IMAGINE FREEDOM: a libertarian introduction (1996)

c0mmando · September 3, 2024, 7:53pm

by stormy MON

https://web.archive.org/web/19970114013127/http://www.stormy.org/

---

if you want something

first imagine it

then talk about it

then do it

imagine freedom

Web edition September, 1996

Imagine Freedom is not copyrighted.

Suggestions appreciated: stormy@harborside.com

stormy MON, Box 1167, Bandon, OR 97411

PREFACE

Feeling concern about the deteriorating drift of the daily news, I asked a U.S. Senator, Governor, and U.S. Supreme Court Justice if our political system had a fatal flaw, was destructive and out of control. Their responses led me to conclude that government “leaders” are as lightweight, confused, lost, and scared as the news would lead us to believe.

So I went looking for answers. The search has included four election campaigns, a state civil court case with seven weeks in jail for contempt, a U.S. Supreme Court tax protest case including nine months in federal prison, libertarian conventions, nuclear protest, and research with special emphasis on broadcasts, periodicals, pamphlets, cartoons, and graffiti.

The search for effective ideas, arguments, and strategies is a diversified, world-wide effort. IMAGINE FREEDOM is a small part of that continuing journey.

stormy MON

FREEDOM’S HEIGHTS

Once upon a time, four groups lived on the plains. It was late spring, and they looked toward the mountains; they had heard of cool air, water, and plentiful wild game there.

The first group was headed by a dictator king. As he led his people into the mountains for the first time, a messenger warned them of wild animals, and fierce thunderstorms appeared ahead. Most wanted to turn back, but some desired to continue, so the king consulted with his court intellectuals and mystics. Then he proclaimed, “By royal decree and Divine Right, anyone who goes into the mountains will have their head cut off.” No one went into the mountains, and teachers warned their students.

The second group was headed by a communist central committee and had also heard of the beasts and saw the lightning. The people were divided—many wanted to turn back, and a few chose forward progress. The central committee met and issued a law: “For the public good, no one shall go into the mountains. Violators will be sentenced to ten years hard labor.” Two mavericks escaped into the hills. One was caught and confined for ten years, as an example. The other was never seen again, and the party newspaper said he had been eaten by wild animals. School textbooks parroted this for future generations.

The third group settled disputes by vote. After intense lobbying by conservative entrenched special interests, a majority voted to turn back due to wild animals and hostile weather. So a law was passed: “For the public health, safety, and welfare, mountain living is punishable by up to one year in prison and a $5000 fine.” Two individualists drifted toward the heights. One was apprehended and sentenced to a year in prison, as an example. The government issued a study: The missing person was probably killed by wild animals or lightning. The newspapers published the findings of the government study; one headline read: “Mountain Man Eaten Alive By Wild Animals.” Compulsory government schools echoed, “Highs are unsafe and illegal.”

The fourth group was libertarian. Some chose to turn back. Many went into the mountains, met the two surviving mavericks, and thrived on the cool air, water, and plentiful wild game. One was mauled by a bear and survived. Another was killed by lightning while flying a kite on a mountain; she was conducting electrical experiments during a thunderstorm. The libertarian newspapers printed warnings about bears and standing on mountain tops during thunderstorms. The children learned freedom, and the libertarians lived happily ever after.

Which group is the best way to organize a society?

Which group would you choose to be in?

A WINE GLASS OF FREEDOM

Imagine a glass of premium wine representing individual liberty. In 1776, that glass was almost full—there was very little government. “Order and harmony were preserved,” Tom Paine observed. Ben Franklin jokingly warned leaders to form new governments before citizens noticed they didn’t need politicians.

But the local jurisdictions that did exist caused problems of bureaucracy, taxation, and cash and credit manipulation. Domestic discontent surfaced and led to the first calls for stronger, central control. The result was the U.S. Constitution. We gave up some precious wine in exchange for the promise of protection from those who would rob us of our freedom.

Then along came Alexander Hamilton with a central bank idea that allowed the government to control the money supply. We lost some of the wine with that one, but Jefferson and Jackson restored it, for a while. Also, in the early 1800s, we were at war with Britain, and voluntary state militias defended valiantly. But when government leaders wanted to go to foreign, Canadian soil, the citizen militias said they would be defenders, but not invaders. The wine glass remained nearly full because the people protected freedom by LIVING THE PRINCIPLE, not by depending on political leaders and pieces of paper.

But the authoritarian wine-sipping stealers weren’t dormant. During this same period, the Supreme Court strengthened centralized political powers, and governments began monopolizing education. These were seeds that would pay great bureaucratic dividends in future generations.

Then came Abraham Lincoln. He was the candidate of northern business interests who wanted to protect their positions of growing power. The stated goal was “Save the Union”—one of many statist slogans perpetrated as worth dying for. Lincoln was so eager in his purpose that he unconstitutionally suspended liberty in order to save it. We got our first income tax and military draft; we were losing premium wine from the glass. It’s an irony of history that Lincoln freed the slaves by planting the seeds for enslaving all of us, and turning the American Dream into a nightmare.

In 1895, the Supreme Court decided that since American judges are more responsive to the people than under a monarchy, the judges should interpret the law, not juries. This nullified the independence of jurors, and The Law was ready to go out of control. Now all the central authorities needed was lots of money.

A vintage year for wine tasting was 1913. An income tax amendment and a central bank were enacted—both on false pretenses. The groundwork was laid for totally subverting the original intentions of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Woodrow Wilson was the next wine sipper, then gulper. He wanted to “make the world safe for democracy,” while eroding it at home. We got a massive military draft, government control of business, and heavy taxation: the legacies for the loss of more wine.

Then came THE CHAMPION WINO of them all: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Any resemblance between his socialist-fascist concepts of government and the American Dream were purely coincidental. He started the stealing of our gold, debasement of the currency, and a massive buildup of big government and bloated bureaucracies. But FDR’s worst legacy was the 1943 tax withholding mechanism which steals from paychecks—a direct political pipeline to bulk wine. One of FDR’s proteges was Lyndon Johnson. He and the following assorted demopublican republicrat socialists and fascists have used and abused the wine-stealing precedents. They have created what our founding fathers would have thought impossible: a DEMOCRATIC TYRANNY.

wine

Now is the glass half full, or half empty?

We are told we live in the “freest country on earth,” that our government is the best possible system. But look at what democracy is being compared to: dictatorship, monarchy, socialism, fascism, communism, theocracy, and a mind-boggling, nauseating array of combinations—all for the purpose of keeping a ruling elite in power and privilege, to make sure they get up to half the wine. Anything more than 50% is slavery, and the sheeple may revolt!

So even if democracy is the lesser of several evils, it’s still evil. We are headed into slavery; it’s time to refill the premium wine glass of liberty and freedom.

A POLITICAL PICTURE

Liberty is an unbreakable combination of personal, (civil) liberty and financial freedom. Losing either is the same as losing both.

The current U.S. and world political scene is confused mush. The graph below may help clarify the positions of various group and individual political chameleons who have the habitual ability of changing the color of their political skins. They maneuver around within this picture, sometimes with the skill of a well executed ballet pirouette or occasionally the clumsiness of a hippopotamus in heat.

This long running dinosaur dance with plenty of costume changes and special effects is performed for the twin incentives of money and power. You will notice that due to the principled stand of libertarians, they have little room or need to maneuver. This makes them predictable, reliable… and calm.

SEEDS OF TYRANNY

The following restrictions are regularly proposed and enacted by “well-meaning people”, for the “good of the country” – meaning for the strength of the government.

These are the early warning signals of tyranny.

Compulsory government schools and restricted private alternatives.
Controlled communication, censorship, limitations on meetings.
Oppressive taxation; control and confiscation of private property.
Manipulation of money and credit.
Wage & price controls; restraints on trade and foreign investment.
Citizen registration numbers for labor and financial transactions.
Birth, marriage, divorce, and death reported to government.
Gun control and registration.
Compulsory labor for war (a draft) and/or for non-military service.
The creation of crimes without victims.
Detention of individuals without speedy judicial process.
Travel restrictions in or outside the country.
Domestic spying and undercover operations.
Laws made by executive, bureaucratic or judicial decree;

the next step is dictatorship.

BUTTERFLIES

What makes a libertarian different?

The demopublican house talks about power, plumbing and curtains; libertarians say the foundation is rotten and the whole house is riddled with bureaucratic, parasitic termites. Authoritarian statists talk about spending our money wisely despite years of evidence to the contrary; libertarians say keep your tax money – you can allocate better than bureaucrats. Demopublican Republicrats are swatting at flies left and right;

LIBERTARIANS WANT TO DRAIN THE SWAMP!

To be replaced by what? What would a libertarian society look like? It would be a department store of choice. You can get a wide variety of items from a large discount store, and the thing that makes them give good value is all the other choices we have – competition. We need to expand this concept into areas such as education, communication, transportation, garbage collection, libraries and personal activities that don’t harm others.

It’s an exciting, natural progression in human evolution: a caterpillar turned into a butterfly – TRANSFORMATION. Politicians would pass laws against caterpillars doing that; they’d be labeled “radical fringe” and locked up, as an example.

BECAUSE CATERPILLARS ARE EASIER TO CONTROL AND MANIPULATE THAN BUTTERFLIES.

IMAGINE FREEDOM

EDUCATION: The Comprachicos

Victor Hugo
The Man Who Laughs (1869)
"The comprachicos (child buyers) were strange and hideous nomads in the 17th century. They made children into sideshow freaks. To succeed in producing a freak one must get hold of him early; a dwarf must be started when he is small. They stunted growth, they mangled features. It was an art/science of inverted orthopedics. Where nature had put a straight glance, this art put a squint. Where nature had put harmony, they put deformity and imperfection. The child was not aware of the mutilation he had suffered. This horrible surgery left traces on his face, not in his mind. During the operation, the little patient was unconscious by means of a stupefying magic powder.

In China since time immemorial, they have achieved refinement in a special art and industry: the molding of living man. One takes a child two or three years old and puts them into a grotesquely shaped porcelain vase. It is without cover or bottom, so the head and feet protrude. In the daytime the vase is upright; at night it is laid down so the child can sleep. Thus the child slowly fills the contours of the vase with compressed flesh and twisted bones. This bottled development continues for several years. At a certain point, it becomes an irreparable monster. Then the vase is broken and one has a man in the shape of a pot."

Ayn Rand
The New Left (1971)
“The production of monsters—helpless, twisted monsters whose normal development has been stunted—goes on all around us. But the modern heirs of the comprachicos are smarter and subtler. They do not hide; they practice their trade in the open, the results are invisible. In the past, this horrible surgery left traces on a child’s face, not in his mind. Today it leaves traces in his mind, not on his face. In both cases, the child is not aware of the mutilation he has suffered. Today’s comprachicos do not use narcotic powders. They take a child before he is fully aware of reality and never let him develop that awareness. Where nature put a normal brain, they put mental retardation. To make you unconscious for life by means of your own brain, nothing could be more ingenious. They are the comprachicos of the mind. They do not place a child into a vase to adjust his body to its contours. They place him into a school to adjust him to society.”

Plato
The Republic (Greece, 370 BC)

Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Address to the German Nation (1808)
“Resistance to the full-scale institution of government compulsory schooling will only last for one generation. The first generation affected will accept it as a natural part of growing up.”

EDUCATION – BRAINWASHING

mindcont

During the Korean War, American prisoners were brainwashed to question their previous beliefs and learn new doctrines. Some of the younger, less mature prisoners didn’t have much knowledge of political dogma, so it wasn’t a matter of relearning, but rather filling a void. Those who were slow to absorb material received special attention. The sessions were compulsory; those who questioned or resisted were punished.

In America, a child has the choice of going to kindergarten; most do because their friends attend and it sounds like fun. The next year, the first grade is compulsory, by law. The first minute of the first grade, a change takes place: the child is subtly, without his or even his parents’ knowledge, brainwashed with a very important shift in their whole makeup. The freedom known and lived in the first years of life is gone. Government authorities now know what is best for the next, very formative years, “for our own good.”

This lesson of authority and government-approved versions of history and the world is subtly hidden in the worthwhile programs of reading, writing, arithmetic, hot lunches, playgrounds, etc. Kindergarten (a German word) brings this about on a painless installment plan. This is a benign, though just as effective, form of an authoritarian youth program.

Government-approved history is from George Orwell’s 1984; government compulsory education is subtle brainwashing. This early, premeditated ignorance is the strength, the foundation, the first cause of any paternalistic authority: IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

A free education that enslaves the mind is a very high price to pay.

Maria Montessori (1912)
“We can’t know the consequences of suppressing a child’s spontaneity. Perhaps we suffocate life itself. We must respect this first individuality.”

Pink Floyd
THE WALL (1979)
“We don’t need no thought control.
Hey teacher, leave those kids alone.
All in all, you’re just another brick in The Wall.”

Tao: Avoid dogmatic learning for the blank minds of the young.

Ironically, American schools teach that socialism (government ownership of the means of production) is inefficient, then drive the lesson home with the educator’s own socialist waste. But the worst lesson compulsory government schools teach at an early age is that it’s okay to rob at gunpoint from others to solve your problems. Taxing those without children to pay for schools—from each according to their ability, to each according to their need—is American Communism. Then this brainwashed, bureaucratic, Big Brother premise permeates our society.

