Is there a secret to being smart?
In the classic book “Thinking Better” psychologists David Lewis and James Greene identified programs, or patterned ways of thinking, as the key to making quick, accurate evaluations. They observed that this was the approach to thinking employed by the smartest people.
This is exactly how libertarians think! 
The libertarian approach uses various principles, facts, examples, and bits of logic to make thinking more efficient and accurate. Here at the Zero Aggression Project we call these tools…
Mental Levers
A lever allows you to do more work with less effort. The approach to thinking that uses such tools is…
Leveraged Thinking
Too many people think randomly. With few or no principles to guide them, they have to re-analyze each issue from scratch. Sometimes people like to justify this random approach by giving it a nice sounding name — they call it “independent thinking.” But what is that approach to thinking independent from? Principles? Facts? History? Logic?
In practice, such “independent thinking” is simply random thinking. It is unreliable and time-consuming. It inevitably leads to error and self-contradiction. Imagine if you tried to do math or engineering, or run a court of law that way. The result would be chaos. Even worse…
Random thinking makes people vulnerable to emotional manipulation by political con-men and the ambulance-chasing media. Mental Levers are the cure for this. They anchor your thinking to sound principles, rules, logic, and facts.
The Zero Aggression Principle (ZAP) is a good example of a Mental Lever. 
Voluntaryist-libertarians use the ZAP to judge all political questions. For every issue ask yourself the following questions…
- Does the proposed policy require a threat of force to make innocent people act against their own conscience or preference? If the answer is yes, then you should oppose it.
- Would you feel justified using force against your neighbors and friends to enforce this policy? If the answer is NO, then you should NOT be willing to have politicians, bureaucrats, or police impose this policy on your behalf.
The voluntaryist-libertarian philosophy is rich in Mental Levers
We’ve assembled many of them into collections here in this section of our website. We plan to add many more in the future. You can use the drop-down menu above to view these collections. They include…
- Zero Aggression Basics
- The Nature of Government
- Statism & Statist Myths
- Elements of a Voluntary Society
Take a look. Use our levers to engage in leveraged thinking! Please also…
Share them on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Link to them in discussions on the internet. One of our Mental Levers will often be the exact right thing to say in some point during a discussion. Use them. Spread these concepts far and wide. And…
By Lisa Fulkerson June 23, 2015 - 10:56 pm
I am trying to apply this to my life. I just commented on my friend’s Facebook page. Her son is gay and she posted something about Christian bakers and making wedding cakes. I was just going to ignore it at first but I went back and made a comment (knowing that it wouldn’t probably go very well!) saying that why would you want to force somebody to bake a wedding cake (or anything) if they didn’t want to do it? I felt that there were plenty of folks who would bake you anything you wanted and didn’t care if you were gay or whatever..only if you could pay for it. She replied that it set a precedent – what if restaurant owners refused service to gays, or Asians, or anybody of a different race or religion and I replied that they probably wouldn’t be in business for very long.
I know that there are other folks, just like me, out there that you are educating and we are trying to steer discussions this way. I just want to keep you encouraged. Thank you!
Lisa
By Perry Willis July 2, 2015 - 11:37 am
Good job Lisa. I think one importance of the freedom of association, which includes the freedom to NOT associate, is that it makes visible who the bigots are. Now, I’m not saying that people who don’t want to cater gay weddings are bigots. That issue is a bit more complicated, given the religious angle. But it works the other way too, just as you say. Why would you want to give your gay wedding business to people who disapprove of you?
When it comes to racial issues things are even more clear, or should be. I would like to know who the racial bigots are, so I can punish them by NOT giving them my business.
I think people get confused. Just because it was right to oppose government enforced segregation does not mean that it is right to use government force in the other direction, to forbid all discrimination. We discriminate when we choose sexual partners. Should that be outlawed? We need to keep working to help people think through these issues. And we will continue doing so. Thanks for the encouragement.
By Concerned Citizen April 16, 2018 - 2:53 pm
All good logic if cultural realities do not intrude. The problem has been that the government itself enforced discrimination in a system promoting white supremacy ideology, which is how racism became systemic — going beyond individual preferences. We can’t discount history and its lingering impact across generations. We cannot dismiss the fact that racism allowed white people to impose aggression against black people even during eras of segregation when blacks were minding their own business and whites decided to burn down independent, middle-class black communities in order to enforce notions of white supremacy. Whites benefit from white privilege (and lack of accountability for their unprovoked aggression against blacks) due to a government-sanctioned racial hierarchy that inflicts and overlooks harm directed toward people of color. Otherwise, so many individual whites would not have been able to get away with murdering and doing other forms of harm to innocent people of color.
