Publisher’s Note: Max V over at his site published this broadside this morning against his tactical competitors in the training industry. He kindly asked that I make mention of his post over there. Along the way he assumes I write to him in this post. He is mistaken. My site has the curious sobriquet of ZeroGov for a reason. I take no sides in the competency debate and hear nothing but great things about his training. He and I have a gentleman’s disagreement on what should transpire after the SLAVFOR are defeated.
What’s curious is that no matter what minimalist or nil approach one takes to the state in mindset, it will have little bearing on the coalitions formed to dispose of the Main Enemy which is central government. Neither Constitutionalists nor abolitionists make better guerrillas. If abolitionists are wrong and all the ideas are rubbish, one shouldn’t concern oneself with their notions. A close reading of the Anti-Federalists will show the growing alarms and skepticism at the embryonic forms of the Constitutional national government even before it flowered into the totalitarian orchid it grew into after the Second American Revolution in 1861.
Brutus: “History furnishes no example of a free republic, anything like the extent of the United States. The Grecian republics were of small extent; so also was that of the Romans. Both of these, it is true, in process of time, extended their conquests over large territories of country; and the consequence was, that their governments were changed from that of free governments to those of the most tyrannical that ever existed in the world.”
I am simply hoping this is not a redux of the Irish Rebellion in 1922 where socialist fought socialist to defeat the other side and install socialism. In the end, quite literally, I simply want no part of anyone’s government. I wish Max nothing but peace and prosperity. -BB
“I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.”
-H.L. Mencken
Why am I in the Brotherhood Without Banners? Why does this site exist, and what will you get out of it? Every blog is something of a vanity project and a catharsis for thinking out loud, and this satisfies both for me. Aside from writing a book, a blog is a legacy that may last far longer than the author. Nothing really disappears from the Internet and I am certain there are folks in the government who are always interested in maintaining a watchful eye on blogs such as mine, because they represent the most direct philosophical threat to their very existence.
In an earlier phase of my intellectual development, I had been seduced by the heady siren song of limited government, which sounds like the most viable solution, but on closer examination is the most silly of chimeras. There is no historical precedent in the Western world, throughout its entire history, of a government calving off another or rising out of the ashes of extinction of the previous regime, containing themselves within the confines of power originally set forth at their germination. None. There are plenty of empty promises and proclamations of purity, but the usual suspects will be self-selected, seeking to rule others; most of whom are socio- or psycho-pathic. Politics is nothing more than the nationalization of human transactions, where the converse is the complete privatization of the planet. The latter is the charter of this blog. Nationalization is the government seizure (there is no polite term) of a product, service or behavior. This can happen with something as mundane as the circumference of grapefruit, to something as epic in scope as the forfeiture of health care or the use of the innumerable malum prohibitum laws on the books.
For those who take a longer view of history, it becomes abundantly clear that governments in their life stages, until their eventual and inevitable deaths, rarely seem to calculate second- and third-order effects of their meta-behaviors. I always presume that, while good intentions may be the standard apologia for the lion’s share of government, action and behavior, this is simply an intellectual smokescreen with the same vapidity of hate crimes; hiding the nature of government which is the threat or use of violence against anyone or anything which either refuses to comply or pay the assessed tribute. One should never measure a government’s behavior by its intent, but the fruits of its actions. And that is bitter fruit indeed for the totality of human history. It is almost as if we have been in a fever-dream, surrounded by inmates in a vast prison state which has effectively indoctrinated people to consciously think that harming others through fining, jailing, maiming and killing is the only possible blueprint for society. Somewhat like the bird who has lived in a cage all its life and still hasn’t figured out what wings are used for. Think of that, a near consensus among thinking human beings that the only way to organize a just society is through terror.
Terrorism is the use of politically motivated violence against non-combatants or innocents. Absent the very existence of terrorism, bullying and a daily violation of the Ten Commandments, no government can exist. One might say that the Global War on Terror, or whatever words the Western military-industrial complex has used to re-flag it, has exponentially increased the size of government and has been pointed in the wrong direction.
