How Far Are You PERSONALLY Willing to Go to Stop People from Leaving?

Don't hide behind the skirts of the state—what would YOU do?

There is an aphorism in libertarian circles that goes roughly like this: At least the criminal doesn’t pretend he’s doing you a favor when he robs you.

This is, of course, a critique of government.

Government takes money from you by force. A criminal takes money from you by force. But the government variant is enshrouded in layers of gauzy dishonesty…

You ‘consented’ to have the money taken.
It’s for your own good.
It’s the legitimate kind of forcible seizure of property.
It’s for ‘society.’
Don’t you care about other people, you twisted loner?

But the ‘transaction’ is essentially the same. It is still a transfer backed by violence. At least the criminal has the decency not to pretend otherwise.

But this isn’t really a comparison between criminals and some abstract thing called government, now is it? Government isn’t buildings or photocopy machines or colorful pieces of cloth. Government is people. It is a master class of overlords, and the people who empower those overlords: By voting for them. By claiming that their overlordship is legitimate. By insisting that humankind is so rotten that we have no choice but to continue to play the roles of masters and slaves.

And of that latter group, there is an especially special set: the voters who just adore all of this. Cheerleaders for the state. People who think it is a good thing that government uses force to turn some people into the means to other people’s ends. People who absolutely would never let you leave this arrangement.

So if you are in that last category, buckle up, buttercup—I’m talking to you.

When government takes money from a truck driver in Pawtucket and gives it to someone in Portland, the violence is there at every level…

To the employer: Withhold a portion of your employees’ pay or pay a fine. Fail to pay the fine and lose your business. Resist the forcible seizure of your business and lose your life.

To the worker: Correctly assess, and pay, what we tell you you owe us or get audited. Resist the audit and face our wrath. Resist our wrath and die.

Every person, at every level, is a part of this violence. And that includes you, the voter who seems to like it. Your reasons are unimportant…

Misguided compassion. Real compassion. Virtue-signaling. Statolatry. An inability to imagine other possibilities, or an unwillingness to research any such possibilities.

You can think of yourself as the hero in this story for your great generosity (with other people’s money), but the bottom line remains the same: you are supporting violence. You are insisting on it.

It may appear unseemly to be so direct—to challenge an entire cohort of people in this way. But it needs to be done. Someone needs to say it.

And since we’re going for it, we might as well really go for it and ask,

Would you be willing to exert this violence yourself?

If not—why not?

Don’t hide behind the skirts of the state. Don’t weave a magic mist of platitudes. Don’t make vague statements about the “common good.” Don’t try to lose yourself in the collective.

You think it’s a good thing, so go take it from the truck driver yourself.

No? Not willing?

Interesting.

Okay, so let’s ask another question, then.

Back in January, I wrote a piece titled, If We Try to Leave, Will They Let Us Go? In this piece, I listed a series of possible secessions and devolutions: various ways in which people might simply opt out of the current system and go their own way.

None of these scenarios took anything by force away from anyone else. All were simply ways in which people might leave and do their own thing. And yet I know, from experience, that for many people, this notion is simply not allowed.

At the time, I noted that these are a combination of two cohorts:

First, there are the People of the System. Politicians. Power-players. The architects, operatives, and enforcers of the regime. They won’t let us go because…well, because nobody gets to go. Going just isn’t allowed.

Then, there are the cheerleaders of the regime. They are the people that believe that nothing but the state is possible. They are the people who believe—owing to a pathologized version of human social nature—that nothing but large, forced collectives is allowed.

They are the lefties who believe that you’re not allowed to go because you’re not allowed to take your money with you—because the tribe has a claim on your stuff. No one leaves the tribe…well, because no one leaves the tribe. Because the tribe is the tribe, and you are just a sub-unit of the tribe. Because “we have to find ways to live together.”

Unfortunately, they are also some conservatives who are locked into a permanent idée fixe about the Founders’ “original vision.” They believe that there was an idealized version of our constitutional republic that existed early on, and that we can somehow get back there. They believe—in spite of all evidence to the contrary—that the limited government we were (supposedly) bequeathed can be restored, and then kept limited.

And after years of defending the classical-liberal gains of the Founders against a relentless onslaught from the left, they are also locked in permanent defense-of-America mode. (I understand, because I used to be there myself.)

If you think all of this is overwrought, try tossing the notion of secession into a mixed-company conversation. The result is like throwing a piece of meat in a pit of doberman pinschers who haven’t been fed for three days.

In other words, resistance to the notion of anyone leaving, for any reason, is quite high. Even if the person leaving takes nothing but himself and his own property, the resistance remains unmoved. Leaving just isn’t done.

So now I want to pose the same question as above…

It will take violence to prevent a person from leaving—from seceding, opting out, withdrawing consent, and declaring independence.¹ If you fall into the category of people who believe that this sort of leaving simply isn’t allowed…

Are you willing to deploy that violence personally?

Seventy-five people living in a small island off the coast—an island they own—say that they no longer wish to be a part of the country that claims dominion over the island. Are you willing to climb in a boat with a rifle and attack them yourself, to prevent their secession.

If so, why?

If not, why not?

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1. I believe that included among our natural rights are the rights I enumerate in Article II, Section 2 of my Human Constitution: to establish, join, exit, secede, and remain. Please see the Constitution for more.