By Mike November 29, 2018 - 10:17 am
So it is only white people who do these things? Please observe the world as it is. All races are involved in these atrocities bar none. What you are doing here is just another form of race baiting. We should respect everybody and that includes us white people that never do the things you discuss.
By Jackie January 13, 2019 - 4:35 pm
She wasn’t race baiting. She was speaking specifically about what has happened and happens in the United States. Of course other groups have practiced government sponsored racism globally but in her comments she was speaking about American history so she naturally would identify what white America has done to black American specifically, creating the modern racial wealth gap we have today. It is not right for you to just dismiss her whole comment because racist practices exists in other countries too. The fact is that state sponsored racism against black Americans have created a black underclass who has existed in generational poverty for 400yrs. Regardless of your feelings this cannot just continue to be ignored. Middle Black households are only worth $1,700 projected to goto zero by 2053. Middle white households are worth $101,700. Black America only has 2% of the national wealth and 75% of that is calcified into only the top 10% of black Americans. I’m that leaves 90% of black America with basically nothing. This was created by racist policies. You can’t just dismiss it as race baiting because that leaves black Americans to continue to suffer in poverty.
By Paula Barefoot February 22, 2016 - 6:20 am
As a 63 year old trans-grandmother, who is trying to rebuild my county LP as chair pro tem, I often talk to other members of the local LGBT community. I tell then I fail to understand why they wish to force someone to profit from doing business with them when they are opposed to our existence. This usually gets them thinking pretty hard. They just have not thought of it in that way before. Personally, I’d rather deal with someone who supports us and am willing to pay a bit more to do so.
By Hardy Wright September 18, 2015 - 4:19 pm
This is probably the most blatantly ignorant stance I have ever seen. You call it leveraged thinking, I call it brainwashing and indoctrination. You aren’t promoting free thinking, or even active thinking, merely thinking along lines established by your own agenda.
I have an IQ near 160.
I’m an outstanding critical and abstract thinker.
I would no more engage in what you call “leveraged thinking” than I would any other type of indoctrination or limits on my own thought processes.
You’ve shown nothing about how your process has any real benefits other than the subliminal coercion to think like what you refer to as a Libertarian… kinda Jonestown stuff, ya know.
By Perry Willis September 22, 2015 - 11:35 am
Hi Hardy. Your argument contradicts itself. You say that you’re an outstanding critical thinker, and yet, critical thinking uses exactly the kind of mental tools that we’re talking about, and that you’re disparaging. Critical thinking uses rules — rules of logic and rules of evidence. That’s what theories are too. We develop theories to explain what we observe in nature, and then apply those theories. Rules of logic, rules of evidence, and scientific theories, are all mental levers. If, as you claim, you don’t engage in leveraged thinking, then you are NOT, as you claim, outstanding at critical thinking.
By Professor Thom June 10, 2020 - 12:31 am
You lost me at “I have an IQ…” Completely irrelevant to your ability to think clearly. In fact …
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/26792511_Clever_sillies_Why_high_IQ_people_tend_to_be_deficient_in_common_sense
By Hardy Wright September 18, 2015 - 4:24 pm
Remember… telling people how to think is just as oppressive as any slavery.
By Perry Willis September 22, 2015 - 11:38 am
Hello again Hardy. Once again you are failing to live up to your own claim that you are excellent at critical and abstract thinking. You equate persuasion with slavery. The two are not the same — they are opposites.
By Doug Barbieri July 26, 2016 - 11:38 am
Hardy, it is critical to teach people *how* to think. You confuse this with brainwashing, which is teaching people *what* to think. The ZAP advocates are not teaching you what to think.
If you can come up with some logical refutations for the arguments and facts presented here, please, we would love to read them.
Until then, you have not offered any real criticisms and mostly appealed to your own authority.
By Matt September 19, 2015 - 4:12 pm
I’ve always seen the folly of the argument put out there by gays demanding they be catered to by whoever they chose to do business with. It has always appeared to me that it is the gay person in that situation who is the bigot and the aggressor while the other person is just trying to run their life according to their own ideals that harm no one save for offending or hurting the feelings of a handful of gay persons.
The gay community tries to equate the sexual preference they are born with to racism that black people are sometimes subjected to. But when blacks or gay persons act in a racist or bigoted manner they will claim that it is impossible for them to do so because they are black or they are gay. I call BS on that argument all day long. Just because you are black does not mean you can not be racist. If you are black and do something racist they will argue against you all day long saying they can’t be because they are black, and that is the stupidest argument I’ve ever heard in my life. Now gays are also using this stupidest of false arguments to try and win the arguments when they are the aggressor doing something bigoted. These things are encouraged by some sources of prominent media outlets and by the respective communities of the blacks and gays. Please don’t think I mean to just single out blacks comparing in this example, it also is meant to encompass any person of their race that acts that way against others who are not of their race or may be the same race but are gay. It does not include white race because whites are covered by default as being the racist ones by all other races so so called reverse racism is an impossibility.