If an individual or group is concerned about the poor obtaining an education, they can just pay for it. The fact that governments want to CONTROL EVERYONE’S learning suggests a larger, ulterior program.

Harriet and John Stuart Mill (1865)
“A general state education is a mere contrivance for molding people to be exactly alike. It establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body.”

Texas State Board of Education (1982)
“Textbooks shall promote citizenship, emphasize patriotism and respect for recognized authority. Textbook content shall not encourage lifestyles deviating from generally accepted standards of society.”

We have a SOCIALIST, SEMI-COMMUNIST EDUCATION SYSTEM in a democratic, semi-libertarian society; it’s counter-productive. It is a sad comment on America that we have allowed the government to act as if it owns the minds of our children. It goes against our sense of justice and fair play that some families are forced to support government schools, then pay again for private education. Many students, parents, AND teachers and administrators would like to have alternatives to compulsory political schools, regulations, and tamed universities. Choice, a department store marketplace of education, solves the problems of what to put in textbooks, who can pray, which programs to improve, and what is taught. The resulting independent learning will be competitive, innovative, productive… and fun.

EDUCATION: A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

In the spring of 1965, I was running through the jungles with a lethal rifle in my hands, yelling “Kill, KILL!” And I would have done it too. But I was lucky. I was running through the training jungles of Louisiana, brainwashed by the U.S. Army Basic Training. I never went to war and I never killed anyone. But I could have. If the U.S. Army had told me to kill YOU, I might have done it.

Remember Kent State.

And are you that much different than the Vietnamese and Cambodians, in retrospect? We are all people on this earth—this global village—brainwashed by an ancient reverence for the fiction of authority.

What was it that got me into a state of mind that would have me do something so alien to my very makeup: to kill another human being just because an authority said to?

It didn’t start in the Army; it started in government schools, where the history of war and patriotism are glorified. And I know I wasn’t alone. There were 200 other young men in my company doing the same thing, and 1200 in the battalion, and over 3 million went to Vietnam.

In retrospect, it never occurred to me that something was very immoral about the whole operation. Nothing in my family, media, or government education prepared me to question the authorities. Something is terribly wrong here: WE MUST FACE REALITY!

The schools had twisted and molded me to take actions that were horribly grotesque. I deeply and personally resent that. This long-playing, tragic world series must be stopped before it happens again, and again, and again…

Teachers don’t realize what they’re doing; they were brainwashed by the previous generation, in a destructive, endless chain. Will Rogers said this about Congress, but the same applies:

“Teachers are the nicest folks in the world to meet. I sometimes really wonder if they realize the harm they do.”

WHAT ABOUT THE POOR?

Are politicians friends of the poor? Hardly.

Lower classes in all societies have been victimized by the elite, then cynically thrown just enough crumbs from the cake to hopefully avoid revolts, not always successfully. The U.S. government has refined this fraud to a subtle art.

We are victimized by oppressive and often hidden taxes, schools that teach authoritarian ignorance, government-created crime, credit and money manipulation, the high price of unending politically privileged business and trade restrictions, subsidies to favored insiders, labor policies which guarantee unemployment, and a general economic climate that allows freedom only through loopholes… or breaking laws.

Then comes Big Brother’s Benevolence: professional social trainers will “help,” and the only cost is to be bended, folded, spindled, and mutilated—caged and dependent in a continuous downward spiral. Lavish funds are spent on these bureaucracies, with only small amounts actually reaching the poor. Any self-respecting private organization would be embarrassed by this record, but these welfare warriors just demand more money.

Forced government quotas, affirmative action, and welfare laws are unworkable: they tell minorities “You aren’t good enough to make it on your own”; they damage self-respect and cost too much; they infringe on business and property rights; they shortchange, degrade, and depersonalize those temporarily in true need; they make them political hostages and pawns, like the American natives have been treated.

Will Rogers (1934)
“Indians used to be wards of the government, but now we all are. Everybody is an Indian.”

Welfare for the temporarily poor must be privatized, giving local, personalized, lasting solutions. When people fail in our current political situation, they comfort themselves by complaining they never had a fair chance. If opportunities were truly equal and achievement was on merit, we could face responsibility for our failures and learn from them. We could also enjoy our earned successes.

Walter Williams (1983)
“Helping the poor through government is like feeding sparrows through horses.”

SENIOR CITIZENS

SOCIAL SECURITY is generally perceived as a failure and a fraud. It’s a bankrupt pyramid scheme and can’t come close to meeting any criteria for the sound retirement fund management seniors deserve. To continue to force citizens to increase their “contributions” is the height of congressional gall. Curiously, government employees have repeatedly refused to join; they have their own, better system. It’s an outrage that seniors who want to be self-reliant and productive are discouraged from outside earnings. At the same time, what savings they do have are stolen by the currency devaluation of inflation. Then politicians lie to them about what is being done and cynically offer to assist, in exchange for votes. Why trust the system that caused the problem to solve it?

A SOLUTION IS TO SELL THE POST OFFICE, as a pilot program of privatization. The income from the sale could be used to turn some existing obligations over to solvent, voluntary, competitive, private retirement trust funds that can give better value and benefits. This is a straightforward business concept of selling assets to cover liabilities. Once the mechanism is established, we can also sell TVA, Bonneville, NASA, FAA, most military bases, mineral rights at market value, and BLM lands.

There is no reason in the world for the U.S. government to be in the mail, cattle grazing, mining, petroleum, and recreation businesses. This can also be a partial solution for other valid national debts. Then abolish the Departments of Commerce, Labor, Education, Energy, HUD, Agriculture, and Transportation. Libertarians are serious about reducing and dismantling governments; we must turn this monster around before it devours us all.

Senior citizens can be very effective in boycotts and swaying public opinion: ecology and public safety, for example. They have the time, money, stock/bond ownership, and experience to meet, organize, write letters, speak out, and engage in other activities that change things—non-violently.

Our parents have a special responsibility to assist in straightening out this big mess. THEY HELPED CREATE IT, and have left a legacy of rampaging socialism, fascism, and debt. Seniors should be especially attuned to liberty because they can remember the days when there was less big government and more individual responsibility.

PACK JOURNALISM

Hunter Thompson
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail (1973)
“The most consistent and ultimately damaging failure of political journalism in America has its roots in the clubby/cocktail personal relationships that inevitably develop between politicians and journalists. When professional antagonists become after-hours drinking buddies, they are not likely to turn each other in.”

Tim Crouse
The Boys On the Bus (1972)
“Everybody denounces pack journalism, including the men who form the pack. After a while, they begin to believe the same rumors, subscribe to the same theories, and write the same stories. It is the classic villain of every campaign year. Many reporters and journalism professors blame it for everything that is shallow, obvious, tawdry, misleading, or dull in American campaign coverage. Campaign journalism is, by definition, pack journalism; to follow a candidate, you must join a pack of other reporters; even the most independent journalist cannot completely escape the pressures of the pack.”

Tom Wicker
On Press (1978)
“The gravest threat to freedom of the press is from the press itself—in its longing for a respectable place in the established political and economic order, in its fear of the reaction that boldness and independence will always evoke. Self-censorship silences as effectively as a government decree, and we have seen it far more often.”

Editorial Hypocrisy: Under the First Amendment (theoretically), governments can’t interfere with the press: no licenses, regulations, taxes, or other political nuisances. Newspapers jealously guard this freedom while editorially advocating taxes, controls, and nauseous government on the rest of us—what hypocrisy!

ECONOMY–LABOR–BUSINESS

money

Whenever business and government “work together”, a cozy power alliance results. Lawyers, lobbyists, and special interest contributors use the force of law to gain unfair advantage in the marketplace, creating a privileged class.

When we reduce government power, we will reduce special interest power. Instead of stifling and stealing from producers, there should be “capitalist acts between consenting people.” It’s bureaucratic economic meddling that creates poverty, injustice, and depressions.

From the end of the Revolutionary War to the beginning of World War I (with the exception of the Civil War), America was an example of the prosperity of freedom. Privileges, restrictions, and taxes were minimal. Inventive, creative, productive human energy expanded material prosperity dramatically. The standard of living improved and flowed to all segments of the economy and population, even though the number of Americans was multiplying. Germany repeated this economic miracle in 1948:

**Ludwig Erhard PROSPERITY THROUGH COMPETITION June, 1948**

“Shop windows filled with goods and factories began to work. Streets swarmed with activity; the black markets disappeared. Everywhere the noise of new buildings going up replaced the deathly silence of ruins. If the state of recovery was a surprise, its swiftness was even more so, in all sectors of economic life. On the eve of free market reform the Germans were aimlessly wandering about their towns in search of a few additional items of food. A day later they thought of nothing but producing. One day apathy was mirrored on their faces, while on the next the whole nation looked hopefully into the future.”

But now, tragically, we have been lulled into believing that is all a dream of the past. We are told we must limit our horizons, forget that American Dream, and sacrifice. But we are tired of sacrificing for the mistakes and greed of politicians and their privileged special interest friends, while citizens, foreign countries, and other scapegoats are blamed.

When LABOR became organized and centralized, instead of removing business privilege, labor used the same political mechanism to create labor monopolies. Thus we got big business and big labor politics: specifically the Departments of Labor, Commerce, and Agriculture. Centralized political power concentrates economic power.

JOBS:

Government doesn’t create jobs; it destroys them through wasted use of capital, and bureaucratic overhead and regulations. Street vendors have been severely restricted by zoning and other methods that were encouraged by established merchants to reduce competition. The same is true of taxi and bus transportation. These were two important areas for the poor and immigrants to start their American upward mobility dream. We tend to forget that new Americans are also consumers, so there is no overall job loss. And if we would once again export freedom, there would be less need to flee tyranny—in Mexico for example.

If we take money away from government, will it end jobs? Yes, in Washington D.C. and other bureaucratic centers. But wealth, jobs, and development will be spread back over the country, recreating productive employment with people in control of their own destinies. Wealth will be produced, spent, and invested where need and the marketplace require, creating jobs.

Unemployment insurance:

It’s absurd to pay people not to work long-term when our newspapers are crammed with Help Wanted requests. We must drastically reform this insurance concept to reflect free market labor principles. Individuals or businesses can privately buy it, but the best insurance is still work. Someday we will look back and see that providing rewards for not working was one of the most foolish government functions—among heavy competition for that title.

Central Planning:

Some Senate Finance Committee hearings were about energy subsidies to the poor. For natural gas? Yes, unanimous. Fuel oil and coal? Yes, unanimous. Firewood? No, 1-ll. Cow dung? The price had increased at a startling rate, according to expert comment. It was a surprise to the public gallery that there was a need to subsidize cow dung, since there was a surplus of it in that room. Cow dung subsidies weren’t introduced for a vote. What makes these fools think they can manage an economy in English, any better than it’s done in Russian or Chinese? Let the market decide and allocate; we would have better energy value, faster and fairer. We need a complete separation of economy and state; the best plan is no plan—that’s liberty.

Milton Friedman 1978

“How did we make the transition from using wood to using coal, from coal to oil, from oil to using natural gas? How in God’s name did we make that transition without a Federal Energy Agency?”

When government dictates prices above fair market value (price supports, minimum wage, etc.) there will eventually be SURPLUSES. When prices are forced below market value (rent controls, price ceilings, etc.) there will be SHORTAGES.

In a free market, dollars are votes; government manipulation stuffs the ballot box, and is a fraud on the system.

Monopolies:

In a truly free market, there will always be choices available, and foreign competition unless it’s restricted too. Fear of cartels, trusts, and reduced competition comes from a long history of government (and king) granted subsidies, favors, bailouts, tariffs, regulations, charters, contracts, licenses, zones, restrictions, land grants, and especially financial and credit manipulations.

This process accelerates during war but is not repealed with peace. War preparations cloak the whole scheme in the sanctity of patriotism and solidify the government-business organized crime syndicate. Militaristic aspirations and adventures to “protect vital American (read favored corporate) interests” are encouraged by interlocking directorships and revolving door private job offers to government employees of the banking-war-business machine. Or as Ike said, “Beware the military-industrial complex.”

Farmers and Ranchers

have a long, proud history of self-reliance; they are the original libertarians. American agriculture should know by now that government meddling has done more harm than good: interest rates, inflation, bureaucracies, transportation regulations, taxes (especially inheritance taxes)—with minor handouts and special favors given back to cynically buy votes. There should be no embargoes, price ceilings, tariffs, planting restrictions, supports, or subsidies. There must be strict liability protecting private property rights regarding water, pollution, pesticides, and other hazards. Agricultural research, advice, market, and weather reports should be private businesses.

Protectionism:

Walter Block 1976
“The premise which justifies protectionism on the national level also justifies it on the state level. For example, the state of Montana could bar imports from other states on the grounds they represent labor which a Montanan could have been given but was not. A ‘Buy Montana’ program would then be in order. It would be just as illogical and unsound as a ‘Buy American’ campaign. The argument, however, does not end at the state level. It can, with equal justification, be applied to cities, or neighborhoods. ‘Buy Elm Street’ or ‘Stop exporting jobs to Maple Street’ could become the rallying cries for protectionists. We would have to conclude that it applies even to individuals. For clearly, every time an individual makes a purchase, he is foregoing the manufacture of it himself.”

