The Real Activist Divides

by Ian | Aug 8, 2010 | 93 comments

In the online world, there has been much discussion of a “schism” between the activists. The original perception was that the divide was between activists favoring civil disobedience and noncooperation vs in-the-system political activists. In real life, the so-called schism was barely visible. Most people in the liberty movement are friendly and helpful toward one another, and there is no firm dividing line in activist approaches. Many choose differing levels of those two categories of activism and also plenty of other things one can do for liberty such as outreach, education, media creation, internet work, software programming, and more. Sure, there are a few people who are intolerant of certain activist approaches, but that will always be the case with a spectrum of interest. The politicos who are generally intolerant toward those doing civil disobedience and noncooperation are known for their very public complaining about “poisoning the well”.

I finally understand what they mean.

These political activists frequently chastise (as do the bureaucrats and politicians) civdis/noncoops for not “working within the system”. Today I had a conversation on facebook that was quite enlightening. I’d like to share that here. Keep in mind as you read that Seth and I get along fine in the real world, but here we are clearly at loggerheads. He will appear in bold and I will add commentary between the block quotes:

Ian: Apparently working in the system means doing everything the government people demand of you. If they put up a hoop and you don’t jump through it, you’re poisoning the well!

Seth Cohn: Ian, this is quite disingenuous. You decided to hold a ‘drinking game’ at the meeting. You posted openly about it, and then get upset when they stop you from doing it in the first place. Stop being petulantly obtuse that somehow you ‘tried to get involved in the system’, it’s just not true.

Ian: Seth – we handed out fliers to all the councilors and media in advance alerting them that they could repeal the ordinance and citing the ordinances. We WERE working in the system. You just don’t like the method we used to get people excited about going to a BORING city council meeting.

FACT: At the start of that meeting, there were 15 people in the audience section of the council chamber. Eight liberty activists and seven others, at least two of which were city employees I recognized. Put another way, after years of mostly never attending city council meetings, the city council drinking game brought out more liberty lovers than anything I can recall from the past. It’s likely that the police crackdown on people with brown bottles will bring even more people to the next meeting, but only time will tell. This approach has clearly gotten people involved in-the-system, but the complaining political activists are still not happy. Why? Read on.
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