We have friends and relations who enjoy boasting of law and order. The tough guys who pronounce that the latest police beating was warranted, and the prison rape the men will endure while caged for their sentence is perfectly justified for their crimes, even if the offense were as banal as a paperwork violation, avoidance of taxes or an infraction against the tens of thousands of laws of which no normal human could know or comprehend. Remember that it is all about the law and not the human context, because context is totally absent from government calculus. It is part of its power.
I have mentioned before that every American is subject to indefinite detention in the alleged justice system the Federal government and its subsidiary political elements, known as states, have erected. It is another tool in the arsenal of democracy that is the fancy name for mob rule, subject to the kakocrats at the top of the system. The government has been successful beyond their wildest expectations in creating a captive and occupied population from which they derive both their material succor and the sophisticated means to bully and control tens of millions of humans. The government must erect these officious and brutal means of suppression, otherwise the small percentage of liberty minded folks who chafe at living on a feedlot, and having their lives micromanaged, would set a very bad example for the rest who would take notice of the people who elected not to abide by the system. As with the likelihood of secession looming ever brighter, once the first person is allowed to opt out of the government confines, a stampede will commence that will be unstoppable. This is why the IRS is invested with such formidable power to fine and cage recalcitrant taxpayers.
America has conducted a brilliant government campaign to put the state at the top tier of idolatry, with family and individual volition at the bottom. This has been a two-tiered assault. The government makes it very inconvenient for individuals to fight its depredations and ensures that the education system is kept in a tight orbit around government supremacy. Most of my readers have attended some college and have seen first-hand the absolute monopoly of the government supremacist mindset among faculty, administration and students alike.
When one suggests that non-violence may be a preferable foundation for a peaceful society, instead of the enslavement of government, one is almost universally scorned. Is it not interesting that all the fevered anti-war rhetoric from the “left” has disappeared since the election of the latest scoundrel to the Presidency? Collectivism permeates the American academy with very little exception, and this from doyens in the humanities and social “sciences” whose jobs may belabor 8-12 hours per week, unless they have paid teaching assistants available. The rest of the time is certainly not used to practice critical thinking, but to sharpen the same weak-minded rationalizations of the academy to justify the ultimate goal of extinguishing every private aspect of human life. They prettily dress the rhetoric in high-minded humanitarian goals, but in the end they are the intellectual equivalents of prison guards in their moral imaginations.
And then we have the mewling from certain sections of the feedlot about the sacred Constitution and returning to our roots to regain our liberties. Fat chance, since the germination of that document gave us the leviathan we labor under today. That is not coincidence but causation, the Constitution was designed from the beginning to be an engine for giant government.
Here is a thought experiment for you: the next time you have a convivial conversation about politics or society with your friends and family, ask them if they are capable of conducting the discussion without advocating the initiation of violence on their fellow humans. See if the conversation about politics can in any fashion examine alternatives to inherent violence and compulsion. While I despise the false front of Left and Right, which are simply degrees of collectivism, you will notice that even the “peace” advocates tend to embrace the use of force domestically, and the “hawks” tend to glory in the killing of humans around the globe. Yet it is hard to distinguish between them anymore, especially the latest occupant of the Offal Office. Despite a rather elegant Leftist pedigree, he is indistinguishable in his actions from his neoconservative/socialist predecessor(s).
The government program of indoctrination has been so thorough that most will be speechless and unable to communicate because government is not about the noble ideas of securing rights or ensuring liberty, but the cardinal opposite. In its most naked and unadorned form, it is simply a cop. Invested with all we have come to expect from that particular class: a base viciousness with no limit whatsoever in the ability to kidnap, cage, maim and kill for crimes that would not exist within the realm of common sense or decency. Killing in the name of love, indeed.
