The dumbest objections against statelessness #5

"You use government services, therefore you’re a hypocrite!"

Mar 01, 2025

Government enthusiasts tend to show their relishing of their own enslavement with this smug snarky comment, which they imagine a checkmate case-closed smoking gun for their state worship:

“You can’t be a voluntaryist if you use government services. If you believe a centralized coercive government should not exist, then you shouldn’t use any of the government’s roads or telecommunications infrastructure, and you shouldn’t even participate in the centrally planned economy that the state regulates and intervenes in. You are a hypocrite for being against the government yet benefiting from government. Why don’t you go live in the wild and leave us “civilized” people alone, ha?”

This is wrong on so many levels. I’ll try to address them.

First off, unless you want me to kill myself for being forced into a world that is 100% dominated by centralized governments, then you can’t tell me to “go live in the wild.” Every square centimeter of this planet is owned by a centralized government; even the oceans. There is nowhere on this planet I could go to be free from it, except in the grave. Your call to “leave government” is a threat to my life.

And why doesn’t the government go live in the wild and leave the civilized people be?

Second, just because I use a prison’s facilities does not mean I condone my unjust imprisonment. I have basic needs, and just because the prison administration allows me some room to satisfy said basic means does not mean my captors care for me, nor does it mean I agree to be imprisoned for doing so. It is insane to suggest that, just because a falsely imprisoned man uses prison amenities, he somehow grants his consent to being imprisoned. Julian Assange, during all his years of inhumane and unjust imprisonment, has used lighting, heating, clothing, food, water, hygiene, medical care, and some telecommunication. So what? Are you saying that the illegitimate government regimes responsible for his persecution were right to do so?

Also, if an abductee or a rape victim stops resisting to avoid more harm, is that considered consent to be abducted or raped? Truly ludicrous argument.

Third, I am not benefiting from government in any way; the government is benefiting from me, and all of us. The government is a monopoly, which means it is exploiting its “customers” by default because they have nowhere else to turn to. Moving countries is not a solution, because for every region there is one monopolistic government without competitors to governance.

Just because the government half-assedly provides miserable excuses for “services” - such as supposed “security” and “road infrastructure” - doesn’t mean we couldn’t get those services better and cheaper without the government. Plus, who asked the government if I want most of the “services” it pretends to provide me with? I never asked for a tax “service” or a “secret service,” nor did I ask for legions of useless government employees and overpaid politicians.

Everything “I get” from the government is a hopelessly low-quality service I was forced to pay for by a monopolist supplier who - due to its violently enforced monopoly - has no incentive from competition to offer good quality service. Most of what you make goes to direct and indirect/hidden taxes, not to mention government-induced inflation, as well as opportunity cost; the economy’s lost potential from government interventionism, redistribution, and central planning. Most of every price tag you pay for is comprised of taxes and fees you don’t even realize you pay for. Without exaggeration, most of your labor is forcibly taken by the government, and you live only with the little it allows you to keep.

Fourth, being unsatisfied with finding myself in an unjust prison doesn’t make me a hypocrite. It makes you a hypocrite because you are an inmate deluding himself that he is free. And because your painful cognitive dissonance is exacerbated when reminded of this fact, you react with aggression whenever someone shakes you out of your delusion; whenever someone tries to open your eyes to the truth.

And the truth is that centralized coercive government is tyranny, no matter how you spin it with meaningless buzzwords like “democratic process,” “representation,” or “we the people.”

In essence

Are falsely imprisoned people hypocrites for using the prison’s food, water, shower, laundry, heating, bedding, plumbing, health checkups, phones, visitations, or library hypocritical?

No. What would be hypocritical and teeming with cognitive dissonance is loving your oppressor for the occasional and minimal “kindnesses” he shows you after he has brutalized you.

It is thanking your slave owner for feeding you with the scraps from the food you have produced.

If a rapist throws a towel to his victim so she can clean up, does that make the rape OK if she takes it?

This retarded objection suggests that those making it would love their rapist if he gave them a comforting pat on the back or a cigarette after the humiliating act. That is truly hypocritical.

What is morally consistent is taking your brutalizer’s “kindness” without compromising your indignation, without falling for the manipulation of occasional kindnesses.

Besides, the abuser’s occasional kindness is the very thing that perpetuates your abuse, because it keeps you tolerating, hoping that he’ll change, venting your frustration from time to time, not allowing you to build up enough anger to protest.

Never be thankful for your abuser’s occasional kindness. Never concede, never give him an inch. If he gives an inch, take a mile. Never rest complacent and inert in delusion. Be angry. You owe your oppressive government nothing. Your oppressive government owes you everything.

Thank you for reading. I appreciate your time. All my work here is free.

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The dumbest objections against statelessness #5

"You use government services, therefore you’re a hypocrite!"

In essence

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