Frederic Bastiat 1846 France
“We candlemakers are suffering from the unfair competition of a low-priced foreign rival. Our customers desert us and related industries are also injured. This rival is the sun! Please pass a law requiring the covering of all windows, skylights, holes, and cracks. Domestic manufactures will be stimulated. Agriculture will thrive on the need for tallow. Whale oil demand will improve shipping and thus defense. Jobs will be created and everyone will benefit. We have always served our country well and gratitude demands we be protected.”

“When goods don’t cross borders, soldiers will.”

INFLATION

You are invited to make three simple observations:

Look at a quarter. Notice the copper-colored ring around the edge. This is the most graphic example of currency devaluation; copper is worth less than silver. When ancient kings did this, they at least hid the debasement fraud. The politicians think so little of our compulsory government education, they haven’t even bothered to hide the evidence!

$20

Look at a paper dollar. It used to say, “Redeemable in Gold” (later silver). Now it says, “This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.” It’s only backed by the integrity of the U.S. Government, which is to say: it’s worthless. This is the old fairy tale of turning straw into gold, but instead our gold has been turned into worthless paper.

Open a dictionary to the word inflation: “an increase in the volume of money and credit RESULTING in increased prices.” Put another way, it takes more straw or worthless paper to buy a car than if you use gold or silver. The less something is valued (horse manure or U.S. dollars for example), the more of those things are needed to trade for something of value. The politicians and some economists have been saying increased prices are a CAUSE OF INFLATION. That’s like saying, “Wet streets cause rain.” They are either confused or not telling the truth. Who do you trust: the government or your dictionary?

If Santa Claus printed twice the amount of paper money there is now and distributed it evenly throughout the country, would we all be twice as rich? No, of course not; we would need twice as many dollars to buy the same things. If he distributed the new, extra money mostly to his favored friends, threw a few crumbs to the masses, and let banks loan the rest at high interest, would we call that a benevolent gift? No, of course not; we’d be mad as hell.

If we could find no other outlet for our anger, we might rob from his rich friends or each other. We might also resort to violence, in natural rage and frustration. If we can see through the Santa Claus inflation scam, why do we let governments do it?

PATRIOTISM and the Drug War

from Patriotism and Peace F.H. Hankins 1920

"Of all the emotions that move men to action, patriotism is the most capable. When it is aroused, there is no other social force comparable to it in the completeness with which it dominates all men. It lifts the average man up out of the concerns of a work-a-day world into the noblest spirit of devotion.

It quickens the pulse of the sluggard, reforms the wayward, forces generosity from the stingy, arouses the plodder to dreams of heroic deeds, gives courage to the cowardly, and makes the hearts of the shrewd and crafty wolves of society swell with an ostensible love of country. In its face, local feuds are forgotten, the bitter struggles of parties and classes are submerged. Differences of creed, social status, and even race are obliterated. This happens especially during war, for war hallows every cause.

Under these circumstances, only the group leaders may speak. The citizen must offer himself in silence as a willing sacrifice on the altar of his country in whatever manner those in authority may dictate. Even honest criticism is cursed. The conscientious objector, who in times of peace is praised as a courageous man who dares to stand against the world for what he believes right, is denounced as a sneaking coward and herded into prison. The individual rights of free speech, press, and assembly, so essential to democratic government, so zealously guarded during peace, and so boastfully displayed to an admiring world, cease to exist and are pronounced enemies to the public safety. The noble sentiments of toleration are denounced, as is also individual variation, which is vigorously defended during peace under the ideals of individual liberty and initiative.

Every social institution is brought into line. All organs of public opinion send forth a constant stream of uniform suggestions. The appeal is made through church and lodge and every customary association, until the members of the social group coalesce into a solid sociality that surpasses the fondest imaginings of the Utopian Socialist. At such times, patriotism, like a restless and mysterious genius, fills the entire fabric of society with its magic power. Few individuals escape its enchantment, and almost no one dares invite its hostility. While it ennobles the soul with the sublime spirit of self-sacrifice, it compels men to dilute the honesty of their thoughts. It makes cowards of all but the most stalwart souls by forcing them to substitute the worse for the better reason and the lower ideal for one they feel to be higher.

Under its guise, every sort of sinister human purpose thrives. Anything which can be made to appear patriotic is instantly and deeply approved. Any counsel of moderation is pounced upon as enemy propaganda, while the advocates of internationalism are accused of silly sentimentalism and treason. To encounter a suspicion of lack of patriotism creates a greater defilement than the violation of an ancient taboo. As in the days of witchcraft, suspects are whipped, tarred and feathered, hanged, or sacrificed on the altar of militarism amid the shouts of the mob and the secret glee of the patriots. Patriotism gives full sway to fear, unbridles the lusts and brutalities of savage man, intensifies our innate suggestibility, and subordinates the mind to every sort of delusion and deceit."

Crime and Prisons

One of our great failings as a society is that the more we fight and spend money on “the war on crime,” the worse it gets. It’s time to re-evaluate our basic premises. All crimes can be reduced:

Eliminate non-coercive, victimless moral crimes and bureaucratic laws with their accompanying corruption and black markets.
To reduce economic frustration, allow naturally equal economic and labor opportunities.
Encourage more interesting and varied education choices so our youth are freethinkers and interested in learning.
Stop government deceit, coercion, theft, counterfeiting, and killing.

It doesn’t take massive government programs; these changes greatly reduce budgets, especially prisons. As we get closer to domestic peace, more crime reduction possibilities will become clear. Private, competitive security and insurance companies have more interest in serving you. It’s the company’s responsibility to find the culprit and collect damages. Criminals don’t owe a debt to “society”; they owe it to their victims. Financial restitution establishes the fact that these are crimes against individuals, not against governments which have lost credibility.

Morals “Crimes”:

(recreational drugs, gambling, prostitution, usury, drinking, pornography, polygamy, etc.)

Libertarians know from centuries-old experience that laws and force are not workable tools to encourage “morals.” Our system has needlessly created a black market underworld that spawns violent crimes. Greater profits are possible, which finance more lawlessness, corruption, and organized crime. Overcrowded courts and prisons breed frustration, alienation, and hate that is fed back into society.

Court protection is denied to participants in these activities, which makes them vulnerable to pimps, fraud, corruption, and protection rackets—at the mercy of street jungle law. We are repeating all the mistakes of alcohol prohibition, but we learn from history that we don’t learn from history. Spinoza in 17th century Holland observed, “He who regulates everything by laws is more likely to arouse vices than reform them.” Or as the ancient Chinese tao observed, “The more laws, the more violators.”

Victimless Crime

Victimless crime is a confusing term. Yes, there are victims in black market activities such as drugs, prostitution, and gambling. But the violent crimes associated with these forbidden activities are the RESULT of the lack of protection from society: the lawlessness. These laws take protective services and resources away from the true crimes of theft and assault. Police morale is weakened because valuable community support is withheld from these “armed moralists”—the policeman used to be our friend. But now we expect them to operate from an unworkable premise: “Government can solve the problem.” It can’t; government is the problem… the cure is worse than the disease.

When libertarians talk about the decriminalization of these “morals crimes,” they mean no government involvement at all: no licenses, taxes, regulations, vice squads, bureaucratic forms, or standards. But just because libertarians advocate allowing an activity (gambling, sky diving, spiritual drugs, goldfish swallowing, prostitution, etc.) doesn’t necessarily mean they advocate participation.

Which argument is more effective? Don’t stand on mountain tops during electrical storms because 1) it’s illegal or 2) it might kill you. All drugs (nicotine, marijuana, caffeine, alcohol, prescriptions, cocaine, ad nauseam) are subject to abuse. Black markets add the danger of impure quality, erratic potency, and lack of valid information. Education and communication are the answer, not reefer madness.

Prostitution

Those who find it degrading don’t have to participate. Perverted thugs from vice squads create resentment, backlash, and chaos. To get hookers off the streets and improve safety, prostitution should be legalized.

Gambling

It’s hypocrisy for governments to run lotteries, then outlaw private gambling. This kind of unenforceable law makes criminals of all of us. The real irony is that taxes and politics are the greatest casino, and a poor bet.

Youth Crime

How can we expect youth to accept personal responsibility when adults and communities have relinquished so much of their lives to state and federal paternalism? Excessive, unenforceable laws create disrespect for society’s rules and police at a time when youth are forming important opinions and choices. Also, boring socialist, compulsory government schools are like prisons, with similar results.

Youth are more perceptive than we give them credit for. They easily see through our two-faced, hypocritical pontificating. Recreational drug laws have created a forbidden fruit situation that needlessly romanticizes semi-dangerous substances. Restricting, licensing, and taxing drug sales, similar to alcohol, would produce the same results: underage users would simply get an adult to buy or produce their own. When grass is legal, it will be growing abundantly like the weed it is. Self-responsibility is the answer, just like booze.

Guns

Libertarians strongly support gun ownership as a defense against crime and tyranny. Gun control can become gun confiscation, which leaves a population defenseless against tyranny of all kinds. Governments are the major gun owners and exporters—doctor, heal thyself!

Prisons

Prisons punish taxpayers as well as criminals and are graduate schools for crime. It’s human nature in prison to discuss mistakes and improvements on techniques; this is one reason we have so many repeat offenders. Do we really want prostitutes, gamblers, and drug users in society? Better to have our friends and neighbors with us than breeding resentment, rage, and crowding in prisons.

Private Prisons

As a libertarian ex-con, I strongly disagree with the concept of private prisons in the current world-wide political climate. Would we advocate privatizing Hitler’s concentration camps or gas chambers because they could be more cost-effective? No, of course not. Should we have private contractors for the odious functions of the DEA, IRS, or INS? Should the internment camps for Japanese-Americans during WWII or various world tyrants’ jails be businesses? Just because government is involved in something doesn’t necessarily mean these are areas for private enterprise.

Security, arbitration, restitution, and rehabilitation for the real crimes of theft and assault are appropriate services for private creativity and compassion. But given the current international diarrhea of laws and tyranny, we don’t need more efficient prisons to oppress people, provide slave labor, or a world-wide business lobby interested in keeping prisoners.

Capital Punishment

Any time governments take a human life—by execution, war, or harassment—it’s an indication of our failure as a harmonious world community, and we are all diminished by the loss. Ask not for whom the bell tolls; killing takes its toll on all of us.

Crime Summary

We won’t solve problems until we strike at the root. We don’t want to be a society of alcoholism, depression, drug abuse, violence, and suicide. There is a basic foundation to our personal and social crises of confidence: Big Government at all levels is massive force, coercion, and interference in our lives. It robs us of our sense of responsibility for ourselves and each other. The idea that bloated bureaucracy is life-suppressing and depressing is not new. Here are a couple of radicals from the past:

Tom Jefferson 1776
“The king has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their substance.”

Jesus Matthew 23:4
“The authorities increase the size of their texts of laws. They pile up back-breaking burdens and lay them on other men’s shoulders.”

LAWYERS, POLITICIANS, and JUDGES

Civil courts (Jones vs Smith) are owned and managed by the government, which is socialism. Since they are exceedingly bureaucratic in nature, courts are incomprehensible to the citizens and groups they are meant to serve. Thus, lawyers and a mind-boggling array of paperwork emerge. Then the lawyers become politicians and pass more and more laws that only other lawyers, accountants, and lobbyists can comprehend. The politicians appoint the supreme judges, which completes the legal-political-judicial special club.

These socialist courts have become so clogged and inefficient that many contracts now call for ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution: private arbitration or mediation) if provisions are disputed. Much of the current court business could be handled this way. This is how disputes are solved in traditional oriental culture, which uses respected elders as mediators. Many current judges would welcome the opportunity to be in business for themselves.

There could still be advisors, but they would be competitive and have the incentive for brief briefs. This would also be encouraged because the loser would have to pay the full cost of the process, without present taxpayer support. ADR standards are being set, but instead of endless, expensive mush, they are common sense.

Criminal Courts: We like to think of our country as being very civilized, especially the criminal justice system. And yet, when the system can’t reason a problem out, when it can’t think of anything better to do, it chains a person and takes them to a locked animal cage. This is a physical reaction similar to hitting.

When children first go to pre-school, they have a tendency to hit and grab to get their way instead of using courteous reason—primates can also be observed doing this. Instead of being the height of civilization, our judicial system still carries a strong trait toward the immature and primitive. When failure tries to masquerade as success, it’s a good idea to dress it up in a costume so it won’t be recognized—robes, for example.

Those who demand respect don’t deserve it because those who deserve respect don’t have to demand it.

A LETTER TO A JUDGE

I won’t take YOUR oath to “tell the truth.” By agreeing to the oath, it gives the impression I believe you are qualified to judge truth—a tragic hoax. Government is built on lies and deceit, especially during war. Machiavelli, in 1513, advocated that a different set of morals and truths apply to governments than to individuals. He was wrong, but your court continues this destructive myth.

