(My Clovis News Journal column for May 25, 2012)
If you follow these columns I'll assume you either have a passion for liberty, or you don't, but you like to get stirred up and have someone at whom you can direct your misgivings. Either way I'm glad to help get your blood circulating.
If you are in the group who values liberty, and want to see it flourishing again throughout this political desert where liberty once bloomed in every nook and cranny, you may not know what you- one individual- can do now to help spread liberty, both in your own life and in the lives of others.
That's a riper field of opportunity than you might suspect. Almost everything you do will have an impact one way or the other. Simply choose the action that builds rather than the action that destroys.
Let's start with the biggest thing: You can act to respect all the rights of everyone around you to live as they see fit, even if you don't like their choices, as long as they don't steal or attack. For a lot of people this is the hardest step to take, but it also pays the biggest dividends. It's amazing how much freer this will immediately make you.
You can also make the decision to take care of your own life and property and refuse to involve people or agencies who are financed by "taxation". As a matter of fact you can make an effort to completely avoid dealing with agents of the state in any way unless you are forced to do so.
The flip-side of that coin is that you can avoid working for government at any level so that your paycheck is not financed through coercive "taxation", but voluntarily instead, and so that you don't accidentally have any illegitimate power over other people's lives.
Speaking of "coins"- you can use alternative currency, such as gold and silver, for any mutually-beneficial trade you engage in. If you don't know how, ask me. Stop enabling the Federal Reserve's destruction of the economy.
If you are in the group that doesn't care about liberty, then stay alert. You may seem to be on the winning side right now, but dusk has fallen on the Era of Authority. Its repetitious failures have awakened a new generation to the promise of liberty, just as a previous generation got a glimmer a couple of centuries ago, before their descendants dropped the ball. Let's make it a permanent change this time.
If you are in the group who values liberty, and want to see it flourishing again throughout this political desert where liberty once bloomed in every nook and cranny, you may not know what you- one individual- can do now to help spread liberty, both in your own life and in the lives of others.
That's a riper field of opportunity than you might suspect. Almost everything you do will have an impact one way or the other. Simply choose the action that builds rather than the action that destroys.
Let's start with the biggest thing: You can act to respect all the rights of everyone around you to live as they see fit, even if you don't like their choices, as long as they don't steal or attack. For a lot of people this is the hardest step to take, but it also pays the biggest dividends. It's amazing how much freer this will immediately make you.
You can also make the decision to take care of your own life and property and refuse to involve people or agencies who are financed by "taxation". As a matter of fact you can make an effort to completely avoid dealing with agents of the state in any way unless you are forced to do so.
The flip-side of that coin is that you can avoid working for government at any level so that your paycheck is not financed through coercive "taxation", but voluntarily instead, and so that you don't accidentally have any illegitimate power over other people's lives.
Speaking of "coins"- you can use alternative currency, such as gold and silver, for any mutually-beneficial trade you engage in. If you don't know how, ask me. Stop enabling the Federal Reserve's destruction of the economy.
If you are in the group that doesn't care about liberty, then stay alert. You may seem to be on the winning side right now, but dusk has fallen on the Era of Authority. Its repetitious failures have awakened a new generation to the promise of liberty, just as a previous generation got a glimmer a couple of centuries ago, before their descendants dropped the ball. Let's make it a permanent change this time.
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