I will continue my quixotic and scintillating quest in the near future to explicate why cooperation and non-violence (except in response to initiated violence) are the preferable and virtuous way to order a society. This may be a Sisyphean task but a necessary one. We owe it to our children to offer a better future and not a more comfortable (for now) prison cell.
Persist and resist.
“A government that can at pleasure accuse, shoot, and hang men, as traitors, for the one general offence of refusing to surrender themselves and their property unreservedly to its arbitrary will, can practice any and all special and particular oppressions it pleases. The result — and a natural one — has been that we have had governments, State and national, devoted to nearly every grade and species of crime that governments have ever practised upon their victims; and these crimes have culminated in a war that has cost a million of lives; a war carried on, upon one side, for chattel slavery, and on the other for political slavery; upon neither for liberty, justice, or truth. And these crimes have been committed, and this war waged, by men, and the descendants of men, who, less than a hundred years ago, said that all men were equal, and could owe neither service to individuals, nor allegiance to governments, except with their own consent.”
– Lysander Spooner
Good article. Hits many or all nails squarely on the head. However, despite the truth of these comments, I believe I see another more sinister layer riding herd over these natural proclivities of government described in this fine article. After reading Carroll Quigley’s ‘Anglo-American Establishment’ I can never, ever see the word the same way again because Quigley has documented in exquisite detail (after 20 years of study and 2 years of unlimited access to the CFR’s archives) the actual method used by the mostly unknown elites to manipulate and orchestrate the world into a form they prefer. I believe these same techniques are being used by the intellectual progeny of what Quigley described at the ‘network’ controlled by the Milner group.
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Well Bill, great things have to begin somewhere.
For what it is worth, and I hope it is worth a great deal, you have made a believer out of me. There is everything to be said for changing even one mind, that is how great things begin.
It has been a profound journey, and I think for the first time in my life I understand what true liberty is and I am free. Maybe that is the road to secession, the key, for how can one appreciate secession if one doesn’t even appreciate God’s grace of being so free total freedom from slavery of the state is the only true freedom. After all, if it where not for states, of any kind, tribal, feudal, fascist, Marxists, corporate, what have you, there is no tyranny on a mass level.
Us humans are a self delusional and self destructive, a self enslaving species. At least a large percentage of humanity has a propensity to seek to live under the boot of one form of tyranny or another.
That is a tall hurdle in itself to overcome. The complexities and dynamics are difficult to define in terms which enlighten hearts and minds to the truth true freedom is there for the taking, because it already exists, it is a natural born state of all people, and that slavery to the state or any tyranny is an artificial construct of human interaction.
When you are truly free, it is not a choice, it is a state of being. When you are free, anything is possible, that’s just it, because you ARE free. You do choose to be free or a slave though. And that is the rub.
Of all the opponents of secession, the constitutionalists offer a mind blowing contradictions in terms against secession. That of “limited government”, which by any logical dissection at its best is tyranny light, and that somehow that little bit of slavery, willingly worshiped as a particularly western form of God-less cargo cult, that little bit of administrative tyranny can somehow be contained, but, and here is the rub, secession is unobtainable, impossible, a fools errand?
It is not that secession is not possible, it is that that little bit of slavery is not possible.
And once you embrace that fundamental truth, you are truly free, an you have seceded from tyranny, and as a number of people, a plurality, become truly free in themselves, they constitute secession.
That is the power and crux of consent, embodied in the real constitution, the constitution possessed in a body of people not slaved, but freemen in every sense. To people thus, everything is possible.
I say to all, such people are true constitutionalists, as they posses a constitution and spirit of absolute freedom and nothing less will do.
Doug,
Those are inspiring words and you need your own blog. But keep preachin’ here!
Bill
Humble thanks Bill.
