Friday, August 07, 2009

Finding freedom

Finding freedom

Trying to achieve freedom by using government is like trying to ride your bicycle to Mars. There is not even a rational "starting place". However, you don't need to destroy all the bicycles in the world in order to get to Mars, just ignore them because they are irrelevant and make a vehicle that is appropriate for the task.

The allure of the state is real for a lot of people. It is easy to get seduced by the power and even by the big buildings, built with stolen property, that those who play the game get to use. Keep playing the state's game, with rules established, interpreted, and enforced by the state, and you will keep losing freedom. While the general drift of history is toward more personal freedom, the trend of all states is always toward more state power at the expense of personal liberty. This also means all states are doomed from the beginning. Placing your hopes and dreams in them is a dead-end prospect.

Whether your preferred government is based upon a Constitution or a religious book, the end result is the same: A consolidation of power at the expense of personal freedom and dignity.

When I discuss everyday anarchy, some people try to claim that my circumstances must be unusual. Yet anarchy works as our private, daily lives illustrate to anyone who cares to pay attention. Anarchy is a self-regulating and self-correcting system. The things that don't work will get replaced by new things that do. This is because there is no one "at the top" demanding that failed ways be adhered to because of "The Law" or "tradition".

I like for the world to be rational. I like for it to make sense by all parts fitting together in a unified whole. That is why I value liberty. It fits well with the rest of the universe, making a coherent whole. Science and liberty are just different parts of the same spectrum of rationality. Statism, on the other hand, is an irrational mythology that claims that either people are so bad that they need people to control them, but the controllers will not be bad, too, or that those who seek to control others are only doing it for selfless reasons and will never take advantage of their position.

We all know what is wrong with the world. Yet, we can't fix the world all at once; we must do it one individual at a time. So lets start trying to fix our own lives and make them a little better and ourselves a little more free. It really is up to you.