Citizens can’t enslave people, but judges such as yourself are slaveholders each time you call a jury under forced labor, similar to a military draft. I took this issue of involuntary servitude to the U.S. Supreme Court, but they didn’t want to talk about it. Counterfeiting is a crime which politicians monopolize. Under Article I, Section 10, judges have a constitutional responsibility to protect us from devalued currency, but you have avoided it.

Taxation is theft. Then judges paid with these stolen goods are entrusted to judge cases of robbery—what hypocrisy! And finally, killing is of course immoral, and governments do it regularly. Bureaucrats such as yourself kill individuals, sanction and support wars, and although often leaving the physical body intact, murder the human spirit of individuality.

So government courts have no credibility, validity, or integrity for judging truth in disputes. I suggest you seek productive employment.

Tom Jefferson
“It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million human beings collected together are not under the same moral laws which bind them separately.”

A citizen is not required to stand in court. US v Snider 502 F 2d 645 (1974)
“Refusal to rise for a judge is not punishable.”

It’s a freedom of speech issue. Standing is an expression of respect for authority. If you don’t have respect for the court, or are in doubt, you can’t be required to show it.

RIGHTS and PRIVILEGES

“We hold these truths to be self evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable privileges;”

RIGHTS! “…with certain unalienable rights;”

The difference is critical–the roots of America. The American revolution was fought violently and non-violently to rid ourselves of the privileges of the Divine Right of Kings, and substitute the rights of individual liberty. Privileges are something granted by an authority; unalienable rights are our natural heritage. It was and is a revolutionary idea.

We are tragically losing it through lack of interest, brainwashing by compulsory government schools, politicians who have been bought, cancerous bureaucracies, and internal subversion by the very judiciary that was supposed to be protecting the idea. One example:

U.S. Supreme Court, Garner v U.S. 424 US 648 (1976)

“The privilege against self-incrimination can be claimed against specific disclosures sought on a tax return.”

We must remind the Supreme Court the Fifth Amendment is not part of a Bill of Privileges, it is THE BILL OF RIGHTS!!

This misguided, pompous arrogance of federal judges is parroted on the state and local level. They have intimidated us into turning back the clock to before 1776, because it’s easier to deal with sheeple who are kept in ignorance of their proud heritage.

The difference between privileges and rights is THE foundation of America: either people need a Big Brother to grant permission for every personal and economic move, or we have confidence in a person’s RIGHT to make their own choices, for ill or good.

The American Revolution has been betrayed by judges at all levels.

JURY NULLIFICATION

Since the English Magna Carta in 1215, one of the major purposes of a citizen jury is to NOT CONVICT under laws they feel are unfair. Citizens can’t assume the politicians are passing good laws and the unconstitutional ones have been weeded out by the courts. For example, since slaves can’t properly judge the principles of liberty, jury service should be voluntary.

Before the Civil War, there was a famous case called the Dred Scott decision about a fugitive slave. The courts said he had to be returned to his owner like any other property. This judgement was unpopular with northern juries and they wouldn’t convict others being prosecuted under similar laws.

The government saw this could get out of hand, if citizens wouldn’t convict under the ever-increasing laws. The juries could veto political schemes. The authorities wanted control and only wanted juries to decide the breaking of the law, not the law itself. Some judges said that since they were no longer the King’s appointees, but now members of the democratic process, they could be trusted to have the citizens’ best interests at heart; nullification of judge’s instructions was no longer necessary. Also, it would put too great a mental strain on jurors.

This question was debated back and forth. Then in 1895 (Sparf v U.S. 156 U.S. 51, 1895), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that although juries have the right to ignore a judge’s instructions on the law, the jury shouldn’t be aware of it. The judicial hypocrisy on this issue started with this decision that has never been changed. If it seems strange that citizens have a right they aren’t supposed to know about, it IS strange.

Jury nullification isn’t taught in compulsory government schools. The term isn’t in your encyclopedia or dictionary and it’s dropped from law schools and references. This is an example of George Orwell’s “1984” fictional “Newspeak”: the concept doesn’t exist if the phrase is banned.

All judicial mention since the 1895 Supreme Court ruling acknowledges its existence only grudgingly, and judges refuse to tell juries about the power or to allow defense attorneys to refer to it. It’s treated like a haunting, persistent ghost from the past, whose rare appearances are tolerated, deliberately ignored, and certainly not encouraged. This conspiracy of jury ignorance on the part of the judiciary is one of the strengths of government—

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

Many of the current powers of government could be reduced if juries knew their rights and responsibilities. We see the jury veto at work in modern times, naturally without being taught. In many areas, juries won’t convict for marijuana and other “morals” laws, so they aren’t enforced. Critics fear this will lead to anarchy and chaos. Yet in some states, the right to tell juries about nullification is a constitutional part of the state judicial process. These states haven’t suffered, and can be leaders in a citizen re-awakening.

“The jury has a right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy.” - Chief Justice John Jay, U.S. Supreme Court Georgia v Brailsford (3 Dallas 1, 1794)

“The jury has the right to determine both the law and the facts.” - Samuel Chase, Supreme Court Justice 1804, signer of The Declaration of Independence.

“There are five separate tribunals to veto laws: representative, senate, executive, judicial and jury. It’s the right and duty of juries to hold all laws invalid that are unjust or oppressive, in their opinion. If a jury does not have this right, the government is absolute and the people are slaves. Is it absurd that twelve ignorant men should sit by and see the law decided erroneously? The justices are untrustworthy and are fond of power and authority. To allow them to dictate the law would surrender all property, liberty and rights of the people into the hands of arbitrary power.” - Lysander Spooner, “An Essay On the Trial by Jury” 1852

“Jury lawlessness is the great corrective of law in its actual administration.” - Dean Roscoe Pound, 44 Am L Rev 12 at 18 (1910)

“The jury has the power to bring in a verdict in the teeth of both law and facts.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Horning v DC 254 US 135,138 (1920)

“If the jury feels the law is unjust, we recognize the undisputed power of the jury to acquit, even if its verdict is contrary to the law as given by the judge and contrary to the evidence. This power of the jury is not always contrary to the interests of justice.” - U.S. v Moylan 417 F.2d 1002 at 1006 (1969)

“The pages of history shine on instances of the jury’s exercise of its prerogative to disregard instructions of the judge; for example, acquittals under the fugitive slave law.” - U.S. v Dougherty 473 F.2d 1113 at 1130 (1972)

None of the four references since 1895 (Pound, Holmes, Moylan, and Dougherty), taken in their full context, encourage a modern jury veto. They simply recognize it as history that refuses to die. However, one modern judge stands out with common sense on the subject. In his Dougherty dissent (at 1138-44), Washington D.C. Chief Federal Judge David Bazelon shows considerable courage in challenging the two-faced judicial recognition of the jury veto power by his brethren, while refusing to tell juries about it:

“Deliberate lack of candor… sleight-of-hand… a haphazard process. Is it true that nullification which arises out of ignorance is in some sense more worthy than nullification which arises out of knowledge? Nullification can and should serve an important function in the criminal process. Trust in the jury is, after all, one of the cornerstones of our entire criminal jurisprudence, and if that trust is without foundation we must re-examine a great deal more than just the nullification doctrine. The noble uses of the power provide an important input to our evaluation of the substantive standards of the criminal law. The reluctance of juries to convict under the prohibition and fugitive slave laws told us much about the morality of those laws. A doctrine that can provide us with such critical insights should not be driven underground. We should grant the defendant’s request for a nullification instruction, or at least permit the defendants to argue the question before the jury. If revulsion against the government has reached a point where a jury would be unwilling to convict, we would be far better advised to ponder the implications of that result than to spend our time devising stratagems which let us pretend that the power of nullification does not even exist.”

A SUPREME COURT ORAL ARGUMENT (Spring, 1981)

(I protested as an employer being forced to be a tax collector through withholding.)

The common perception is that this is a debate between a representative of the government and me, with nine impartial judges—one on one. I don’t see it that way. You judges get your paychecks from the taxes in question and therefore have a direct conflict of interest. It’s ten against one, and you have the home court advantage.

Matthew 23 in The Bible is a good place to start:

“Judges love raised seats of honor. They wear large robes with an eye to effect, and require respect. They increase the size of their text of laws. They pile up backbreaking burdens and lay them on other men’s shoulders. They are hypocrites, fools and frauds!”

That refers to religious authorities, but the same could be said about any similar group…

The issue is slavery and servitude: forced labor. Examples are southern plantation labor before 1865, drafted military “duty”, forcing employers to be tax collectors, and jury “duty”. How can I get an impartial jury when they’re being held in slavery by the U.S. Government, plaintiff and accuser? Aren’t juries important enough that citizens should want to be there voluntarily, and paid at least a minimum wage? What kind of judges would be responsible for human justice, and run a large slavery operation at the same time?

I say you are hypocrites.

Now that we understand slavery, we can turn our attention to the main issue: employers aren’t paid anything for their labor as IRS “withholding agents” and are forced, coerced, intimidated, and threatened. I don’t want to be a tax collector; I think the job stinks!

Let’s look at the precedents first—a linked chain, anchored in antiquity. The best weak link to nullify is the oldest one; then the others disappear.

Butler vs Perry, a 1916 U.S. Supreme Court case (240 US 328), is the grand-daddy of this chain. It says:

“Ancient usage and unanimity of judicial opinion justify the conclusion that a State has inherent, undoubted power to require labor for a reasonable period without direct compensation. To require public work has never been regarded as a deprivation of either liberty or property.”

Undoubted power? I doubt it!! The court does acknowledge that private “slavery would tend to produce undesirable results” but fails to see that government slavery produces similar undesirable results. Libertarians feel the 13th Amendment should apply to government, prohibiting ALL forced labor, public or private. Then Butler tries to anchor itself to antiquity, citing precedents in England and Rome. I don’t buy that.

We didn’t have a libertarian revolution in this country so we could live under Roman and English king’s slavery laws. So we could slip slowly back into servitude, bondage, and slavery on the installment plan. The ultimate result is another tyranny! Forced labor is unworkable and always has been; it creates havoc and chaos wherever it’s been used. The common sense of Natural Law has no weak links to antiquity and predates governments. The harmony of human nature has precedent and overrules governments.

This whole citation scam is like blind, brainwashed sheep continually following each other over a cliff. If the original concept of slavery was unworkable and an affront to human dignity, then 4000 years of doing it doesn’t make it better. It’s a house built on a rotten foundation.

It reminds me of a bunch of organized criminals getting together. They vote unanimously, based on their 4000-year success, that it’s okay to force others to collect protection money—then they publish the decision for future generations.

I’m asking you to abolish forced political labor that is out of control. But you can’t do that unless someone brings you a case. So that’s the purpose of disputes like this: when the crunch came, you did have the opportunity to rule on slavery vs freedom. Should the 13th Amendment apply to the IRS and U.S. Government? Are the principles of liberty meant to change with the whims of politicians like shifting sands? I think not! What kind of person would say government forced labor isn’t slavery? I call them fools.

Realistically, we can’t expect judges who have staked their careers and reputations on the law and government authority to upset the whole rotten apple cart. That will probably have to be done by massive, passive resistance; the time-tested way a previous generation defeated prohibition; the way this generation is ignoring marijuana and cohabitation laws; and of course the way the colonists let an arrogant king know they didn’t like stamp and tea taxes.

Is Social Security a contribution or tax? Tax or theft for a pyramid scam? Is paper money sound fiscal policy or counterfeiting? Is forced government labor duty or slavery? Was Vietnam a police action or war? War or mass murder?

You see, changing the name doesn’t change the nature of the thing. During the Vietnam War, we were told war would bring peace:
War is peace.

The indoctrination of children in socialist government schools and jury ignorance of nullification are government sources of strength:
Ignorance is strength.

Now this case is about whether forced government labor is necessary to preserve freedom in America:
Freedom is slavery?

There is no Statute of Limitations on the laws of human nature. To advocate that government “duties” are more important than individual rights defies the spirit and letter of the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and most importantly, it defies human nature. The War Department, legislatures, bureaucratic persecutors, Congress, the Supreme Court, and even the American people can vote that forced labor isn’t slavery—but that doesn’t change the reality of common sense.

Does freedom for all mean enslaving all—freedom is slavery? Is this doublethink? Double talk? Considering the principles this country was founded on, it looks like a double-cross to me!

If you are judicial leaders, it’s your job to be aware of changes and progress in your field. We see improvements in transportation, medicine, and communication. Do you think we are stuck in time? Shouldn’t there be progress in governments, social organizations, and freedom too? Juries don’t have to be slaves; the courts could have abolished slavery in their own house—but it’s the nature of tyranny to hang onto and expand power. What kind of person would accept a job to protect individual rights, then do the exact opposite? In my neck of the woods, we call them frauds!

We can summarize with a little story.

If I own a coffee shop and you come in for a $1 coffee, we are exchanging equal values by choice. If my coffee is $2, you would probably go down the street to a $1 place, other things being equal. Suppose you walk in one day and you are requesting $1 donations to send a man to the moon. Maybe I’ll contribute, or I might have other priorities for my money. I might suggest you seek investors and make a profit on your space program.