Have been giving that idea a lot of thought, had a kind of epiphany as to how I am going to do something so radical and so in the sonofabitches faces I’ll be on every state spy, domestic terrorist, unsecured spaces indigenous insurgent list, every hacker list at the white house there is. I want my own dedicated server at the fusion center in Utah. Make the banksters blood run cold.
And I won’t even have to defy a single one of their diktats. I’m going to give them a taste of their own medicine.
Guarantee you what I’m going to do is the tyrant’s darkest nightmare. I’m going to grab the leviathan by the tail and yank on that fucker with everything I have. And in one simple provincial act I’m going to show them a world without their rules. Where their power and influence isn’t worth a bucket of warm spit.
Bill, Brandon Smith has an interesting piece over at AM about revolution and abolition.
I think he almost gets it. I think abolition is getting to him though.
I posted:
You may not be interested in revolution, but revolution is interested in you”…
…Not sure who wrote that, yet it is truth.
Brandon, all revolutions start someplace. An idea, and after much “intellectual” mulling the idea over, it leads to a movement of people, a plurality, and under duress ‘s and repressions over long periods of time, your armed revolution may come to pass. There are many forms of revolution, not all of the armed violent variety.
Which begs the question, not to belittle the benefits of armed violent revolution when necessary, why for such a sharp and gifted writer are you seemingly so anxious for armed violent revolution?
Before you get your hackles up at my temerity for questioning your motives, the founders of this republic invested years and years, countless dialog and argument, long before violent defiance took place. That is reason at work. Something maybe we all who desire our liberty just may have to figure out all over again. No matter which flavor of liberty.
I think there is many facets of the idea of Constitutional government which have much going for it, like the ideas behind the 1st, 2nd and 4th amendments, but the rest is usurpation, a huge loophole for administrative law to get its foot in tyranny’s door.
I believe the idea of secession or abolition has much merit also. Though It has never lasted long enough to create a cultural dynamic with longevity beyond historical accounting. Like the idea of liberty itself, which didn’t exist as a sovereign concept for most of human history, once created it has stuck like glue in hearts and mind, and like the compact of confederation of the fledgling states before the USC, as you said, it did not last long, but the ramifications from liberty of economy, prosperity that resulted, was a paradigm in the truest sense.
Personally I suspect if history is any gauge the idea of constitutional law is not possible, ratifying it sure, but it does not have the inherent power to withstand the onslaught of tyrannical men and a society that looses sight of the inherent value in a republic such as it is and preserving it. The leviathan and all that?
Maybe just maybe, we all have to be brutally frank with ourselves, and consider the idea maybe due to our nature as humans, accept the possibility we are just not capable of having these giant nation states and rightful liberty in concert with each other.
I have taken on the idea of considering such an idea, of accepting it for what it is, and in doing so, I have discovered it isn’t such a bad idea or difficult to accept, not that I have tossed the baby out with the bath water, far from it, but it has led to the idea that no other form of state where liberty reigns as natural law, and the sovereign person is sacrosanct, has worked. In 5000 years it hasn’t worked.
We can take our cue from the 5000 year leap though, because something clicked in hearts and minds, and a revolution was fought, a very successful revolution, one like no other, in, 5000 years, so there is that. Liberty was truly born.
So tell me why abolition is not possible?
Not why people right now are not capable of a revolution for it, I get all that, and I have faith in my fellow man, screw anybody who says otherwise, because once in an age us humans get it right, and little people everywhere on their own get it right every day, they do the right thing regardless, because they got virtue, and principles, and indomitable spirit. I try my darndest every day to do the right thing. That is civility, and faith, Brandon.
I’m not lazy or a scared keyboard commando. I ain’t a whiner or permit despair rule my being. And I say never say die. I believe in something better, larger than me, is, and is possible. And it ain’t the constitution, because it plainly never created an iota of liberty, that is for men like you and me to do, and I don’t think anarchy is the way either, but abolition and secession, it begins where the heart is, and I believe if a plurality is capable of becoming one, in abolition of the state, it is smart enough to do other “impossible” things.
