Libertarians Adopt Direct Action Civil Disobedience Tactics

Joey King has written a summary of the recent national NWTRCC Conference for The Activist Magazine: War Tax Resistance Renaissance

I’ve been noticing a number of stories showing up here and there about civil disobedience being used as a tactic by libertarians.

• In New Hampshire last April, Mike Fisher was arrested in front of the office of the state Board of Barbering, Cosmetology and Esthetics for giving a manicure without a license. Fisher says he was inspired to commit this act of civil disobedience after watching the movie “Gandhi.” He plans to find another stupid law to break once he gets off of probation for breaking this one. (Photos: Mike Fisher gives his illegal manicure, the police apprehend the dangerous rogue manicurist) The state went to absurd lengths to prevent this illegal emery boarding, first seeking a restraining order, but eventually being content sentencing Fisher to a month in jail.
• The folks at Bureaucrash plan to “Crash Across America” and break a dumb law in every state.
• One crew plans to create their own mail service that competes with the federal government monopoly on first-class mail delivery. (Lysander Spooner beat ’em to that a century and a half ago.)
• Another group is planning on “publicly giving a six-pack of our homebrewed beer to an underage Iraq War veteran.”
• “For the past month, drug users and former drug users have been giving Hungarian police fits as they march up to police stations and turn themselves in, demanding to be charged as violators of the country’s repressive — by European standards — drug laws, according to reports from participants and organizers. The campaign has managed to put drug reform in the media spotlight just as a Hungarian parliamentary committee examining the subject is getting underway.”

I hope this catches on. What the libertarian movement has been lacking lately is just this sort of grass roots in-your-face activism. Too much jaw-wagging about theory and hoping the politicians will throw you a bone and not enough getting your hands dirty, or, in this case, manicured.

“Libertarians have spent so much time complaining about government, but civil disobedience is a path to actually fixing things,” [Russell] Kanning said. “Who knows what this might inspire?”… He claims not to have paid federal income tax since 1998 and drives without a valid driver’s license because he thinks it’s a nuisance. He’s considering burning his Social Security card.

Thanks to Carnival of the Capitalists for pointing readers to my Lucky Duckies entry.