A Love Letter and a Call to Action

For anarchists and those who oughta be.

On Saturday, I participated in Rachel Haywire’s terrific Cabaret of Secrets. Lots of interesting speakers, cool readings, and great musical performances. I was pleased to be among them.

Unsurprisingly, my talk was on moving on to the next phase in human social and political organization, which (also unsurprisingly) I believe ought to involve the end of involuntary governance and a move to decentralized, consensual arrangements and polities.

I wrote it as a bit of a love letter to people who share that view. (A couple of the attendees made it clear to me afterwards that they did not, haha!) So that is why here, I borrow from Larry Elder’s radio show intro and add “and those who oughta be.”

If you’re interested, below are the remarks I prepared, and mostly stuck to, for the talk.

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I know that things have been a little scary over the last few years. But I would like to convince you that this is an awesome time to be alive. That we have some opportunities now that we might not have had in more ‘normal’ times.

For sure, most of us have been at least a little black-pilled by everything that has been going on. But even those doomer moments were a necessary part of our awakening. They’ve helped shatter some illusions human beings have been languishing under for thousands of years.

Once upon a time, we lived in small, primitive tribes. We all pulled our weight because that is what we had to do to survive. Leaders arose and we chose to follow because it was in our interest to do so. Because they had traits that made them good leaders.

That is when we fell into the trap. We figured, “Hey, Chieftain Bob was pretty good—maybe his son will be too.” Of course, Chieftain Bob was totally cool with that idea. Why wouldn’t he want to pass his position on to his son, and his son, and his son? And boom—hereditary rule was born. Monarchy. HumanGovernance 1.0.

But then, about 400 years ago—interestingly, right after the invention of the printing press in Europe—we began to question the longstanding myth that some of us are born to rule, and others born to be ruled. And so we began replacing monarchies with democracies. HumanGovernance 2.0. And that’s where we are now.

Without a doubt, enforced systems of hereditary rule had to go. But other than that, what did this change really get us? All we did was trade monarchs for majorities, aristocrats for bureaucrats, and one privileged elite for another. Same crap, different century.

Your fate—the fate of the individual human person—is still in the hands of others. The packaging changed, but the product remained the same.

The state is legally authorized to do things we would never consider acceptable if done by an individual…just like before. Everyone is subjected to political arrangements to which no one consented…just like before.

We all know Benjamin Franklin’s famous line as he walked out of the constitutional convention: “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.” But that’s not the interesting part of that exchange. The interesting part was the woman’s question: “What sort of government have you given us, Mr. Franklin?”

She had no say in that decision. Nor did anyone else in her generation, or any generation since. Other than the elites in that room, on that day, the rest of us are simply told that our consent is “implied,” and then we have the whole thing forced on us.

Normies, of every political stripe, will tell you that this is the only way things can be.

But you guys aren’t normies. 

You know that voting produces slight variations on a theme, but it never changes the overall trajectory. And as we have seen, it does absolutely nothing to stop oppression.

You know that what we have now is the direct result of humans choosing the “lesser of two evils” for generations.

And what we have now is not okay.

You have woken up.

You know that you are a unique, irreplaceable, sacred, sovereign, self-owning being with the natural right to control your own life. 

In every aspect of your life, you operate according to simple, natural rules. Don’t initiate force against others. Don’t make anyone do anything to which they did not consent. 

And then government comes along and says, “We are going to initiate force on you every day, and you don’t get to consent to jack squat.”

Fortunately, people are finally starting to figure out that this is a scam…and that it always was.

There is a consciousness shift underway. I see hearts and minds changing every day. Our numbers are growing.

I believe we are about to undergo the next evolution. Call it HumanGovernance 3.0. And you guys are going be a part of making it happen.

So what would a truly free world look like?

Well, for starters, since we all know what the word “free” actually means, we know that it won’t look like any one thing. 

In a truly free world, we will see some people—sovereign in themselves and in their property—contracting with private providers of the kinds of things that governments now provide—security, justice, and infrastructure.

We will also see some people creating independent polities—new experiments in governance and different ways of life. 

No one will be told that they must submit to the rule of any government. They will have the right to join, to exit, to form their own experiments, and to be free on their own land.

It may seem like this is a long ways off—and it some ways, it is—but the good news is that people are already blazing the trail…

Special economic zones are forming and gaining greater autonomy, all over the world. Decentralization is trending up. Secession movements are on the rise, and new technologies are helping us cut the cord from centralized systems and institutions. New visions are being conceived and implemented.

I would like to add my own vision to that mix.

A couple of years ago, I read two books by Neal Stephenson: Snow Crash, and The Diamond Age…and if you’ve read either of them, then you probably know what I am about to say.

In these books, Stephenson paints a world in which people aren’t forced to submit to the authority of nation states. Instead, they are members of distributed polities—tribes, if you like—united by a set of principles, a shared mission, or a common identity.

I think this model will work, and I think we can start right now.

I am envisioning a particular kind of distributed nation—a country based on an idea rather than an ethnicity or an artificial boundary drawn by the vicissitudes of history.

If you’re like me, you have this urge to declare your independence. You know that you are a sovereign being, and that you ought to be treated as such.

This distributed nation would begin with just such a declaration. 

A declaration that I am, and of right ought to be, independent and free. That I want to consider myself, and my land, to be a part of a tribe of people who feel the same. That I want to be a part of a voluntary union—a polity that does not demand my obedience or claim control of my property, but that shares my principles and will defend my right to be free. 

A country that does not require you to pledge allegiance to it, but rather pledges its allegiance to these principles.

So imagine living where you are, and connecting with people around the world who share this vision. Imagine a distributed nation whose shared goal is to set you free.

Over the next few months, I am going to be laying out a plan for how to do this.

Of course, government is a like jealous and psychopathic lover—it does not take kindly to being jilted. They’re not just going to let us go.

So we’re going to have to be smart about this. And we’re certainly not going to do anything that will get us un-alived by some alphabet agency.

This is going to be a step-by-step process. It may even have to be a generational project. Some of us may have to light the torch, knowing that we may not get to see the bonfire. 

Then again, circumstances can change in a hurry. At some point, legacy governments may simply collapse under the weight of their own debt, unfunded liabilities, and hyperinflated currencies. And if that happens, we certainly want to be as ready as we can be. So we should start now.

We don’t need a revolution to do this. Revolutions are horrible, bloody things that just end up replacing one power with another. That’s no good. 

You guys are the revolution. We all are.

So like I said, over the next few months, I am going to be working on this plan over at my Substack, and I hope you will come join me and share your ideas for how we can get this done.

And, if there is any time remaining, I would be happy to try to answer any questions you may have. 

Thanks!