And besides, how can something as rightful as abolition of the beast of the state be something that isn’t good, when all around us, states commit acts of genocide, piracy, corruption on a scale almost unfathomable and the associated slavery and serfdom commiserate with such tyranny.
How is anybody going to make anybody respect the idea of constitutional government, the idea of the rule of law as a system of government, when it hasn’t worked to begin with in the first place?
How can abolition be worse than that?
Even the idea of abolition and secession?
How else is rightful liberty possible?
To MtTopPatriot. If I understand what you propose to do, you propose to police the world of policemen? Then you will have to police the world of all criminals. Then you will begin to police the world of anyone who might become a criminal. Then who will police the world of you?
The bottom line is that every person is an iceberg, whose hidden 90% lurks beneath the surface and will damage anyone and anything that comes near enough. Except that, unlike icebergs, we are sentient and sensitive. We can and do feel any and all intrusions into our space, and defend that space even if confronted with the truth that we only occupy the space by chance, and any other person has the same ‘right’ to the space we happen to occupy. Any movement, voluntary or not, transfers our mass into a different position in space, or transfers another potentially into ‘our’ space. By nature, then, we either fight or fly. The more others there are, the more likely there will be occasions to fight or fly. There are precious few occasions for enjoyable, or acceptable, for instances where we happen to have either appendages or cavities that allow shared space, and then not in any very long-lasting, certainly no permanent, fashion.
“…and any other person has the same ‘right’ to the space we happen to occupy.”
Stick with that theory and my guess is that you’ll end up with no space.
Dude, without question you don’t have a clue what Im going to do. In fact, it is what I am not going to do.
So…Myob!
And if you can not figure that out, read Frank Russell’s masterpiece, ” And Then There Where None”
Hey ‘zombie….I see you fall into the trap of the statists, beseeching those you would define as “criminals”, to justify your dependence and fixation on maintaining the “criminal” enterprise of your fellow citizens organized as government.
“Criminals”….you libs seem to forget WHO defines what is a crime. A harmless act as simple as placing a less than 16” barreled upper on an Armalite lower, not blessed by those criminals known as ATF (yes, I define those bastards as criminals) with their $200 permission slip will deprive one of life, liberty and happiness as these bureaucratic scum and a black-robed bandit throw you in a FUSA jail for 10 years. What peace of the community was disturbed by such an action? What harm came to another person because one combined two inanimate objects together ? Nothing. NADA. Zip. But now such a criminal is a federal felon no different than a rapist or a murderer.
The criminals are within that called government. Only violence by the oppressed against the rulers and their appointed bureaucratic lackeys, will rid us of that tyranny. However, what is the alternative ?
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“Terrorism is the use of politically motivated violence against non-combatants or innocents.”
Thank God. I was beginning to think I was the last person left in the world who understood this distinction.
You will note that 98+% of the incidents you will hear misdescribed in the news today as “terrorism” are actually incidents whose targets are government officials or government installations. That is not “terrorism” — that is resistance, insurrection, or revolution.
Hi Bill,
I am glad you are fighting the good fight. I had a discussion on topics like this with some friends. I don’t why the topic comes up but I got bombarded with questions and accusations on ‘My vision of a society without government’.
Frist I have to constantly remind people who think it is my ideas alone that many of these ideas have come from people before I was even born.
Second the worst thing when talking with most people is that a lot them they think that the government is a necessary evil that society can’t do without. I got questions like well how would your society handle crime without cops, national defences, educating the children of the poor, feeding the poor, health care and mass migrations all without a government. Questions I am sure people could look up them for the answers but I tried to answer them even when I got comments like well that is just utopian. What makes it hard is that most people have grown up in a government system, and they don’t at first see some of the violent in their society?
