The fact that I never voted in my life could mean that I agree with you. I do not have the guts to vote, it's a too filthy mechanism for me.
Nevertheless, I still think that "working inside the system" can be positive to achieve specific goals that make our day-by-day life better.
You've earned a bit of esteem in my eyes by this... that you refuse even force by proxy as "filthy" speaks well of you. And yes, perhaps a single-issue vote, against a specific measure, might help achieve some goal or another, but as you said, it is a filthy practice, voting, and I consider what few benefits it may offer insufficient to offset the distaste.Nevertheless, I still think that "working inside the system" can be positive to achieve specific goals that make our day-by-day life better.
I already got a lot of esteem for you - not because we agree on some important points, but because we disagree on some important points and still your debating in an intelligent and civilized way. And you are not making fun of my very poor english
So we've placed me. But you, and your comrades, have consistently skirted around several issues. I'll settle for you responding to this one:
I'm all for equalizing opportunities. That's why I'm anti-State. But when you try to equalize wealth, you only end up with fail. You'd need to continually steal from the more productive, and give to those less able. Then what are you doing, but trying to compensate for physical or mental inequalities? And eventually, the result is exactly the opposite of your goal. Opportunities are quashed, along with the drive to take them. Why bother, when anything you do to stick out from the crowd will just be cut off and siphoned to those who didn't take the opportunity you did? Meanwhile, the apparatus you've set up to equalize wealth has itself become the most powerful player in the game, and we're back to square one.
Obviously no real anarchist would try to equalize wealth by force. That's why anarchists and communists fighted to death despite the fact that they initially cooperated in the First International. As Rudolph Rocker's said:
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Socialism will either be free, or it won't be at all.
I also disagree with you on the fact of the "less able stealing from the more productive". I think this is unrealistic and won't happen, as mid-sized (Aragón, Spain) and small-sized (Israel Kibutz's) anarchist experiences has demonstrated. How it would work on a large scale, we don't know - we can just speculate.
I personally believe that capitalism and its wild competition, its perpetual growth goal, etc. is profoundly self-destructive. I think that "nature's way" is cooperation. While Darwin was right pointing out that nature is a fight for survival, this does not invalidate the fact that the vast majority of animals and pre-private property societies cooperate in order to survive. Just look at bees, aunts, etc... Kropotkin wrote a wonderful anthropological essay about that.
As per Kropotkin:
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There is an immense amount of warfare and extermination going on amidst various species; there is, at the same time, as much, or perhaps even more, of mutual support, mutual aid, and mutual defense...Sociability is as much a law of nature as mutual struggle.
Last but not least: I'm also surprised by the US conception of "liberal" as left-wing. While it is true that the first liberals (Enlightenment age free-thinkers) have inspired both left and right wing philosophies, and that they were more "left-wing" oriented in the sense I explained above (position on inequality), the historical truth is that modern liberalist theories were prolifically developed by "lassaiz-faire" supporters of industrial capitalism of the likes of Adam Smith, Locke and more recently Hayek, Mises, etc. Therefore, XIX Century inspired liberalism is pro-capitalist and right-wing. This is commonly accepted in Europe (all right wing parties except fascists call themselves "liberals"), while in US you call liberals left-wing supporters. Quite curious indeed, and with no historical basis IMO.