A Future of Freedom and Peace
If we want that future, we need to stop clinging to the past (DN 1.22)
Cover page | Preface | Introduction 1 | Introduction 2 | Introduction 3 |
(Part I) Why: 1.0 | 1.1 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.4 | 1.5 | 1.6 | 1.7 | 1.8 | 1.9 | 1.10 | 1.11 | 1.12 | 1.13 | 1.14 | 1.15 | 1.16 | 1.17 | 1.18 | 1.19 | 1.20 | 1.21 |1.22
Chapter 1: WHY
1.22 — The end of Part 1
It is time to end Part 1, and it sole chapter: Why.
Our task here has been to explain why you have rights, and why every form of involuntary governance is an impermissible violation of those rights. Not that government violates those rights when it has “gotten corrupt” or been taken over by the “wrong people,” but that it violates your rights by its very existence.
Our task has been to demonstrate why we must move on from all involuntary governance. Why we should want to move on. Why there is nothing to reform, restore, or go back to—and that we could not do so even if there were.
We could write a dozen books on all these topics, but it is time to move on—in this book…and as a species.
From here we go from bad news to good. From problems to solutions.
Some of you are more than eager to do so. Others are still not fully convinced and want to hear more. For the latter group, we will explore one final statement below. Perhaps something will click.
If not, don’t worry—we will continue to touch on these issues here and there throughout Part 2.
Keep working at it. Keep asking questions. I believe most of you will get there eventually.
And we’ll be there for you when you do.
None of this is acceptable in any way
Earlier in this chapter, I pointed out that legal “protections” of our rights are just words on paper—easily overborne whenever our masters wish. I cited the example of the Wilson Administration effectively closing down media outlets, and imprisoning thousands, for criticizing America’s involvement in World War I.
One inevitable response goes something like this:
But Chris, all of that was later undone by elections and by the courts. See—the system worked.
I want to acknowledge, with sincere respect, that responses like this are often offered by accomplished, intelligent, freedom-loving people. But…
Responses like this are a big part of the problem.
Jailing people for speaking against a war violates numerous rights, but let us look at this through the lens of just one: the right to speak.
Most classical liberals (conservatives, libertarians, anarchists, etc.) agree that our rights are natural—that they preexist any government.1 You have rights as a fact of your very existence. You start out with them.
Then a government comes along and says,
You did not agree to be governed, but we are going to govern you anyway. We claim the authority to control you, and to determine what rights you do and do not get to enjoy.
If you’re one of the really lucky ones, we might even enumerate a few of those rights, and then let you enjoy them to a limited degree, with said limitations determined by us.
Oh, and it looks like you are in luck: you are among the tiny fraction of the human population whose government has chosen to enumerate a Right to Free Speech. Congratulations!
Now, we may or may not actually honor this commitment. And since we alone have the authority to tax, coin money, and use legal violence, there is exactly jack squat you can do about it.
And if we do happen to throw you in jail for something you said, our court system may or may not rectify the situation at some point down the road.
Oh, and one more thing: if you try to ‘alter or abolish’ this system, we will kill you.
Let’s not mince words: It is perverse to defend such a system.
It is perverse to say that “the system works” because it finally got around to rectifying the fact that it had made you a political prisoner.
We need REAL freedom
Erase all preconceptions and just think about the situation in a vacuum, from the bottom up:
You have a right. It is inalienably yours.
A group of people calling themselves “government” come and sever you from the enjoyment of that right.
Then, they graciously agree to dole some enjoyment of the right back to you, to whatever degree of consistency and fairness they deem fit at any given time.
The human race will never be free so long as you keep defending that.
Yes, there is the question as to how we can maintain peace and order without such governments. But smart people have been coming up with answers to that question for well over a century now. Once you understand the truly perverse nature of government, shouldn’t you at least want to hear some of those answers?
The human race will never be free so long as you keep believing that no such answers exist, or can possibly exist.
We have explored, in depth, the fundamental problem with involuntary governance. We know that no democracy—not even the American constitutional republic—solves that problem. Nonetheless, the advent of the American republic was an important event in the development of human liberty, and one can fairly argue that the U.S. Constitution was the best document of its kind.
It is possible for both of these of these things to be true at the same time!
And yet, faced with any criticism whatsoever, some defenders of the Constitution will insist that because it is “better than communism,” no other option is possible:
Love it or leave it!
What, would you rather live under Mao?
Seriously? Is that is your only standard?
The human race will never be free so long as we keep insisting that the kind of governance we have now is the only kind we can ever have.
We will never be free so long as we continue to believe that we are so rotten that we must be governed. That we are slaves in need of masters.
We will never be free so long as we perpetuate systems that attract and empower the most rotten among us…and then thump our chests and say that ‘the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.’
We will never be free so long as that is best we can think of. So long as we are too afraid to try anything else.
We will never be free so long as we continue to tell each other, and ourselves, that we consented to any of this, when we clearly did not.
The Abyss
For twenty centuries and more, officials (and statist intellectuals in their service) have been telling us that government is the only thing standing between us and the abyss. Between us and the chaos of the “state of nature.”