If I say when ask that we don’t need governments and society would be better without the use of force it comes off to most people like I wish to risk replacing an alright though not perfect system of governing society with a new untested (and possibly dangerous) society. If there is problems in say the way the school system works would not be easier and better to reform it? Or any other part of government such as the police force?
They don’t see a problem (or they see it but don’t care) with bureaucrats threatening others with laws, regulations, taxes and fines essential come down to ‘do things the way we tell you or else’.
Yet if you take away the badges and had a group of people that sent you threats and if you don’t complied someone will show up at your door and make you fall in line. Most of us would see the initiation of force as clear as day.
I would prefer to show a person the system for what is. A lot people resist on seeing it and don’t want to take the red pill. Once a person see the current system for what it actually is they will not want to reform it but fight to change it.
I must say it is a hard and long road and at time lonesome. I must say it is made much easier with people who are on the same journal.
Thank you for your work, Bill.
I hope you are doing well.
Bill, I certainly agree with your thoughts contained in your essay. But, I find myself asking, time and time again, “what is the alternative, what is the solution?” .
To me, the solution is hemp and lead applied to those one calls “government”. Then what ?
FWIW.
““what is the alternative, what is the solution?”
GREAT question! The answer is the Key to the Mint. MTP knows.
Here’s the answer. Yeah, you gotta figure out some alternative, but you only have to figure it out for one person. Do that and all the other details will fall into place.
Now tell me that’s not the right answer.
Read Rothbard. He lays out a society without government and how it would work. Who maintains the roads? Who provides security? How is criminal punishment handled? What about the folks that can’t afford private police? What if a neighboring country invades my area? Trade? Immigration? Contracts?
Crosby….
1. Lets see….neighboring country(ies) are invading FUSA with 10s of thousands of their citizens, at the urgings of a scoundrel in the West Wing who himself is a violation of the USC. So much for .gov border security.
2. Trade? You mean that “free” trade that has given us GATT, NAFTA, the WTO and a trade deficit with every trading partner the world over. You mean that trade? That trade where we are no longer a sovereign nation because we can’t manufacture any longer? You mean that trade? That trade that supplies our military with bandages made in Israel and Red China? You mean that trade? Trade that has cost us millions of private sector jobs, growth of tyrannical government and a trade deficit of Trillions of dollars with the Red Chinese, all courtesy of your beloved criminals you call “government”.
Immigration? You mean the illegal immigration of soetoro- obama where the rule of law is ignored and tax dollars of what few working Americans remain are being stolen from us and given to the invaders violating our southern border. You mean that immigration run amuck and encouraged by the criminal soetoro-obama regime you call “government”?
Criminal punishment? Courtesy of the government you worship and pay your tribute to, a citizen in FUSA commits 3 felonies every day without intent or malice or knowledge of breaking the law. You want to make certain your beloved government punishes THOSE people, correct Crosby?
Your mentality Crosby is what has destroyed the US Constitution and allowed the demise of this once great nation. Kiss your country goodbye.
Read more carefully before you reply. Crosby was simply laying out all the tough questions which Rothbard took the time to work out. He is NOT the problem.
What Crosby wrote is a critical consideration. For many reasons. I think the realization of abolition will live or die by it.
I think too it I something which must be confronted with open minds and all the sincerity which can be mustered.
Those who oppose secession and abolition in the constitutionalist movement are within their right to question these important issues.
It would be a sign of maturity and legitimacy of the abolition movement to come of age through reasoned dialog and thoughtful argument based on the realities of our times.
It would accomplish many things of grew value, win over hearts and minds, and give the movement a jump start of validity it lacks today in the eyes of many possible allies.
Essentially a sea change is needed.
I think to there is a great opportunity at hand. I can’t help but notice as the adversity between the two camps grows, many commonalities in desired goals are not only not too far off from each other, but the constitutionalists, as their world view matures and the realities of the failures of our constitutional republic become ever more evident, as the enemies of our liberty are revealed in all their tyranny, there is growing sense that constitutionalism is not the panacea it was once considered. Even if that is not in itself openly recognized by all concerned.