Now here’s what bothers me about withholding. Suppose you walk in with a gun and demand $1 to send a man to the moon. And worse than that, I must steal $1 from each of my employees. If I don’t cooperate, I may be jailed and have my business closed. And here’s what really angers me. Some of the money I was forced to collect was put into a compulsory, bankrupt, fraudulent, pyramid retirement scheme. Also, this money collected from my community was used to bomb other members of my world community in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. I refuse to be part of fraud and mass, premeditated murder. And when we complained, the Supreme Court ignored us.

You are invited to assist us in restoring the world dream of individual liberty, responsibility, prosperity, and peace. I’ll conclude with a poem by John Lennon and Yoko Ono titled: “Imagine”. It contains the phrase “no religion”. This refers to the “my-God-is-bigger-and-better-than-your-God” game that can get in the way of nature’s message—robes for example. So if the phrase “no religion” bothers you, think of it as “no robes”.

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
So the world can be as one

Imagine freedom.
(The above oral argument was never given because it wasn’t invited)

THE HORNS OF A DILEMMA

(adapted from a concept by Robert Pirsig in “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”)

The U.S. Supreme Court was facing the bull horns of Freedom or Slavery. They had several choices: Throw sand in the bull’s eyes. The judicial arena is famous for this: storms and swirls of rules, writs, motions, technicalities, and paper. Successfully filing a case with the court is an expensive, frustrating, sandstorm obstacle course.

Call it a different name: semantics. It isn’t a bull with horns; it’s a placid, friendly milk cow. It isn’t a social security tax; it’s a contribution. It isn’t slavery; it’s public duty.

Sing the bull to sleep. “Everything is okay, the system works; don’t worry, all it needs is some fine-tuning.” This is the indoctrinating and brainwashing done by compulsory government schools and our tamed, timid media. It’s the official position of the court.

Look for a compromise between the horns. American judicial history is a march to slavery and serfdom. To give any hint that they recognize a serious problem is a crack in the wall. With a little awareness, the citizens would widen the crack in the facade. There can be NO COMPROMISE OF FREEDOM. Refuse to enter the arena. This is simply cert. denied. They choose not to review the case and agree with the existing verdict against liberty and freedom. This would confirm that the court feels we must be slaves to the government: Freedom is Slavery. Ignoring the problem doesn’t solve it, and there are other arenas besides the Supreme Court.

Eliminate the bull. We can dismantle and dissolve the tyranny bull that is creating the dilemma.

“cert. denied” --U.S. Supreme Court: U.S. v Mohn, April 20, 1981

The court confirmed that in order to ensure freedom, we must be slaves to the government—Freedom is Slavery! This concept is workable for and strengthens government; it is not acceptable for our society.

ENVIRONMENT and CONSERVATION

Whenever you plan to trust someone with responsibility, check their references. Regarding land and culture, you might want to ask some American natives how their lands have been treated by the U.S. Government. Or ask the Vietnamese and Cambodians about their forests. Or the people of the American West regarding socialist forest management and the predictable destruction. Libertarians don’t trust politicians and bureaucrats with the protection of these valuable resources. Socialism doesn’t work any better for land than it does for education, the Post Office, and transportation.

Private Conservation Alternatives

Forest and wilderness preserves are being set up by private organizations, as political attempts flounder and fail. Trust for Public Land, Nature Conservancy, Audubon Society, Ducks Unlimited, Sierra Club, private trusts, and many other creative options are available. This process could accelerate if we abolish the income tax and keep resources in our communities.

Conservation on a sustained yield basis doesn’t have to mean preserved in an inaccessible safe deposit box. Tree huggers and stump lovers can work together and thrive in a principled system of private property rights. Let the 1000 flowers bloom.

Endangered Species

When no one owned the buffalo, they were slaughtered. Now that there are private herds, they thrive and the species is strengthened. The same can be done for all rare animals, including whales, birds, turtles, and whatever. Whales? They can be bred for their herd instinct, electronically marked, and protected. Laws create black markets and prices skyrocket. Once politicians and lawyers get out of the way, ecologists and livestock owners have common interests.

Social Encouragement

If a private owner does step out of line, it won’t be necessary to continually demonstrate against each situation. Other companies, insurance, stock and bondholders, groups, and individuals will get the hint and not want to risk arbitration, loss of goodwill, etc. It’s a better process because it’s direct and not bureaucratic; it’s what we naturally turn to when the political process breaks down.

Once public indignation is aroused, the human mind is very creative: boycotts, news articles and broadcasts, letters, word of mouth, concerts, bumper stickers, T-shirts, etc. A classic example was napalm and Dow Chemical during the Vietnam War. Their company recruiters got no response on college campuses (if they were allowed in at all), wives wouldn’t sleep with Dow executives, and their children avoided them. Dow got the message loud and clear.

Water Use

Water use can operate on private property principles. Users should pay the full cost of water, instead of subsidized political pork boondoggles. We must develop water innovations such as recycling, seawater conversion, icebergs, etc., that are ecologically safe. This will encourage productive use of less water, relocation to areas with more water, or cancellation of wasteful projects. Deregulation and privatization of water will reduce conflicts and alienation now caused by politics. Bureaucracies will be replaced with efficient use, and pricing based on supply and demand.

Water Pollution

The libertarian solution is— you guessed it—private property rights. Corporation X can’t put dirty water into a river or lake because all the neighboring users and owners would file litigation to stop them and recover damages. It’s the politician’s laws and court decisions that have allowed privileged corporations and government agencies to get away with it. The polluter would either clean the water before returning it, recycle, develop a cleaner method, or not exist. Insurance companies and investors wouldn’t touch a company that was dealing in dirty or hazardous materials unless they were convinced problems wouldn’t arise later.

Air Pollution

Air pollution requires much broader action. This could be in the form of individual and group lawsuits, and creative social encouragement (see above). With manufacturers protected by politicians and courts, we have developed a large legacy of obsolete, inefficient, dirty internal combustion engines. If car owners and makers had full liability, pollution-free transportation would have been developed. There are cleaner, more efficient ways to produce energy, propel automobiles, and transport people and freight: natural gas, hydrogen from water, and solar energy, for example. We would be further along on clean solutions if the politicians and bureaucrats stayed out of the way. When will they and we ever learn?

Mining

Ecologists and libertarians agree that politically privileged laws have created many problems on government land and through pollution permits. Businesses must be fully responsible for ownership, damages, and liabilities. Then economics will force a safer process, conservation, and multiple uses to get the best overall return on investment.

Nuclear Power and Clean-Up

In 1957, the Price-Anderson Act put the government in the position of insuring the new industry; private insurers wisely wouldn’t touch it, and we ended up with unsafe, subsidized nuclear plants. Now the federal government tells us it can solve the problem it caused. The libertarian solution is to get the government out of the energy business: no plants would be built until they can safely be privately insured and profitable. There are practical, safe, new technology alternatives continually emerging.

So in environment, ecology, and conservation, we see once again: government is the problem, not the solution.

Environmental Briefing Book for Congressional Candidates

PRIVATE HIGHWAYS?

Government has monopolized roads for so long we have a hard time imagining it being any other way. We know private enterprise is more efficient than politics: any time we see four people working on a government road maintenance crew, we can be pretty sure the job can be done by three… or two. This isn’t so much against the people involved; it’s the system that allows it. Private enterprise generally saves at least 25% or more over monopoly government services.

Creative Transportation Corridors

We should imagine streets and roads as transportation corridors that can be used creatively. In addition to the current variety of vehicles, we can add pipelines, railroads, monorails, and paths. Currently, wire transmission utilities often pay no fee; that should change. Once the magic of private enterprise is unleashed, there will be even more multiple uses.

Business Opportunities

There are many opportunities for enterprise within the corridor. Gas/cafe/store complexes in the center strip serving both directions are one example. The space over a highway can be used for shops, offices, motels, apartments, etc. Underground shopping malls are common at vehicle/subway/bus terminals, and street vendors can rent space. Apartments can be under bridges. There is valuable, wasted space within our current system that can be utilized to lower costs.

Road Associations

Commercial, residential, and rural area roads can be financed by property owners. Many subdivisions are currently handled this way. There are a variety of ways to encourage fair apportionment of payments. It’s a more businesslike and neighborly method than our current political bureaucracies. Owners care more about upkeep and safety when they have a more direct interest.

Paths can be included in a corridor or be separate for bikes, skates, jogging, strolling, etc. There can be use fees, cooperatives, contributions, commercial sponsorships, and space rented for refreshment stands, shops, equipment rentals, etc. This type of path (“strand”) connects several Southern California beach cities now; it’s heavily used.

Private Driver’s Licenses

Private driver’s licenses aren’t practical? Race tracks have them. Competition, including involvement by insurance companies, would improve safety and service.

Monopoly vs. Competition

In a truly free market, there is no such thing as a “monopoly”; there is always some alternative. If transportation corridors were competitive, there would be more choices. The rail/car rail/truck combination is just one example.

Buses, flying, monorails, trains, boats, and simply not going are alternatives that would cause highway companies to compete. They want their highly capitalized investment used. Providing safe, smooth roads creates more use and fees for them. We see billboards now saying, “Take the alternative scenic route.” A classic example of overcoming an extreme road/rail monopoly was the 1948-49 Berlin airlift. Public opinion is also a powerful tool.

Overlooked Innovations

There are other transportation opportunities and innovations we’ve overlooked because of the state monopoly on roads. New York City thought it would be buried in horse manure because they didn’t anticipate the auto. Flying is another innovation that revolutionized travel. Someday maybe we’ll just close our eyes, say “boo,” and be there!

Safety Measures

Roads would be insured, just like any other product liability. If the road is unsafe, the insurance goes up or is canceled. There could be independent Road Safety Associations that would pass judgment. If a road had a low rating, then vehicles, particularly trucks and buses, that used that road would be charged more for their insurance. This would be similar to the way Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s rate investment bonds now. The affected low-grade roads would have an interest in upgrading. Speed limits, if any, would be the choice of the road manager and insurance.

Advertising and Income

Advertising, tastefully done, can improve income and lower costs. The trash barrels on a beach are sponsored by a lotion. Train bridges often have a message such as “Ship Santa Fe.” Why not a highway bridge sponsored by Coke or Ford? Scenic routes could be exempt but might cost more to travel.

Rush hour could cost more, just like time-varied telephone rates now. This would encourage a more consistent use of roads; we wouldn’t have the expense of building for such high peak usage.

Agricultural Use

In many parts of the country, the median and side strips could be used for crops. Rain runoff from the road apron would make arid areas more productive, as can be observed occurring naturally now.

PRACTICAL??

It all seems a little far-fetched, and who wants to stop at toll booths? Yet a system of private roads has been operating every day for over 100 years in America. Look at a train: the cars are a mix of owners billed automatically for use of a privately owned road, just like phone bills are computer tabulated now.

Yes, the system is practical!

PUBLIC SERVICES: Practical Examples

You are invited to make a simple, common sense observation. Do the city planners ever worry if there will be enough newspapers and churches? No. Why? Because under the First Amendment, governments are hardly involved with those two activities. Are there enough newspapers and churches? Yes, because the libertarian free enterprise system works. They start up in homes, basements, tents, trailers, old buildings, etc. Some die out and the loss is minimized. Others prosper and move into more permanent quarters.

Government planning doesn’t work any better in English than it does in Russian or Chinese. THE LIBERTARIAN SOLUTION for public services is to allow the private, voluntary, unregulated, unprivileged, unsubsidized system to work in more areas. For example:

EDUCATION

Parents and students should be able to arrange for their own schooling: in the home, small groups, new technology and/or private businesses and organizations specializing in innovative choices. It doesn’t have to require great expense and costs can also be reduced by having older students teaching younger: they both learn. Families seeking alternatives shouldn’t be forced to pay for compulsory government schools.

PROPERTY PROTECTION

Property protection can be much better handled by private companies and neighborhood watches, as many communities are learning.

UTILITIES

The previously perceived “natural monopolies” are crumbling due to improved technologies and private competition in services like communications, water, sewer, energy, electricity, roads, etc. Physical public utility investments are crumbling faster than the rate of replacement, showing typical political short-sightedness and the inefficiency of socialism. This will mean disruptions and greater long-term costs.

TRANSPORTATION, RECREATION, GARBAGE COLLECTION, etc.

These should be private. This would replace paying taxes, then begging a far away bureaucracy to provide services; political manipulation has anesthetized our sense of community.

BUILDING INSPECTION

How would safe buildings be built without government? Most buildings are bank financed; banks require insurance. Insurance companies are very interested in fire, structure and personal liability, and will encourage safety through financial incentives. Owners and users share this same interest. So there would be ABC and XYZ inspection companies. Real estate agents would want to handle approved properties, just like UL on appliances. Most current inspectors wouldn’t be unemployed. They’d get jobs with private companies and expanded opportunities, just like firemen, judges, teachers and postal workers. If you don’t think private building inspectors are practical, ask the French; they’ve been doing it a long time.

HEALTH INSPECTION

Privately franchised health inspection companies can be locally owned yet carry a larger reputation and expertise. This is the way Century 21 Real Estate and Best Western Motels operate now. Job safety is the interest and responsibility of insurance, employers and worker associations.

FOREIGN EMBASSIES

International travel and business problems can be taken care of by businesses and associations specializing in this activity: American Express has a long history of this service. Areas of the world that are unstable or treat guests and commerce unjustly will benefit little from either until they get their act together.

VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS

One of the advantages of natural associations (science, charity, education, etc.) is that they ignore and cut across political boundaries—local, state and national. Nationalism hinders this simple process.

Humanity will harmonize in direct relationship to the progress we make in abolishing artificial political alienation and improving voluntary Diversified Unity.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

Celebrities and people who are popular or successful are embraced by politicians, especially the president. This is not so much an honor as it’s another attempt by the politicians to bask in the glow of publicity. For the famous, it’s no great accomplishment to be given an award or recognition by organized crime.

Country-Society-Government

Politicians and other authoritarians are fond of referring to “The Country” as if the people and society are one and the same as government, and the rulers who enslave. This perception—to confuse governments with the societies they govern—plays right into the hands of the Power Elite; it strengthens nationalism, which is a cause of war. Once the power/war mongers have created the myth of borders, patriotism and nationalism, then they can manipulate public opinion to THEIR advantage.

Flags

If you’re talking about the flag that was carried at the Wounded Knee and My Lai massacres, flies at IRS offices and other government buildings housing democratic tyranny—that flag doesn’t deserve support. Flags, anthems and patriotism can be harmful brainwashing tools. The stars and stripes represent states with political boundaries and bullshit. But if you’re talking about an American society and ideal founded for individual liberty, yes that deserves support. A good symbol is the Statue of Liberty.

Is Liberty Practical?

Has there ever been a totally libertarian society or country? How do we know it will work? Look at the founding date on the masthead of your major newspaper; it’s probably one of the oldest businesses in your area. This is because the press is allowed to operate almost free under the First Amendment. Like some collaborating evidence? Look how long some of the churches have been organized in your community—same reason.

Monarchy

Any society is welcome to have a king or queen; just don’t force people to support them with taxes. Those people who are nostalgic about the institution are welcome to contribute to it, just like The Church. And of course a monarch and family should have no more privileges or power over people than any other entertainers.

Leadership

Leadership isn’t reading popular opinion polls to see which way the parade is going, then rushing to get in front. Leadership isn’t the delicate, maddening, destructive, inefficient art of gently extracting cash, power and borrowing from the people to buy enough special interest votes to get re-elected. That’s politics, and it’s been soundly discredited. We hear we have a lack of leadership—a vacuum. We’ve had leaders. We’ve been led into and out of depressions, wars, wage/price controls, and down the road to democratic serfdom, socialism and fascism. It’s not that we haven’t had leadership, it’s where we’ve been led! Leadership is “to guide toward a known goal or result.” In order to do that, one must HAVE a goal, and a consistent, fair principle to base it on.

Mental Health

The world would have better mental health (including less drugs, drinking, accidents, child abuse, violence and suicide) without the insanity, harassment and coercion (especially wars) of governments. How can a neurotic government founded in freedom and liberty that has ended up enslaving its citizens even have a valid, believable position on mental health?

Santa Claus

If he did exist, the rogue would be jailed in “the land of the free.” He’s an illegal alien known to use aliases such as “St. Nick,” breaks FAA, vehicle and city animal regulations—and protectionist laws against dumping cheaply made foreign goods on domestic markets. Who’s financing this? The man wears a funny red costume (a communist front organization?), has long hair and a beard, encourages young children of both sexes to sit on his lap, and is high at least once a year. The operation is also suspected of exploiting minority labor. The whole Santa concept is an obvious affront to many things paternalistic governments try to outlaw.

Tax Freedom/Slavery Day

There is a rumor that national, state and local taxes are all paid by early May. This is false. There are hidden taxes including the counterfeiting of the Federal Reserve System, “off budget items,” future pensions, bonds, regulations, takings, forfeitures, and all the other scams politicians play. These put Freedom Day closer to July 1, so it becomes Tax Slavery Day. Or as Ayn Rand summarized, “The person who produces while others dispose of the product, is a slave.”

Terrorism

We must stop trying to solve problems at gunpoint. Education is paid for by taxes backed by guns, and attendance is compulsory. Courts backed by guns try to settle disputes. Licensing and consumer protection are enforced by bureaucratic, political government guns. Then we piously tell the world we want to export freedom—with guns. No wonder some retaliate with terrorism—with guns. What goes around comes around… karma.

WE

It’s not we the bureaucrats, or we the politicians, or we the IRS, or we the states, or we the judges—it says WE THE PEOPLE.

FOREIGN RELATIONS, WAR and PEACE

War is the ego trip of politicians. War will be abolished when nationalistic governments are abolished.

The U.S. has supported rightist military tyrants to combat leftist socialist expansion. That’s fighting the fire of tyranny with fire, and getting burned. Is this the image American citizens want? Many foreign PEOPLE and SOCIETIES hate us for what our GOVERNMENT is doing; the results are understandably disappointing and counterproductive.

It’s time to re-evaluate our premises. If our own government is attacking and enslaving us at home, should we think it’s giving a benevolent image abroad? People in other countries resent the U.S. Government meddling in their lives. If our domestic media and other information sources have difficulty sifting through the smoke and mirrors of political deception, imagine what it’s like in far away places where freedom, truth and justice are even more elusive.

Why do we even have military forces all over the world acting as trip wires? They reduce our security and invite terrorism. Why are we taxing our industries and workers to pay for the defense of foreign countries, then having their products clobber us in the world and domestic marketplace? THAT’S DUMB! Our War Department must be drastically reduced and restricted for the defense of the U.S. only.

The world doesn’t want forced American influence and corporate neocolonialism. Buying friends for governments doesn’t work any better than individuals trying to purchase friendship. The tyrannies and Death Merchants of the world are using U.S. political power and arsenals to enslave people, as we have done at home.

We should be cooling the fires of tyranny with the cool waters of freedom. Instead of exporting guns, bombs, bullshit and authoritarian concepts, we must project a workable example of individual liberty. The best defense against tyranny in any form—abroad and at home—is not a central authority that can be taken over by a conqueror, but citizens that live and breathe freedom.

United Nations

Conflicts between governments are a smoke screen, a facade, a diversionary tactic. The real war—throughout history, worldwide—is between governments and the individual. In that aggression, the Russian, American and all other coercive power brokers are ALLIES—and people, communities and societies also have common interests.

Then the allied power brokers form clubs. The United Nations is a club of oppressive governments, including the U.S. It’s counterproductive for a society based on freedom to strengthen, support or sanctify such an organization. The American people must withdraw from all power gangs. Any bureaucracy will expand its power over a period of time and masks this by publicizing its Good Works.

There may still be some doubters regarding the dangers of the UN. They are reminded that in the 1780s a similar discussion about the dangers of centralized authority went into forming the U.S. Constitution. If we haven’t been able to keep it under control, what makes us think we can do better with the UN or any World Government?

Premeditated Murder

We are patriotically brainwashed by government schools to rally 'round the flag in times of crisis, and this authoritarian training then permeates the media and institutions. So naturally centralized power encourages—yes even provokes—scapegoats and outside threats to further the goal of domination over private interests, especially when political control is failing.

Ernest Hemingway 1935

“War is planned and waged by demagogues and dictators, who play on the patriotism of the people, to mislead them into a belief in the great fallacy of war, when all the vaunted reforms have failed to satisfy the people they misrule. War is now being prepared and brought closer each day with all the PREMEDITATION of a long-planned MURDER. The U.S. will probably be brought into it by a combination of propaganda, greed, and the desire to cure the impaired health of the state.”

There is a basic, historical, predictable, premeditated connection. Politicians will create a crisis, requiring—they say—patriotism and nationalism, so they can avoid losing power. Paper currency inflation is used to finance war because the people won’t and can’t pay the taxes to do it. Big banks encourage this process because it gives them more business, profits and power, both at home and abroad.

It’s just common sense if you stop to think about it. Do the workers, farmers and managers of any country want to kill the laborers, growers and supervisors of America? No! of course not. They want to be left alone by the organized criminals of government so they can live their lives in liberty, prosperity and peace—just like us.

A Cause of War; A Peace Solution

Most of us like to think of ourselves as “peace loving people”: we wouldn’t consider armed robbery as a solution to a financial shortfall, wouldn’t initiate force against others, or condone or support that kind of activity. Yet that behavior has crept into society—in fact permeates it at every level, in every way, in the form of politics.

Perhaps Bill Simon summarized this best:

“If you wouldn’t confront your neighbor and demand money at the point of a gun to solve every problem that may appear in your life, you shouldn’t allow the government to do it for you.”

Or as Thomas Jefferson said,

“It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million human beings collected together are not under the same moral laws that bind them separately.”

Anytime, anywhere, anyone advocates the initiation of force to “solve a problem,” they are a cause of war. Aggression or the threat of coercion (taxes and compulsory anything) are acts of war. And these little individual wars, centralized through governments, are the cause, the foundation, the support and sanction of bigger wars.

Are you a cause of war?

A LETTER FROM PRISON - 1981

The first activity at this religious retreat was to fill out forms. (I think of it as a religious retreat because an old guy in a robe arranged my visit. Also, we’re not allowed sex, recreational drugs, alcohol, or many personal possessions.) One form was about drug use. I felt it was rude and inappropriate; but the questioner insisted and persisted, so I humored him. He eased into it with a booze question:

“Do you have a problem with alcohol?”
“No, I love the stuff. No problem.”

“Have you ever smoked marijuana?”
To say no or no comment just wasn’t believable. I would be embarrassed to admit it. So I said, “Yes.” After dozens of blatant liars, he was pleased with my refreshing honesty.

“In the past year, have you used…?”
He listed a variety of drugs so extensive, I blushed at the wide selection in one sentence. I wondered what I’d been missing because I’d never heard of some of them. Not wanting to commit to anything I wasn’t sure of, I gave a semi-emphatic, “No.”

After only a slight pause… we moved on.

“Do you have a drug problem?”
“Yes, I have a problem getting good stuff at reasonable cost.” I don’t think this is what the form had in mind. But he seemed satisfied at the apparent evidence the feds were succeeding in reducing supply.

“Have you ever been addicted to any drug?”
“Yes, I was addicted to caffeine. But since coming here, the lightly colored, hot water fictitiously called coffee is rehabilitating me.” He liked that word “rehabilitate”, and we’d made it through the drug questions on a positive note.

It’s hypocrisy that politicians, police, judges and prison officials suck huge amounts of caffeine, nicotine, alcohol and “legal” drugs, then harass citizens for recreational drugs like grass and cocaine. The real tragedy is that many inmates are indoctrinated into thinking they need to get in step with society. Society needs to be more tolerant; remember the lessons of prohibition. The misguided brain washers are judges, prison counselors, clergy, teachers, media, family, and “friends”.

Another part of our prison indoctrination was a strip search, including the infamous asshole inspection to assure we weren’t sneaking in contraband - like beer or guns. The only purpose I can see for the ass check is dehumanization of the prisoners… and guards. Or the personnel have an anal fetish. Someday justice will be served, and a snoopy guard will discover exactly what he deserves: gas.

The introduction booklet said, “We’re here to help you help yourself.” If the U.S. government intends to help me the way it “helped” the native Americans, energy industry, Vietnamese/Cambodians, prohibition, education, money supply and social security, count me out. This government and judicial system have NO CREDIBILITY for helping people: they can’t be trusted or respected. Keep that in mind the next time you hear the call for more prison space.

We don’t need more prisons, we need less laws! The only true crimes are theft and assault. The IRS is the greatest thief in the country and the cancer of governmental bureaucracy assaults us daily. It’s no wonder we escape to all kinds of recreational drugs and are at each others throats and pocketbooks. That doesn’t excuse citizen crimes, but we can cut prison populations by more than half. We must abolish the modern prohibition of “morals crimes” and dismantle the criminal bureaucracies that rob us of natural, personal responsibility for ourselves and each other.

I’m here protesting the withholding tax mechanism that steals from our paychecks; it’s a worthwhile experience and I have no regrets. I’m proud to be part of a long history of tax and tyranny protest. Resistance is the way prohibition, co-habitation and marijuana laws have been defeated, and of course the way American freedom was originally won. The question isn’t can I rehabilitate myself, but -

CAN THE GOVERNMENT REHABILITATE ITSELF??

P.S. The prison newspaper refused to print this letter.

LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT?

We hear it said, “America, love it or leave it.” That confuses the government with the society it governs. You can love the American people and still be very critical of the government. Suppose I hire a guard with a dog to protect my home, and the dog continually attacks my family and refuses retraining. Would you expect the guard to tell me to leave if I complain?

It is claimed this is the freest country on earth, but is it as free as it can be? A maximum security prison is a limited animal cage. Medium security offers more freedom and minimum security is the FREEST PRISON in the system… but it’s still a prison.

To offer democracy or a republic as the best form of central control, authority and bureaucracy is like saying arsenic is a better poison than cyanide, because it tastes better and acts slower. The best of several evils, is still evil.

We can smell the bad breath of tyranny in Wash. D.C. Just because Russia, Cuba, or Iran have worse bad breath, doesn’t justify a democratic tyranny. A rose by any other name smells sweet, and tyranny by any other name still stinks.

