Division and Pessimism Will Not Set Us Free

Following your path and Feeling Good.

Winter is grinding on, especially for those of us in the north.

I was planning to bring my family to a pancake house tomorrow—a great place that is only open for a couple months of each year, during sugaring season. But it’s 90 minutes away on back roads, and we are expecting a half a foot of snow or more. Maybe pancakes aren’t worth the risk.

We’ve seen the sun only a handful of times since the start of December. Every day is a formless gray, moved only by the howling wind.

I am hearing a few notes of pessimism and general exhaustion from our freedom-movement community here on Substack. Is it just the weather? Will it break with the arrival of spring?

Of course, many of us are enjoying the spectacle of DOGE revealing the deep and protracted corruption of U.S. government employees and their many dependents. As voluntaryists (anarchists/whatevers), we know that government is always a protection racket. But some rackets are more racketty than others—and this one is turning out to be even worse than many of the most cynical among us imagined. It has been enjoyable to watch those revelations come to light.

Yet I am still hearing people express the lingering suspicion that any changes made will be cosmetic, or they won’t last, or they’ll be used as cover for something darker (like a massive shift towards using AI systems in government rather than humans). After the veil was lifted in 2020 and we saw just how psycho the psychos really are, it is hard to get as optimistic as one once did.

People like us—people who cherish and seek true human freedom—know that the journey toward our goals is long. And it can feel daunting.

I am also seeing a few more slings and arrows in the air these days. People are a bit edgier than usual. The tiniest shades of disagreement are used as an excuse to separate.

There is even a bit of People’s Front of Judea-ism at work: Hey, you’re doing freedom wrong—THIS is the true pathway to greater freedom. As if there is only one such way.

We all want to be free. But at the moment, we’re not even sure what that would feel like, let alone how to get there. That is why I have chosen Nina Simone’s version of “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free” for #FreedomMusicFriday. (video below)

I wish I knew how it would feel to be free
I wish I could break all the chains holding me
I wish I could say all the things that I should say
Say 'em loud, say 'em clear
For the whole round world to hear

I wish I could share all the love that's in my heart
Remove all the bars that keep us apart
I wish you could know what it means to be me
Then you'd see and agree
That every man should be free

I wish I could give all I'm longing to give
I wish I could live like I'm longing to live
I wish I could do all the things that I can do
Though I'm way overdue, I'd be starting anew

Well, I wish I could be like a bird in the sky
How sweet it would be if I found I could fly
Oh, I'd soar to the sun and look down at the sea
And then I'd sing 'cause I'd know, yeah
Then I'd sing 'cause I'd know, yeah
Then I'd sing 'cause I'd know
I'd know how it feels
I'd know how it feels to be free, yeah, yeah
Oh, I'd know how it feels
Yes, I'd know, I'd know how it feels
How it feels to be free, Lord, Lord, Lord, yeah

I will not try to offer a complete answer to this predicament right now. No such complete answer is possible. But I will offer a few thoughts.

First, I will note what we should not do. We should not fall victim to ideological splitterism and the “narcissism of small differences.” To borrow a sensible dictum from Ronald Reagan—a person with whom you agree 80 percent of the time is an ally, not an enemy.

Sure, we have different ideas and approaches. But we need to remember that anyone who is in the freedom movement is in the freedom movement! We mustn’t atomize based on minor or doctrinaire differences. That doesn’t help anyone’s cause.

Similarly, we mustn’t get caught up in our chosen pathway to freedom and begin to assume that it is the only possible pathway.

I am trying to create a new kind of “nation” as a pathway to greater freedom. It is something that no one has ever tried before—not like this. But that doesn’t mean that I believe this is the only way. I respect other pathways.

Plant a thousand seeds. Let’s grow a forest.

Others believe that the best way is for individuals to go it completely alone—to focus on natural law oneself, but without any associations whatsoever. If that is your jam, then do it. I support you. But it’s not mine, and that should be okay too.

We should not let the winter of our discontent divide us into squabbling splitters. Take joy in what you are doing, and in the fact that there are other people seeking freedom by a different path. We should support each other.

For my other piece of advice for the day, I am going to begin with a little wisdom fromSotiris Rex:

Belief is a driver. Belief is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If you believe you can succeed in something, then, assuming that something is within your biological potential and your social capacity, you stand a real chance of succeeding. If you don’t believe you can succeed, then even if it’s staring you in the face, you stand no chance of succeeding.

If you don’t believe you are worthy of good things in life, then guess what… not a single good thing will come to you. If you don’t believe you can get the girl/boy, then you won’t get the girl/boy. This is not some “law of attraction” new-age nonsense: this is how you interact with the world around you based on what you believe is possible, and what is not. If you don’t believe in yourself, then no one has any reason to believe in you.

The question is not what people believe, but why they believe what they believe. Who taught them to believe so little in themselves so as to always look to authority figures rather than to themselves? Who taught us to place more faith in strangers than in ourselves? Who conditioned us to believe that corrupt pedophile politicians can give us a better world than what we can create without them?

If not enough people believe in voluntary systems of self-governance, then guess what… no one will actively trust and rely on voluntary systems of self-governance. They will instead rely on an oppressive state, which they subjectively believe is “better.”

(Read the rest.)

He’s right. It’s a lesson I remember and then forget and then remember again: Confidence works. Belief works.

If you believe you’re going to fail, the odds are good that you will fail. But confidence wins the day.

The arc of history is long, but I am sure that it is bending towards greater freedom. We’re no longer peasants in the pathway of oncoming conquerors and hordes. We’re no longer feudal serfs. Yes, the means today’s oppressors use are more subtle and pernicious, but we are also more awake than we’ve ever been. Oppression is global, but so is the freedom movement.

So be happy. Be confident. Be proud that you are a part of that movement, and honor the fact that others are too.

And don’t just wonder what it would feel like to be free—make it happen.

And then you can move from one Nina Simone song to the much happier one below it. Then you can start Feeling Good!