An adversarial relationship by both camps is not going to get us all anywhere. And by that I contend it I contingent upon the abolition movement to enlighten others to the ideals and beautiful benefits of a society which implements a culture where rightful liberty and freedom from slavery of the state lifts all souls, provides prosperity on a scale unimaginable with the sword of administrative tyranny hangs above necks, where our energies and labors, our civility and faith in human nature unfettered by the meddling and impunity of the state sets man free in ways no other system of governance can obtain.
A very thought provoking idea. Still, the idea seems utopian. From the dawn of our existence, it has been man’s nature to war.
Minor correction, mine is a dystopian idea because plenty of folks will fail and suffer the consequences of less prudent behavior.
Things will be sporty…for an hour.
We all live in spontaneous order; some simply have a yen to give people power over them that need not be consented to nor obliged.
What do you think should happen after the SLAVFOR are defeated?
I think the minarchists, Constitutionalists and all the other government supremacist fetishists will go to war against the Brotherhood Without Banners because they will refuse to submit to the latest variation of SLAVFOR.
SLAVFOR will live on in the “revived” Federalist Constitutionalists, trading one socialist paradigm for yet another.
In the words of Spooner: “But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist.”
Jefferson had it right but curiously did not evoke the need for a national government: “Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”
The Constitution. Bill says it was designed from the beginning to be an engine for giant government. Is there an article talking about this in detail on this blog? Anyone else know of a article that I can read about this?
Gary North wrote about the coup in 1787.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fgarynorth.com%2Fphildelphia.pdf&ei=Z4_bVJuKLMezggTjlYPQAw&usg=AFQjCNFAfCX5PkBqHD5N7CKD2BPN0ZmLpA&sig2=h18YAsJd_MLbcFR1GV4IwA&bvm=bv.85761416,d.eXY
And of course Lysander Spooner is all over this: https://praxeology.net/LS-NT-6.htm
Bill, your North link doesn’t come up when I click it . . .
Hologram of Liberty by Ken Royce/Boston T Party. Also: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2009/09/william-buppert/the-constitution-the-god-that-failed/
who is brotherhood without banners?
Abolitionists and an-caps…
Brilliant writing again Bill, and I learned a new word – kakocracy – thank you.
I think this is important in the context of everything. Skinners operational conditioning. It applies to more than just the social engineering by the state, and to the state, of war mongering, it runs the gamut of efforts to breed liberty out of the citizenry. And it has been incredibly effective.
I think the largest hurdle to overcome in our culture is not only the tyrants but ourselves. You see it all around. People who want their liberty in the mold of constitutional Republican form of government are appalled by a purer form, a higher plane of liberty, or is it a sovereign form of personal liberty, such as abolition and secession. They say it is impossible, unobtainable. Yet their pseudo liberty is, even in the face of its blatant failure. I think conditioning across culture makes a thing acceptable when evidence, reason and logic prove at the very least it is something worth the possibility because it has never been tried, and how can it be then considered apostasy if no one knows it is impossible, to begin with. A real conundrum that right there.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/operant-conditioning-americans-iranians-and-russians/#more-539167
Honestly, I think many of us in this camp screw ourselves.
Let me ask any of you this simple question; How many of you have always been an-caps, voluntaryists, etc? I am willing to bet that since the age of 4 or 5 that not one of us can honestly lay claim to that moniker.
History has proved to the mass majority of us in here that “limited government” is but in fact a rainbow farting unicorn. It doesn’t, nor has it ever for any length of time ever existed in practice.
So ask yourself, from what point did I have my feet planted before someone woke me up? Those are exactly the folks that we can wake up. If you were a liberal then guide other liberals down your path. I think that most of us at one time, had a hard on for the CotUS. So start from there. DO NOT start from where you are NOW, as you will loose these folks, and lets face it, we need NUMBERS in this fight or nothing will change. When the SHTF, there will still be more of them then their are of us as of today.