By Perry Willis September 22, 2015 - 11:50 am
Hi Matt. We support the freedom of association. No one should be forced to associate or do business with anyone. This approach has two advantages. First, it respects individual conscience. Second, it exposes bigots to public view. If I know that someone will not serve black or gay people I will punish that person by not giving him or her my business. The contrary approach, of prohibiting discrimination, hides the bigots from public view, and prevents consumers from punishing them for their bigotry.
A different standard must apply to The State however. When The State discriminates freedom of conscience is destroyed, and all are forced to behave like bigots, even when they are not.
By Penni B November 5, 2015 - 6:25 am
Great point about the State, Perry. Your points concerning individual conscience and exposing bigots is well taken, as well. Would you say that a Christian, Muslim, or Orthodox Jewish baker is bigoted if they would serve a gay couple anytime except for a wedding ceremony? Or would that be a reasonable way to deal with the issue of conscience and freedom of faith (religion, if you prefer), especially if the baker went out of his(or her) way to refer the customer to a gay wedding supporting baker who would offer the same price? These are some of the issues being dealt with due to the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Frankly, I believe that neither side is likely to convince the other of the rightness of their cause. In such cases, both sides should, ‘live and let live’ and respect the other’s beliefs.
By JJ Grey January 20, 2016 - 6:27 pm
Freedom of association is acceptable up to a point – that point is when a service or product is essential. In the 1940s, a black person driving across the country may literally DIE if a gas station owner were to refuse to provide him gasoline which was seen as the station owners right at that time. Thus we got the public accommodation laws, where hotels, hospitals, and certain other public essentials were required to provide service to all people regardless of gender or race.
Baking a wedding cake, or hosting a wedding, is clearly not an public essential service or product. But issuing a marriage permit _is_ (at least as long as a force initiating government requires said permit for a variety of things). Likewise if you are the only grocery store in 50 miles you can not refuse to sell to a person for almost any cause that wouldn’t get that person locked up anyways (not that you have to give them any better price than anyone else….)
By Forrest Blank May 23, 2016 - 5:08 pm
JJ,
If you agree that freedom of association is acceptable, up to a point, and your “point” is “essential products and service”, you appear to also be saying that coercion is acceptable up to a point. You can’t say that non-aggression is the right way for almost all products and services but these other products and services we have to force people to sell them to people. It’s not logically consistent. Either aggression is required, either a little bit or a lot, or non-aggression is required, all or nothing.
I understand where you are coming from. You feel that some products and services are so important to human beings that they should never be denied to anyone willing to pay for them, even if that means aggressing against them to get them to comply. While, it is true, that some products and services are required for the continuation of life, such as food, water, shelter, and security, these products and services don’t exist in a vacuum. Just because A doesn’t want to sell gas to a person with dark colored skin, doesn’t stop B from starting up his own gas station and selling only to people with dark colored skin.
It was true in 1940’s United States that a person with dark colored skin couldn’t start their own gas station. The State, and some people, were willing to aggress against a person with light colored skin to even allow dark colored skin people to use their gas station. The State was willing to use violence to make sure that the majority held opinion of the day was upheld, even though they wouldn’t have had a problem with a dark skinned person owning and operating a gas station that served only dark skinned people (providing, it was so far away from light skinned people that they didn’t have to see it). This is a logical inconsistency with bigotry. As long as a bigot can’t see it happen, it doesn’t bother them.
If you initiate force against someone, whatever the reason, you’ve also agreed that they can also initiate force against you, for whatever their reason. This is the problem of having the State. If you think your cause is good enough to initiate force against someone, eventually, someone will convince enough people that what you are doing requires the initiation of force against you. The only logically consistent principle is that no one has the right to initiate force against anyone.
By Peggy June 19, 2016 - 11:40 pm
I agree with Forrest…the principle of non-aggression does not get overridden by circumstance, even though you present a sympathetic argument about a retailer denying food gas, etc, when they are scarce. The gas station or store owner has no obligation to be in business or to exist for anyone else, although he will not survive if he does not serve the public well. If I was refused service out of bias to my detriment, I might choose to tweet, youtube, facebook post, etc, the hell out of it, and it would be a rare station/store that could withstand the kind of powerfully negative public opinion that would ensue. In the extremely unlikely condition of a true life and death circumstance when minutes or seconds made the difference, I might choose to violate the law and take what I needed, and let the courts decide who was more at fault. The likelihood of such a circumstance is quite remote and does not outweigh the incredible moral advantage and benefits that would come from a full recognition of the NAP.
