You Can Check Out Any Time You Like, But You Can Never Leave

If you can't leave, it's not consent. And you can't truly leave. (DN 1.10)

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

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Chapter 1: WHY

1.10 — The Slave Contract, Part 3

One of the aspects of slavery (and government) we have not yet discussed is what is done to you if you try to escape. This particular topic will become more important in Part II, but we shall take a preliminary look now.

As we all know, through reason and moral intuition, all arrangements, in order to be properly consensual, must be such that one can with draw one’s consent…

—If you don’t like your job, you can quit.

—If my wife decides that she no longer likes me and the horse I rode in on, she can leave me. (That would be so sad. I really like my wife! And the horse she rode in on.)

—I studied karate for several years. I granted authority to the sensei and all the senpais. I did what they told me to do. I let them yell at me when I screwed up. I let them punch and kick me. One time, my ankle swelled up like a ballon from too many kicks. The sensei was trying to send a message: “Don’t leave your ankle out there, dumbass.”

All of this was consensual.

But one day, I decided I had broken too many bones. It was taking me forever to heal from soft-tissue injuries. (I am in my 50s, after all.) So I stopped going. I wasn’t happy about it, but it had to be done…before I lost a spleen or got some sort of lifelong injury. I liked karate, but not enough for that to be worth it.

No one chased me down. The sensei doesn’t come over to my house and kick my ankles. I was free to go. My participation, and the act of granting them authority over me, was consensual.

But if I were to try to leave my supposedly “consensual” relationship with government, they would certainly send enforcers to come kick my ankles. And worse.

We have been forging a comparison between government and slavery. Let us now continue that analysis through the lens of the right to withdraw one’s consent and exit an arrangement.

Needless to say, there are certain types of slavery which do not involve any consent whatsoever—where the slave has no say in the fact, conditions, or term of his enslavement. But there have been other types of enslavement in which the prospect of ending one’s enslavement did exist. Some slaves were able to buy their freedom. In certain types of contractual enslavement, a slave could leave once the contract was fulfilled.

Slavery, in short, is significantly more varied than what we envision if we just think of the latter-day chattel slavery of the Americas. That said, we can certainly characterize enslavement as a condition from which it is, in general, quite difficult to escape.

So how about involuntary governance? Can you escape from that?

First, note that the term “involuntary governance” is not question-begging. As we have previously demonstrated, that is what it is. You did not agree to be governed. Other than the fractional opinion chit called a “vote,” you have no say in the conditions of that governance. And whether you vote or not, things will be done to you to which you clearly did not consent.

But can you leave?

Why of course you can, grubble grubble grubble. It’s a free country!

Is it? Let’s compare the government of the United States with, say, an Amish community…

Needless to say, an Amish community is what we would consider to be “illiberal” in many ways. They obviously don’t have freedom of religion. They are forbidden, by the ethos under which they live, to engage in certain behaviors or use certain technologies.

But they are free to say that they do not want to live under that system anymore. They can leave.

Can you?

I know that it is popular (on both sides of the “aisle,” depending on context) to say, “If you don’t like this country, you can always leave.” Once you understand the true nature of government, you see what an ugly expression that is. But even setting that aside…how true is it, really?

The United States government, for example, makes it very difficult to leave. They charge you money to renounce your citizenship—citizenship that you never actually chose in the first place.

Some people, especially high-net-worth individuals, are charged an exit tax. Uncle Sam will have his pound of flesh!

You have to show your papers to leave “their” territory, and they decide whether you actually get to go or not.

(As an aside, think about the concept of “their” territory. What is it, really? It is your land, and my land, and every other person’s land. It is Joe’s house. Jane’s condo. Bob’s houseboat. Sam’s apartment. It is a collection of private properties—the dwelling spaces that human beings need in order to live. And then the government simply says that all of it is “theirs.” Really think about that for a moment. We will return to this subject in Part II.)

So then, once you have paid your expatriation fee and your exit taxes and show your papers, where do you get to go?

To another variation of the same nonconsensual arrangement!

It is rather like telling a slave, “Escape if you want, but you’re just going to be captured and enslaved by someone else.”

There is no place where you can be free of this arrangement. You are living on Prison Planet. Frankly, I am ashamed that I ever once thought, or said to anyone, that, “If you don’t like it, you can leave.” What a fool I was.

But there is more still. Why should you have to leave at all? Why can’t you simply live on your property and have it be your property? Why is a superior landlord necessary? What gives that landlord the “right” to be that landlord? 

Why shouldn’t you be able to contract for passage along private roads in order to visit other people on their private property, based on voluntary mutual agreement? Why must a nonconsensual ‘social contract’ be forced upon you without your consent?

“Police protection” is an unsatisfactory answer. Security and justice can be accomplished in other ways.

“National defense” is similarly unsatisfactory. Governments are the reason why we have wars in the first place. That is like Homer Simpson saying, “To alcohol—the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.”

Our moral intuition and reasoning, coupled our organic experience and observation of life, make the rule quite plain:

If you are not allowed to withdraw your consent, then it was never consent to begin with.

Consent must include the notion of being able to leave. If you are not allowed to leave, then it is not consent. Full stop. (This is the basis of your fundamental Right of Exit, which we will discuss in Part II.)

And no, “Love it or leave it” is definitely not an answer. It’s just a patriotic trope fed to us by our overlords to keep us believing that their overlordship is legitimate. 

Exiting this violent, nonconsensual arrangement can happen in one of three ways:

• We can find new lands.

• We can negotiate (or fight) to separate some portion of an existing country.

• We can begin a process of incremental exit without ever leaving our homes.

Each has its advantages and drawbacks, which we will be discussing in Part II. In the meantime…

If you are not yet convinced that EXIT is your right (and a desirable objective), what more do you need to hear?

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