For Constitutionalists, may I suggest starting at Thomas Jefferson and moving in the direction of the obvious conclusions of his heart felt philosophy. If you are having this discussion with a Constitutionalist, they obviously FEEL that something is amiss, and we can point out that it was that eventually the government moved in the direction of the Hamiltonians, thus in order to fix the problem, we have to move back in the direction of the Sage of Shadwell. I have never ever met ONE “patriot” (self described) that doesn’t hold Patrick Henry in high regard (albeit most have never read anything by the man other than the last two sentences of his Call to arms speech at St. Johns Church). Use this icon to EXPOSE them to the arguments he made against the constitution. History vindicates almost every single argument the man made against the Constitution. Viola, Instantly you have exposed them to the prescient views of the anti-federalist. The rest will take care of itself.
Read to them the Lockean principles that Jefferson wrote in the DoI. They know this document and IDENTIFY it with Merika and thus themselves. It clearly states that governments derive their just powers from the CONSENT of the governed. What else is this other than a voluntary society? Consent to be given means also consent can be withdrawn, thus a discussion about secession can be had. And didn’t Jefferson say that it was not only our right but our DUTY to throw off such governments that operate without our consent? Appeal to their sense of duty. Worry not about what we will replace it with now. Lets shrink it first. Even Rothbard was an incrementalist. We didn’t get here in one step, we cannot expect the minds of others to even fathom leaping to the opposite end of the spectrum in one leap and bound. Just like a child, we have to learn to crawl, then walk, and before you know it the child is running and you can’t hold them back.
Remember that liberals and conservatives don’t have a philosophy, they have issues. Introduce them to the philosophy of the NAP. Keep it simply based on that one axiom. Speak in terms of the NAP. I became a voluntaryist by applying the NAP to every “issue” I was confronted with. Do the same in regards to their “issues”. One cannot rightfully argue against the moral law of the NAP when you apply the absence of it to themselves. It’s self realization through the socratic method that allows people to come to rightful conclusions, plus it empowers them and makes them feel empowered. Face it, most of us feel/felt scared and powerless to confront the leviathan, that’s why we complied. The same holds true with them.
We have to be teachers, which means in order to be effective we have to be steadfast in our morals, consistent, but most of all patient and crafty. It is no good to teach them “what” to think, we have to teach them “how” to think, and no one with question what they have been “taught” until they can critically think for themselves.
Only when we open minds to the benefits that a voluntary society will bring them, can we have a society based on mutual cooperation and respect, which by proxy will not include a state apparatus. Right now the journey is more important than the destination.
Cheers!
CM
So much sense in that one sentence although so much you say is true in the rest. There is no foundations to collectivism except brute initiated force to mold society. Nothing else. That alone indicts its moral high ground.
Great riposte, CM.
Bill
This reminds me of Ury and Fischer in Getting to Yes, where they describe how during negotiations people often confuse their interests with their positions, to the great detriment of the former.
Nice discussion.
Bill,
Without trying to mince words, I disagree, to a point about your statement about collectivism. A collective is nothing more than a pleurality of individuals. Society is a collective. As a voluntaryist, I can imagine, and I actively work for, a society, or a collective that is built on voluntary cooperation. We see it every day in how we interact with each other while absent the bats of the state. I realize what you are saying, but very few men are talented enough to be islands among themselves, thus a prosperous and growing society is almost always dependent on the division of labor, which seeks the common goal of comfort for those wishing to participate.
So as far as “isms” go, I think that statism would surely fit all of the time, whereas collectivism only pertains some of the time, when it comes to the brute initiation of force to mold society. Again why I support true communism ( I think its economically stupid, but a free people should be free to make bad choices) as long as its a voluntary collective.
Cheers!
CM
PS Thanks for the medium.