By Doug Barbieri July 26, 2016 - 11:49 am
Gary is just arguing consequentialism, but the ends don’t justify the means. We have to respect individual choice, and freedom to associate or dissociate are inalienable rights. Even if it means refusing to serve gasoline or food to a person of color, even if their lives depended on it. For if you open that door, you open the door to slavery (now people can be forced to labor for others because of *need*).
And as Forrest pointed out above, nothing occurs in a vacuum. Removing the aggressive force of the state from our lives means more choices, more opportunity, and less institutionalized violence. People of color may open their own gas stations and grocery stores without fear of government prohibition, and can compete on a level playing field. So it works both ways.
Is it perfect? Does freedom to associate/dissociate guarantee fair outcomes and a banishment of bigotry and racism? No. But it’s a set of first principles that must be adhered to no matter what, and we work to solve the problems of society *within* that framework.
By JJ Grey September 29, 2016 - 4:34 pm
Sorry, I am going to continue to disagree.
there are too many places in this country where a refusal of service (something one could not know ahead of time) could spell literal death.
Since, as things are, certain businesses require licenses in order to be such a business it is a trivial additional requirement to have as part of their license a caveat that essential services provided by a business be available in spite of any choice of accommodation. No one has to run a business that provides such services thus there is no ‘slavery’ involved as long as the rules don’t change without notice (which is why I am against the bakery decision).
Should we ever have a society more free of government interference like business licenses I am certain that industry organizations could form that would include such anti-discrimination language (AAA approved gas stations, AMA approved hospitals, Etc.) No one would be forced to be a member but everyone would know that the KKK approved gas stations meant discrimination and the AAA ones meant the reverse, and maps of such things would be available and signs clearly posted. No sneaking discrimination that would strand my grandfather for a week because the gas station refused to sell fuel to a mixed race couple.
By Concerned Citizen April 16, 2018 - 2:58 pm
YES: “A different standard must apply to The State however. When The State discriminates freedom of conscience is destroyed, and all are forced to behave like bigots, even when they are not.”
By Steven Horne October 30, 2015 - 10:16 pm
Your two principles of ZAP thinking are something I adopted over two decades ago after contemplating the nature of inalienable rights as discussed in the Declaration of Independence. I concluded that since government is the power to use force (aggression), meaning that it is used to deprive people of life, liberty and/or property, then the only moral use of force is to counteract people who use force against others. Thus, government should never initiate force, that is, to compell someone who has not tresspassed against the life, liberty or property of another to do anything. And, the moral standard I chose to what I’m willing to support government doing is what would I be willing to use force to compell my own children to do. Which means there is very little of what government does that I consider moral.
Thanks for putting these ideas down so clearly for others.
By Perry Willis November 2, 2015 - 12:35 pm
Thank you Steven. You’re welcome.
By Penni B September 4, 2016 - 4:22 pm
I was musing about the ZAP and other’s political positions being portrayed in music, in particular, John Lennon’s Imagine. There are quite a few things in the original version of the song that don’t quite fit my vision of America, so I revised it:
Imagine no TSA,
Harassing when you fly.
No wands, and scanners gone
patdowns will end, hassles too.
Imagine all the people
traveling, being free
Imagine no police state,
it isn’t hard to do.
Police men serve, not dictate
as they once tried to do
Imagine moral people walking with out fear
You may say that I’m a dreamer
and that this cannot be won
I hope someday we come to freedom
and the State will be undone.
Imagine all the parties,
Atheists, Christians too,
setting aside their bias,
not seeking ways to rule
Imagine all the people letting others be-ee
You and I, we are both dreamers,
In world where rights seem done,
We hope someday we can restore them
and we’ll ZAP the State as one
By Recommended: Zero Aggression Project - Pifflesnoot aka Steve Smith November 8, 2017 - 8:51 am
[…] the notion that the state should even be considered a form of government, properly understood. In “The Nature of Government,” they […]
By Jackie January 13, 2019 - 4:35 pm
She wasn’t race baiting. She was speaking specifically about what has happened and happens in the United States. Of course other groups have practiced government sponsored racism globally but in her comments she was speaking about American history so she naturally would identify what white America has done to black American specifically, creating the modern racial wealth gap we have today. It is not right for you to just dismiss her whole comment because racist practices exists in other countries too. The fact is that state sponsored racism against black Americans have created a black underclass who has existed in generational poverty for 400yrs. Regardless of your feelings this cannot just continue to be ignored. Middle Black households are only worth $1,700 projected to goto zero by 2053. Middle white households are worth $101,700. Black America only has 2% of the national wealth and 75% of that is calcified into only the top 10% of black Americans. I’m that leaves 90% of black America with basically nothing. This was created by racist policies. You can’t just dismiss it as race baiting because that leaves black Americans to continue to suffer in poverty.