Love it or leave it? Should we vote with our feet again? Our ancestors did that to come here seeking liberty. It’s unacceptable to talk about leaving America, the haven of freedom, to seek freedom. If we won’t vote with our feet, we can still vote in elections, on juries and/or by withholding tax dollars and other support.

I’M ASHAMED OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENTS, BUT PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN.

IS LIBERTY PRACTICAL?

by Charles Sprading 1913

“The history of civilized man is the history of the incessant conflict between liberty and authority. Each victory for liberty marked a new step in the world’s progress.”

The first great struggle for liberty was in the realm of thought. The libertarians reasoned that freedom of thought would be good for mankind. It would promote knowledge and advance civilization. But the authoritarians protested that free thought would be dangerous. People would think wrong. A few were divinely appointed to think for the people. They had books which contained the whole truth. Further search was unnecessary and forbidden. The powers of Church and State were arrayed against the libertarians. But after the sacrifice of many great men, freedom of thought was won.

The second momentous contest was for the liberty to speak. The enemies of liberty, those possessing power and privilege, opposed freedom of speech, just as they had opposed free thought. The Church said it was perilous to permit people to speak their minds; they might speak the truth. The State said free speech was dangerous. It was not the duty of citizens to think and speak, but to obey. After much persecution, the libertarians were victorious. But even though such authoritarian institutions as the Catholic Church and the Russian states do not concede the freedom of thought and speech.

The third contest was for liberty of the press. The same old enemies who had so much to conceal opposed it. Their repressive measures added a long list of martyrs to the cause of freedom. Like free thought and speech, a free press has proven to be a powerful factor in human progress.

The fourth struggle was for the liberty of assembly. Here again the libertarians met the same old enemies using the same old arguments. The people could not be permitted to assemble freely, because they might plan treason or revolution against authority. But again liberty was victorious and free assembly has been found to be beneficial to the people.

The fifth important contest for liberty was in the field of religion. Man could worship at any shrine he pleased, or at no shrine. Man should worship as his reason and conscience dictated, or even not worship at all. A succession of conflicts opened the gates of religious liberty. In these five important spheres of human action, there have been, against a sea of ignorance and tradition, five great victories for freedom. Liberty, wherever applied, has proved a benefit to the race. The most important steps in human progress would have been impossible without it. If civilization is to advance, that advance can come only as a result of broader and more complex freedom in ALL human relations.

A principle that has proved its workability in five such important and vital phases of social evolution should prove desirable IN ALL AFFAIRS OF MEN.

DIVERSIFIED UNITY: A Libertarian Strategy

Some get so involved in elections, it’s easy to forget the international freedom movement is much larger than American politics. Perspective is needed, and an answer to a popular question: what is the best way to achieve freedom?

Our strength is the Unified Diversity of the consistent Libertarian Principle: non-aggression, no initiation of force or coercion. Here are several possible paths-options-strategies.

1. Elections

Politics is a good communication vehicle and arena. Many people are in the habit of voting and it’s a historical way of changing governments, although not the only method. It’s effective for creating a discussion of practical applications of principles, and organizing large numbers of people to action. Even a moderate number of libertarian votes can influence existing officials to use some freedom solutions. A libertarian governor or president could accomplish reforms with pardons and vetoes; a libertarian sheriff or judge would be interesting. Referendums and initiatives can be useful, and doorways to coalitions. The Libertarian Party has been and is an effective introduction to individual liberty; a good halfway house for politically homeless, disillusioned, disoriented Demopublicans; a deprogramming process, a decompression chamber.

Some problems with elections are:

Half the people don’t vote and are a large part of a protest constituency, and many who do vote are on government payrolls and handouts.
The Republicrats change the rules to their advantage.
It’s embarrassing for libertarians to be involved in this political carnival, this dancing with dinosaurs.
Citizens are rightfully suspicious of people who seek power to reduce power.
It’s inconsistent that a transformation to individual responsibility would mostly come about through central organization.

2. DON’T VOTE

This solution removes the sanction, support and validation by the victims; it denies the consent of the governed. Not voting is a major liberating step for separating the individual from government lists and control. Although strategies 1 and 2 may appear to be opposed, they will complement each other: either can encourage and lead to a major reorganization. If you do vote, it’s not necessary to vote for every position; vote selectively, not just for the lesser of two evils.

3. JURY NULLIFICATION

When juries know they can judge the law as well as the facts, we will restore natural liberty and justice. Judges resist this because it would reduce their power. Although jurors must have courage to over-rule a judge’s instructions/suggestions, it is being done: it only takes ONE juror’s vote to not convict. Grand juries have even more independent power and can turn the tables on arrogant judicial bureaucrats.

4. COURT APPEALS

Victories are rare—governments have the home court advantage. Inviting prosecution is risky: hard on marriages, finances and other relationships. It’s unlikely we’ll trip up the Supreme Court on a major issue that would significantly reduce governments; usually they just avoid or subvert anything with that potential. But some of the tax protest arguments and ballot access suits that have been upheld do have that capability, so there’s hope.

5. VOLUNTARY ACTION - TECHNOLOGY - SELF LIBERATION

If we just ignore the bureaucracies and do things ourselves, it will help governments dry up and blow away. I like the way Bob Lefevre expressed this: “Whenever you call upon government to do something for you, it’s like food and drink for the bureaucracy. Without that nourishment it would not grow.”

The technologies of communication, energy, self-defense/security, education and many other advances all have the potential to decentralize and undermine political power. This is especially true in totalitarian countries. Seeking alternatives happens naturally when government “services” break down. Barter and the unreported, unlicensed, worldwide, informal, underground, alternative (black market) economy undermine political control… and taxes.

6. FINANCIAL FREEDOM: Tax Strike/Protest/Rebellion/Boycott

The American people can abolish the income tax anytime they’re willing to accept the Risks, Rewards, Rights and Responsibilities of personal liberty and financial freedom. Employers can also subtly cooperate, to the best of their ability. This wouldn’t overthrow the government, but it could help cut and prune it down to size. Beware of politicians who shuffle the deck chairs on the sinking ship of state with different tax burdens—a political shell game. Our purpose is a major reduction at all levels. We will probably be forced to this solution as working within the system fails.

Is there a precedent for people refusing to pay oppressive taxes to a central power? Yes, it’s called AMERICA!!

7. DEMORALIZE THE OPPOSITION, and Accentuate the Positive

The opposition isn’t the British this time, but our own friends and neighbors. It’s not enough to want freedom; those in coercive power and privilege must become productive citizens. The demoralization/think-positive game is a good area for personal creativity.

8. GEOGRAPHIC CONCENTRATION

Town, county, state, nation, ocean island, floating cities in international waters, space stations, or elsewhere in the multiverse. Pick a spot and advance freedom.

9. NON-VIOLENCE

As Gandhi, Martin Luther King and others have shown, peaceful strategies are more powerful than government coercion. Our goal is non-aggression, and a message is in the means. Historically, violence is difficult to stop or direct, and then becomes an excuse for more authoritarian actions. Or as Maslow put it, “When your only tool is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.”

It’s important to have alternatives to violence, especially for disenfranchised minorities—outlets such as communication.

10. EDUCATION - COMMUNICATION

Word of mouth, truth force, awareness, consciousness or call it what you like, this is the underlying foundation that supports, nurtures and is ultimately responsible for the success or failure of other strategies. It can be practiced on a large or small scale, alone or in groups. One good educational outreach is coalitions with other sympathetic organizations. Although you will not agree on all issues, coalitions strengthen your voice, impact and contacts.

That’s ten strategies to expand liberty; we can create more. What are the best, most effective ways to achieve freedom? What are the ultimate solutions? The ones that interest YOU the most—that make the best use of your energies and talents, innovations and inspirations.

That is our strength: diversified unity.

The ultimate solution is a combination of all, in mutual support. Just because some choose to focus their efforts in areas other than political activities or organized groups, doesn’t make them outcasts. Do the bullfrog and canary argue about how to make music?

Our power is in the harmony and symphony of liberty. Let the politicians and bureaucrats waste energy on internal squabbles and personality conflicts. They’re very good at it; they’ve been doing it for thousands of years. Our unique strength is in the energy of diverse, creative innovation—based on the consistent, worldwide, unifying principle of non-aggression.

Un amigo de libertad, es un amigo de mi.

Any friend of freedom, is a friend of mine.

WHAT CAN I DO? (Outside the Election Arena)

Each person can contribute to freedom using their abilities and interests: That’s our unique strength.

Get Involved in Elections and Campaign Activities

Votes for five candidates plus five issues = ten votes for freedom; they do add up and people do pay attention. But elections aren’t the only avenue or arena for change.

Promote Individual Liberty

Pay attention to the writing and speaking of people who are for individual liberty; your children or students should also. Word of mouth is effective and a time-honored method that can’t be stifled or controlled.

Distribute Literature

Distribute and mail literature. For example, anytime you receive fundraising requests from other political organizations, use the postage-paid return envelope to send libertarian information. The “cross-fertilization of junk mail” is very cost-effective!

Encourage Libraries

Encourage public, school, and private libraries to stock more libertarian books and subscriptions. Find ways to get them donated.

Speak Out

Speak out at public meetings, civic groups, and on talk shows against the march toward democratic socialism and fascism. Lobby or testify for freedom at hearings. Participate in a peaceful demonstration.

Write Supportive Messages

Write or call with an encouraging, supportive word to publications, reporters, broadcasts, bureaucrats, teachers, and others who are for private alternatives and individual liberty. Instead of just negative criticism, stress the positive possibilities of a free future. Fertilize freedom; shed sunlight on liberty and watch it grow.

Give Libertarian Gifts

Give libertarian gifts at Christmas and other occasions: hats/t-shirts, bumper stickers, buttons, or a subscription. Write a letter to the editor. Write a song, poem, script, essay, story article, or book. Paint, photograph, or cartoon. Make a sculpture or movie. Contribute time, services, materials, and/or money to organizations. Help staff a fair booth. Join a parade. Gimmicks are okay: Lady Godiva got great media!

Form a Libertarian Group

Form a libertarian group, community, or colony.

Serve on Public Boards

Serve on a public board, using the libertarian viewpoint. Work toward dissolving the group and privatizing or eliminating its functions. Give support and encouragement to individuals and groups who are fighting government harassment; they’ll be receptive to libertarians. Join non-libertarian groups and raise the freedom viewpoint often.

Seek Private Alternatives

Look for private alternatives to social problems and political “solutions.” When possible, support private rather than government services. Example: donate books to a private school or university library instead of a government library. Buy a money order or ship packages by private means instead of the postal “service.” Seek and support business opportunities in areas that are being deregulated or supply options to government services: private schools and mediation or arbitration, for example.

Nurture New Technologies

Nurture new technologies that offer decentralization and individualism. When possible, avoid government licenses, regulations, and controls for business and personal relationships.

Non-Cooperation with Investigations

DON’T COOPERATE with investigations under vice, tax, and other political laws. Use responses like, “I don’t know, I don’t remember” or the old standby: “I decline to answer on the grounds it might incriminate me.” Practice non-violent civil disobedience; resist the draft. DO COOPERATE with investigations and prevention of theft and assault. Many are giving up on bureaucratic protection and depending on neighborhood watches, private security, and prevention.

Underground Alternative Economy - Tax Protest

The major protest governments fear is having their funds cut off, either because of tax resistance or an uncontrollable, alternative economy. AVOID ALL GOVERNMENTS like the plague they are and seek private, non-coercive alternatives. It’s a libertarian vote with dollars.

If you are currently receiving funds in any way from any government, you’re dealing with a financially and morally bankrupt organization. Don’t support governments and consider switching to productive work.

Participate in tax protest in its many forms. Establish a contract labor arrangement with your employer, change jobs, or become self-employed; then don’t file a return at all, if possible. Employers should cooperate with tax avoidance to the best of their ability. Reduce tax withholding/stealing by using current tax protest strategies. Be prepared to reduce and accept risks. Avoid government phony money with barter and other alternatives.

Education - Communication

As a foundation for freedom, we must get the minds of our children out of the hands of governments. As a first step, parents who choose alternatives shouldn’t also be forced to pay for compulsory government schools. Communication must also be totally unregulated; the First Amendment interpretation must be expanded.

Jury Nullification

Perform jury service based on the common sense of individual freedom; a judge’s instructions should be treated as biased suggestions. Since the English Magna Carta in 1215, jurors have the choice to vote not guilty if they feel the law is unfair. This has been used to void the fugitive slave laws in the 1850s, alcohol prohibition in the 1930s, and modern marijuana and cohabitation laws. It works to further personal freedom and can be a libertarian vote that is not part of the election process.

Live the Life You Seek

When making contact with people of other communities, societies, and cultures, avoid continuing the presumptions of political alienation—communicate PERSON TO PERSON. And most importantly,

Live the libertarian principle in your daily life, without hypocrisy.

DECLARE YOUR INDEPENDENCE!!

As IRS tyranny increases, some turn to the courts for protection. In 1875, the US Supreme Court stated its position, and has never changed (Taylor v Secor, 92 US 575 at 610):

“The payment of taxes has to be enforced by stringent means against a reluctant and often adverse sentiment; and to do this, other modes of procedure are necessary, than those which belong to courts of justice. It is a wise policy. Tax collectors are wholly beyond the power of the court. Mere errors or excess in valuation, or hardship or injustice of the law, or any grievance, will not stop collection of a tax. There is no violation of The Constitution.”

