Liberty and Prohibition Excerpted from the book; Individual Liberty Selections From the Writings of Benjamin R. Tucker Vanguard Press, New York, 1926 Kraus Reprint Co., Millwood, NY, 1973. Mr. Lucian V. Pinney, a protectionist and a greenbacker - but an anti-prohibitionist - made the following statement in his paper, the Winsted (Conn.) Press: "There is nothing any better than Liberty and nothing any worse than despotism, be it theological despotism of the skies, the theocratic despotism of kings, or the democratic despotism of majorities; and the labor reformer who starts out to combat the despotism of capitalism with other despotism no better lacks only power to be worse than the foe he encounters." Mr. Tucker then took him to task for his inconsistency: Mr. Pinney is a man who combats the despotism of capital with that despotism wh...
The Advisability of Violence. [Liberty, January 16, 1892.] To the Editor of Liberty:(21 ¶ 1) When you preach passive resistance, is it not precisely the same thing as what is commonly called nonresistance?(21 ¶ 2) When William Penn (or was it Fox?) refused to take off his hat for the king it was certainly passive resistance; but, as he made no attempt to punch the king’s head, it is accounted as quite compatible with the Friends’ nonresistance tenets. (21 ¶ 3) I do not think that any practical difference exists between passive resistanc...
Fellow Laborers, Brothers, Sisters, of the Great Human Family: 'I APPEAR before you not as a silver tongued speaker to tickle your fancies, please your conceits, or to call forth your applause by lofty flights of oratory; but as a cool and deliberate sympathizer in your labors, sufferings, hopes and fears; as one who for years has studied to find out what the matter is in this favored land, that possesses all the elements of prosperity of all other countries in the world; that there can be at the same time creaking warehouses, burdened by the surplus products, and also millions starving. Mothers agonizing for their children who cry for bread they have not to give; fathers desperate and ready for almost anything that promises redress. I come... (From : RevoltLib.com.)