My thanks to fellow-panarchist Christian Butterbach for a short video of Ron Paul in which he endorses as an ultimate goal libertarian self-government. He specifically mentions enclaves and the Amish as well as communities that, in America’s past, chose voluntarily to live socialistically. He contrasts this freedom to choose one’s own government (as he projects would be a real choice in what he calls a “libertarian society”) with a single monolithic monopoly (and necessarily territorial) government that forces everyone involuntarily to subscribe to what he calls its “socialism.”
I think we can say that Ron Paul here not only understands panarchism but endorses it as what he “really” wants, and, by the same token, I think he would endorse voluntaryism, which comes to the same end. The constitutionalism of Ron Paul (returning to its original interpretation) appears for him quite possibly to be a means to a greater goal, which is a libertarian society, which in this context implies wide social agreement on the concept of voluntary self-governments and tolerance of them. The quickest way to get there is by making as much of government as possible optional or voluntary. This means making secession at the personal level more and more of a reality. And even if it is difficult to see how this can happen, it is very important to keep it in view as a goal. This goal contrasts starkly with any spreading of government involuntaryism (or coercion) into more and more areas of life, here and across the world.
5:41 am on April 4, 2012
