best ways to show people that the roles that are supposedly only accomplishable by government in fact don't require government at all. That said, the likelihood of any measurable change happening in my lifetime is low, but I suppose that's just part of the human condition.




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