Claire Wolfe gave The Picket Line a plug a while back
that was full of praise for my project. “I wish that the anarcho-theorists who
know exactly how life ‘ought’ to be conducted in Libertopia — but whose own
daily lives are filled with tax-paying and other forms of
going-along-to-get-along with the state — would take more of a lesson from
Dave Gross,” she wrote.
In a subsequent
post, she added some nuance to that position: “I do go on about the
virtues of dropping out and not paying the effing state to commit foul
deeds. And I have no use whatsoever for people who talk the ivory-tower
theoretical talk of freedom but don’t walk the
right-down-here-on-the-gritty-ground walk of freedom. But that’s not to say I
imagine that everybody out there with a good job and a hefty tax bill ought
to be cringing in guilt. Every subversive, underground movement (which freedom
is, and must be, these days) needs its moles, too.…
“I do believe that dropping out and refusing to fund the growing police state
is the most moral individual choice. But it’s not necessarily the most
practical choice. And if we’re really to have a freedom movement and
not just a bunch of ragged individuals, we need our ‘mole’ brothers just as
much as we need any other sort of freedom partisans. The only deep
sin against freedom is the sin of hypocrisy — of talking the talk when you
don’t even make an effort to walk the walk. But the walk can be walked down a
lot of different paths.”
John Venlet at
Improved
Clinch has started
a heated
discussion about The Picket Line. One writer
insists that “there’s nothing wrong with paying ransom to the state when it
advances your pursuit of your values.… If Gross is happy with his choice
that’s great, but I often detect more than a wiff of pride in self-sacrifice
from folks advocating similar paths and I find nothing admirable in
self-sacrifice.”
A similarly-themed discussion is ongoing
over at The Claire Files Board.
One commentator takes issue with my feeling complicit with the government by
paying taxes. “If a petty thief or mugger manages to steal $20 from you, then
buys a knife with the money and slits fifty throats with the knife will that
be your fault too?” he asks.
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