Premise 1: Everybody has a legitimate claim to have political power over that which affects them.

Premise 2: The modern state, via their chosen representatives of a central power, impose majority rule unjustly upon those who don't consent to being governed.

Conclusion: By participating in choosing a representative, you're using the lack of a legitimate political power that the people should have as a means to your own ends. In other words, if the people were truly free, you wouldn't be able to choose who can or cannot govern them and by voting you're using their lack of freedom to pursue your own political goals.

Notice that my argument doesn't depend on the idea of every representative being equally bad for the people or whether voting is useful or not. My argument is based on the illegitimacy of using the power of the state in any way as a means of anarchist political praxis, prior to considerations based on outcomes.

Getting ahead of some responses, I don't believe that voting can be justified through self-defense. This is because most (or at least many) of the people being affected by the representative you vote for are not the oppressors in any sense, so their claim of their liberty being respected prevails and is prior to any objective you may accomplish through voting.

It is also not legitimate to say that their freedom would've been taken from either way, because that doesn't change the morality of your action. When participating in representative democracy, you're using the system for your own goals, and taking advantage of the fact that the people are being oppressed by being governed. And even though that doesn't change the reality of the people being oppressed or not, in one case you use their oppression for your own political goals and in the other you do not.

I don't mean to convince any person who thinks voting is a legitimate and effective way of changing people's lives, although I may doubt if these people are really anarchists. My argument is really directed to the people who think that voting is a very small complement to a much more important anarchist praxis. This is because, if one admits that voting makes such a small difference compared to other activities, one may be more open to the argument I gave to not vote, since the moral cost of doing so is very high on a principled stance.

I hope you found the read interesting, I'm open to discussion in the comments :)

I organized an AMA/Q&A with James McTeigue, director of V for Vendetta, starring Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Fry, John Hurt, and Stephen Rea. It's being re-released in theaters next week for its 20th anniversary.

The AMA post is live here now in r/movies for anyone interested in asking a question:

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1xgs5hm/remember_remember_the_5th_of_november_hi_reddit/

He will be back at 3 PM ET today to answer questions. I recommend asking in advance. Please ask there, not here. All questions are much appreciated!

Re-release trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iW3f4Xu3Zw

Synopsis: In a world in which Great Britain has become a fascist state, a masked vigilante known only as “V” conducts guerrilla warfare against the oppressive British government. When V rescues a young woman from the secret police, he finds in her an ally with whom he can continue his fight to free the people of Britain.

Thank you :)

I consider myself an anarcho-communist, while also believing strongly in council communism. some argue councilcom is a form of anarchy while others label it as just a leftcom ideal. Personally I believe that councilcom is the best form of communism that eventually leads to anarchy.

Hello do you know something about this ?

Heyo

I want to distribute some kind of propaganda piece to help people build an emotional relationship and narrative around anarchism. For me in particular The Dispossessed has stuck with me more than any piece of theory I’ve seen. The book showed me not just a romanticized resistance but an explicit anarchist society in all its flaws and joys. That narrative is what has motivated me for all the years since.

I want to distro something that is able to be that for others. Distroing the whole book isn’t the best sell I think, a lot of people have trouble reading, so something within reasonable print range (10-15pp or so) would be accessible and affordable to produce.

I know I can work on this myself, but I don’t really write fiction anymore. So if someone else has already done this I wanna just distro their work.

Specifically I am looking for something that isn’t just romanticizing resistance, I want people to get a peak at a better world, what we’re actually building and striving for. The dream that keeps you warm when it’s cold and hard.

I figure a comic would be the most ideal, but any short fiction would work. Maybe I could even work on adapting an existing piece to a short comics

Tangentially related, do y’all have any stories or media that shows an anarchist world you believe in? Regardless of if they’re reasonable to distro.

We were recently alerted to a problem with the mod log links in the sidebar where the websites had been rehosted into some crypto thing.

user ziq alerted me to a fix, which I installed: https://developers.reddit.com/apps/public-mod-log

The app appears to be available in new reddit, and it only started collecting data so, it may not have much yet, but it should be good now, same for meta.

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