The court is clearly saying, “Since citizens don’t like to be robbed, injustice is necessary.” In other words, oppressive taxation in America can only be enforced by ignoring the Constitution and imposing tyranny! If you had any illusions that the Supreme Court protects your rights, property, and liberty, “Taylor vs Secor” should open your eyes, if it doesn’t blow your mind. It’s very clear whose side the courts are on. They have a direct conflict of interest: they’re talking about their own paychecks, power, and prestige—and they have the home court advantage.

But we aren’t helpless. Etienne de la Boetie formed a plan of non-violent resistance for France in 1553:

“There are three kinds of tyrants: some receive their proud position through election by the people, others by force of arms, others by inheritance. Although the means of coming into power differ, still the method of ruling is practically the same. Tyrants need only be deprived of the public’s continuing supply of funds and resources. RESOLVE TO SERVE NO MORE!! and you are at once FREE. I don’t ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer. Then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.”

We hear of a citizen/government partnership. There sometimes comes a time in a relationship when one side wants a change—a divorce. They give their compelling reasons, then act. The U.S. Declaration of Independence was just such a document:

“Whenever any form of government becomes destructive, it’s the right of the People to alter or abolish it. …a long train of abuses and usurpations… repeated injuries… the establishment of an absolute tyranny… invasions of the rights of the people.”

“He has erected a multitude of New Offices and sent swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution. For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of Trial by Jury. Arbitrary government… altering fundamentally the forms of our governments. We have warned them from time to time… They have been deaf to the voice of justice…”

Our founding mothers and fathers had the courage to stop paying oppressive taxes to tyranny. Tax protest can be your individual Declaration of Independence.

IRS NUISANCE CALLS

The IRS has a computer phone system that calls a taxpayer until satisfaction is obtained. Telephone company information about “nuisance, harassing or abusive calls” is quite helpful:

“Nuisance calls may come from someone who knows you, or from misguided, frustrated or mentally ill people who are playing with the phone. They may be debt collection agencies who make annoying or threatening calls for money they claim is owed, and warn of impending legal action. Sometimes threatening calls are repeated over a period of time to harass, anger, frighten, infuriate, irritate or terrify you or your family.”

This description fits the IRS, so these phone company suggestions seem appropriate:

Always use the phone on your terms, not those of the caller.
Don’t talk to anyone unless you want to.
If you give the caller no satisfaction, the person usually gives up after one or two tries.
Don’t feel obligated to answer questions just because the questioner sounds ‘official’.
Don’t answer questions on the phone you wouldn’t answer if they were asked by a stranger on the street.
If you get calls asking for information you don’t want to give, or receive a threat to your property, or the caller is rude, HANG UP!

There you have it—official from the phone company. If you receive a call from a person or computer claiming to represent the IRS, it could be a crank call.

Hang up immediately!!

ZEN GRAFFITI

Graffiti is a way to express frustration: bumper stickers, buttons, and T-shirts for example - like modern Zen koans (riddles). In order for a philosophy to have lasting value, it must be applicable to universal situations… to solve riddles.

NUKE THE UNBORN, GAY WHALES… NOW!

Are we that frustrated? Gay whales could be in a private herd, perhaps owned by a gay ecology group. Improved contraception and other medical advances are potential solutions for the unwanted unborn. Nuclear war is the ego trip of Governments; war will be abolished when nationalistic, militaristic governments are gone. Now? Time is nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once.

YOU SEEN ONE NUCLEAR WAR, YOU SEEN 'EM ALL.

WHAT IF THEY GAVE A WAR, AND NOBODY CAME?

DRAFT BEER, NOT PEOPLE.

WHEN GUNS ARE OUTLAWED, ONLY OUTLAWS AND GOVERNMENTS WILL HAVE GUNS.

THE FREE HUMAN INDIVIDUAL IS OUR MOST ENDANGERED SPECIES.

TAXATION IS THEFT. TAXATION IS SLAVERY.

GOVERNMENTS DON’T COLLECT TAXES TO PROVIDE SERVICES; THEY ATTEMPT SERVICES AS AN EXCUSE TO EXTORT TAXES.

TAXES ARE REVOLTING, WHY AREN’T YOU?

WHAT IF POLITICIANS PRINTED MONEY, AND NOBODY USED IT?

AS GOVERNMENTS GET RICHER, PEOPLE GET POORER.

AMERICAN FASCISM IS LIKE PUTTING THE WHOLE COUNTRY ON PROBATION: A NATIONAL GAME OF “MOTHER MAY I?”

THE STRONGER THE GOVERNMENT, THE WEAKER THE SOCIETY. THE WEAKER THE GOVERNMENT, THE STRONGER THE SOCIETY.

DON’T LET SCHOOL INTERFERE WITH YOUR EDUCATION.

COMMON SENSE IS NOT SO COMMON.

DECRIMINALIZE LABOR.

SELL THE POST OFFICE.

HEALTH COSTS ARE KILLING US.

THE WAR ON DRUGS IS OVER; THE GOVERNMENT LOST.

GOVERNMENT IS A CANCER MASQUERADING AS ITS OWN CURE.

DON’T VOTE FOR REPUBLICRATS, IT ONLY ENCOURAGES THEM.

THOSE WHO LOVE SAUSAGE AND RESPECT THE LAW SHOULD NEVER WATCH EITHER BEING MADE.

ASK NOT WHAT THOSE IN POWER CAN DO FOR YOU - ASK WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR THOSE IN POWER.

WHAT THE HAVE NOT NATIONS HAVE NOT, IS FREEDOM.

IF PRO IS THE OPPOSITE OF CON, IS CONGRESS THE OPPOSITE OF PROGRESS?

INSTEAD OF UNCLE SAM AS A GOVERNMENT SYMBOL, IT SHOULD BE A CLOWN RIDING A DINOSAUR.

DEMOCRACY WAS A BICYCLE OF INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY WITH TRAINING WHEELS; IT’S TIME TO REMOVE THE EXTRA WHEELS.

THOSE WHO DEMAND RESPECT DON’T DESERVE IT, BECAUSE THOSE WHO DESERVE RESPECT DON’T HAVE TO DEMAND IT.

WE LEARN FROM HISTORY THAT WE DON’T LEARN MUCH FROM HISTORY.

DEMOCRACY IS TWO WOLVES AND A LAMB VOTING ON WHAT TO HAVE FOR LUNCH.

YOU CAN’T HUG YOUR CHILDREN WITH NUCLEAR ARMS.

I’M PROUD TO BE AMERICAN, BUT ASHAMED OF U.S. GOVERNMENTS.

IT’S A FREE COUNTRY, ISN’T IT?

L E G A L I Z E F R E E D O M

SUMMARY REVIEW

Government lies and twists words.
Government counterfeits money.
Government steals property.
Government uses forced labor.
Government injures and kills.

This is moral bankruptcy.

But it’s all okay because of “ancient usage, undoubted power and unanimity of judicial opinion.”

Worldwide compulsory government schools teach our children this hoax is the way the world is meant to be.

As a result, our continuing, long-playing, tragic world series will continue indefinitely, unless we break the chain, now.

If not us, who?

If not freedom, what?

If not now, when?

If not here, where?

If not morality, why?

IMAGINE FREEDOM

If you want something,
first imagine it,
then talk about it,
then do it…
imagine freedom.

You are invited to take a deep breath… and let it out…
and again… and again…

We are members of a conspiracy. The word conspire originally meant to breathe together;
to act in harmony and unity in producing or contributing.
It’s an ancient, worldwide conspiracy of life, shared by you and I.

I saw the news today: domestic discontent, crime, economic uncertainty,
foreign tyranny and terrorism. It seems like we can do better than this.
It seems like the world was meant to work in harmony and unity,
naturally and automatically. You are invited to imagine that world… now.

Imagine the relaxation that can come from peace and tranquillity—a lack of fear.
The unity and harmony of a world community: the oneness of breathing together.
A lack of war, with greatly reduced crime, violence, and tension.
The preservation of private property productivity.

Imagine the exciting potentials of a free multiverse:
the explosion of discoveries in the frontiers of space, oceans, and the mind.
An extension of our life span and preservation of human lives,
dignity, justice, trust, creativity, spirit, hope, love.

Imagine more economic choices and productivity.
Without inefficient government overhead, we could easily have
longer weekends or vacations AND our present standard of living, or better.
It would leave more time for family, leisure, and aliveness—
more true wealth for everyone.

Imagine the expanded social choices of freedom.
We can move closer to our full human potential: male and female.
More comfortable human relationships and sexual choices.
We will advance in the arts, culture, creativity, and spirituality.
Think of the education, communication, and information diversity.
We can have physical and mental health.
We can relax.

Imagine the alternative nightmare:
nuclear or biological war, economic chaos, starvation,
tyranny, social chaos, racism, police state genocide.
If this nightmare happens, how will you answer the question:
“Did I do enough to stop it?”

Imagine the miracle of the marketplace and economic Human Action.
Political democracy is: if 51% want chocolate, ALL get chocolate.
True democracy is: if 51% want chocolate, they get it, and
the others can have vanilla, strawberry, or a delicious variety.
Economic people power: the consumers are all Queens and Kings.
It’s an invisible hand working automatically, simply, naturally;
fairness and productivity are rewarded;
the Golden Rule working socially and economically.
A society where all can prosper according to their own wishes.
A rising tide lifts all the boats; it would be difficult to fail—
there would be so many opportunities to succeed!

Imagine how to get from here to there:
communicate freedom both verbally and with your life’s actions;
Change thinking from “what can government do about this problem?”
to “what can I, my neighborhood, a business, or association do?”
Freedom is like a smile: it’s an unlimited commodity.
The miracle and magic of freedom is:
the more you give, the more you get.

Imagine a caterpillar transformed into a butterfly…

imagine freedom.

I saw the news today, and imagined a dream I’d like to share:
imagine relaxation, peace, and tranquillity
dream of economic choices and productivity
imagine the expanded social and spiritual choices
imagine the miracle of the marketplace

and I imagined it can be done
this dream can come true

It depends on us: if we don’t do it, who will?

NOW is the time to restore the American dream, the world dream of
individual liberty, responsibility, prosperity, and peace…

imagine all the people living life in peace.

You may say we’re dreamers,
but we’re not the only ones.
You are invited now to join us;
the world can be as one.

imagine freedom.

(This essay was originally written in 1981 with James Libertarian Burns)

DEFINITIONS

libertarian: One who upholds and lives the principle of individual liberty and responsibility of thought and action.
mini-archy: The least possible government necessary to preserve the security of people and property.
sheeple: People who are easily herded, sheared, butchered, and burned.
politician: A shrewd, crafty schemer, often with dishonest practices.
Demopublican Republic rat: The U.S. ONE-party system with two similar branches.
socialism: Government ownership of the means of production; leads to economic stagnation due to a lack of competition, innovation, and productivity (examples: postal service, transportation, civil courts, education).
fascism: Centralized authority regimenting commerce and people; citizens are allowed to hold a piece of paper (land title, business license, central bank note, birth certificate) fooling them into thinking they have property ownership, then the “owners” are heavily regulated and taxed.
Fascism is also characterized by sovereignty of government elitism, blind obedience to authority, militarism, expanding jails and prisons, a subdued and/or regulated media, government propaganda, suppression of effective criticism, one political party, government indoctrination of children, and privileged groups and classes; this leads to restrictions, alienation, and depression for minorities—a genocide physically and/or spiritually.
communism: A totalitarian system preventing amassing of privately owned goods; a goal of “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need”; a major control of the economic, social, and cultural life of a society.
tyranny: Absolute, oppressive, unjust, despotic, centralized, totalitarian power.

Acknowledgments

Colorado and Oregon libertarian friends
James Libertarian Burns for assisting with the essay “Imagine Freedom” and general criticism
Carolyn Phelps
Dave Phelps
Randall K. Hylkema cartoons, c/o Reason Magazine
Vic Lockman for the IRS thief picture

Definitions, dates, and spelling are based on Merriam-Webster’s Third International Dictionary and the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Some of the quotations have been edited.

TERRORISM: Custer Died For Your Sins

Vine Deloria, 1969

"America has always been a militantly imperialistic world power eagerly grasping for economic control over weaker nations. The Indian wars of the past should rightly be regarded as the first foreign wars of American history. As the U.S. marched across the continent, it was creating an empire by wars of foreign conquest just as England and France were doing in India and Africa. Certainly the war with Mexico was imperialistic, no more or less than the wars against the Sioux, Apache, Utes, and Yakimas. In every case, the goal was identical: land.

When the frontier was declared officially closed in 1890, it was only a short time before American imperialistic impulses drove this country into the Spanish-American War and the acquisition of America’s Pacific Empire began. Also in Central and South America. There has not been a time since the founding of the republic when the motives of this country were innocent. Is it any wonder that other nations are extremely skeptical about its real motives in the world today?

No society which has real and lasting values need rely on force for their propagation. The wheel of Karma grinds slowly but it does grind finely. And it makes a complete circle."