And we have chosen to play along. Out of fear. Out of ignorance. Out of inertia.
But government IS the abyss.
Government is the cause of war. You have no beef with someone halfway across the world. They have no beef with you. Yet your respective governments make you fight each other. Make you hate each other.
Governments slaughtered nearly half a billion humans in the twentieth century. Do you hear? Four hundred million lives. All they would have achieved…all the children they would have had…gone. Wiped out of existence by governments.
In a single century.
And yet they tell us that things without government would be worse? How could it possibly be worse than that?
Will we ever have peace?
They tell us that in order to avoid the insecurity of the “state of nature,” we must surrender “some” of our rights to them in order to “secure” the rest. They play on our desire for peace. They claim that only they can provide that peace.
Then they make endless war and violate your rights every day, as a normal part of their activities!
How can there be peace in this world so long as you continue to insist that that is the best we can possibly do?
How can there be peace so long as you continue to grant this tyranny the presumption of legitimacy?
How can there be peace when you scream at those of us who question that legitimacy, as if we are the problem?
And all the while…our masters are laughing.
Our systems of government today pit people against each other in an endless battle: use your vote against the other guy before he does it to you.
There will never be peace in this world so long as you continue not only to support such systems, but to say that they are good.
Every bloody footprint along the muddy track of human history is there for one reason: because some human was forced to become the means to another’s ends. That is the signature human evil—the source of every act of man’s inhumanity to man.
Our systems instantiate this evil in our lives: Encouraging people to use the violence of their votes to extract resources from others. Allowing some to control the lives of their fellow human beings. Turning people into means.
A group of people calling themselves “government” grant themselves the authority to commit moral crimes forbidden to the rest of us…and we thank them for it! Vote for it. Call it “serving.”
Our masters are laughing.
They tell us that the only way that human beings can possibly “live together” is if they forcibly impose one-size-fits-all ‘solutions’ upon everyone living in a given area. This is a completely pathological…and yet we’ve been acting as if it’s normal for centuries.
We even agree with them. We cry out with fervor, “We must our country back!” And then, by bullet or ballot, we impose our ‘one true way’ of life upon everyone else.
There will never be peace so long as we continue to believe that this is the way we are supposed to do things.
While we play our masters’ games—fighting their wars, fighting each other—they grow in power and wealth.
And they laugh.
See it for what it is
Forget the tyrants for a moment. Forget the corruption.
Just think of the purest, most idealized version of any democracy or republic. The brochure version.
Even in that ‘pure’ state, voting still involves some people imposing their will, and their way of life, on others—a majority imposing its will on a minority.
Voting produces nonconsensual results imposed on individual humans by force. That is not good. That is evil.
Drop the democracy mystique. Wake up from the patriotic fever dream. See things as they actually are.
Involuntary governance is the mechanism by which our overlords oppress us.
Involuntary governance is the mechanism by which we oppress each other.
Involuntary governance is the problem.
It’s up to us to work together to find new solutions.
A hopeful future lies ahead of us. We just need to build it.
This is where the fun begins.
I need your support. Help me keep this going as we search for solutions together!
A smaller group among us who are not ethical naturalists may disagree that rights are natural, but will still generally agree that they come from somewhere other than governments.
It's like a mob shakedown. If you don't pay us, we won't protect you. As a matter of fact, if you don't agree with us, harm may come to you and yours.
For all the flaws of the (Hamiltonian) Constitution, America still created the American dream. Decades after the Wilson Administration, my father was born into poverty, but through 100% full private scholarships, he went to a prestigious prep school and college and became an engineer to live a good middle-class life. How many legal immigrants have echoed this sentiment? I know at least 25 legal immigrants from other countries who have told me their horror stories and are living the good life in America now -21st century even – through hard work and determination and a little good fortune. (The good life as defined by each of us, since most of us want to live well, but don’t need it all – massive wealth.) Even the poor (“who will be with you always”) live better in America.
Dude, you make great arguments, but…I still believe that Americans are the heirs of the American Experiment because of the idea of the American Dream. (Work hard, do better.) But collectively, America has created and allowed further dependency on the government/taxpayers. How many Americans (or illegal aliens) are dependent on the government now? And, that is simply irresponsible (and unsustainable)! And, as Tytler predicted, dependency is the last cycle before tyranny in any democracy (constitutional republic too).
If anyone can talk about freedom with authority, it should be Viktor Frankl, who said, “Freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.”
First things first: We must all be responsible. So, first we might end Dependency on the Government and Give Peace a Chance to End the War on Poverty!
https://lizlasorte.substack.com/p/give-peace-a-chance-end-the-war-on-9f8?r=76q58
Why not try that first and see what good tidings it might bring? You might say, well, no government, no dependency. But, some of us are scratching our collective heads saying…hmmmmmm, what about national defense? Uniting as a confederacy for that purpose was the whole idea behind the Articles of the Confederation. And, we did win the Revolutionary war with our first Constitution.