As so many have noticed, there is a Great Divide in America- and I don't mean the Rocky Mountains.
It's a divide between individuals who see themselves as part of a particular group and those who see themselves as part of a different group.
But, the "Great" divide isn't the divisions that we are encouraged to see. It isn't between "Black" or "White" or Hispanic. Not between "immigrant" and "citizen". Not even between "liberal" and "conservative".
Nope. It's strictly between liberty and State.
Those who support the State, or somehow believe a State enables liberty, are destroying liberty. Actively. Not simply by giving power and comfort to the enemy of liberty, but by marginalizing those actually advocating and supporting liberty.
Supporting the State includes supporting cops, troops, a favorite politician, and even the Constitution (as anything more than an illustration of how illegal the federal government has become by its own rules).
Supporting the State doesn't just mean supporting the individual rights of those people who work for the State- nothing, not even joining the State, can make rights "go away". Supporting the State to the detriment of liberty means saying those people are "good" even if they refuse to walk away from the "job".
Supporting the State means supporting the Constitution in spite of everything wrong with it by pretending there is no way to deal with other individuals which could be better.
Supporting the State means saying "just obey the law", when you know- you KNOW- the "law" is often completely evil and obeying it, when not looking down the barrel of a gun, is wrong.
Supporting the State means being so anxious to not appear to be supporting a freelance thug that you throw your support and advocacy behind a State-employed thug. Forgetting it is possible for both to be parasitic vermin.
Some people believe they can straddle the divide, hopping awkwardly back and forth as the situation merits. It just doesn't work that way. You never know when the music will stop and you are stuck where you stand. Choose wisely. Choose liberty.
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Excellent article - right on point - anyone that is willing to violate the life or property of another for any reason other than legitimate self defense is not good no matter how they try to validate their actions.
ReplyDeleteLately I've become rather of a fan of Wendy McElroy. Not too much of a fan -- just rather of a fan. Naw -- I'll take the delimiter back -- I really like most of her articles, and especially some of the more recent ones. I think she's swinging the bat harder and hitting the ball farther nowadays.
ReplyDeleteHere's a case in point: "...In the wake of 9/11, my husband and I watched freedom die in North America. I've been active in various freedom movements since I was 15 years old and it made me literally ill to see how people rushed to embrace the lie of trading freedom for security. If they want to trade their own freedom for a faux security, then great. But they traded mine. The United States is now a police state domestically and a perpetual war-machine internationally..."
So what's Wendy's soft-underbelly here? I'll tell you: her lament that "freedom" died. I state that "freedom" never was. Ever. Freedom under monopoly state was always an illusion. Always.
Many brave individuals fought and died in wars on and around this continent. I'll grant you that. Every individual who "fights" in a "war" is perhaps brave to one extent or another.
Think I'm going to get an error message that I have too many characters
Part 2:
ReplyDeleteMy ongoing mantra -- the thing that became clear to me early on during the course of my voyage into the chilly waters of anarchy -- is that I can be free. Now. Here. Today. Where I'm "at".
Sure, I'd like for all "policemen" to turn in their badges and seek honest work. That ain't a gonna happen. I'd like for a bread-and-circus event ("election") to be held and nobody -- NOBODY show up for it. Sorry to disappoint you.
So does that mean I believe we anarchists need to be fearful of speaking out? Not on your life! Just understand something basic: the white man* is stupid. Ego-driven, he doesn't even understand when a few of the hoi polloi ease by him without bowing and scraping. He doesn't read our essays -- and if he did, he'd write them off as wild-eyed extremism.
Dead or locked up heroes can't help anybody. I think you and I are on the right track -- not to be fearful of speaking out, but maintaining a low profile. As low as is practicable and still encourage those who have ceased fighting and are beginning to awaken to the message of anarchy. Sam
*"White man" as I use it is never intended to be "racist". It is the term natives in this part of the world applied to those ignoramuses who tagged them as "Indians" because their first hero didn't know where he was -- he thought he was in "the Indies", I guess (and was too proud to admit his mistake). The name stuck -- but not with me. Those people (also called "redskins" by the racists) kept the name "white man" to refer to authoritarians who never keep their promises or their treaties.
'[N]othing...can make rights "go away"'. I believe in the principle of inalienable rights but it is a human construct, one that must be fought for and defended, with your life if necessary. It is not "God-given." It does not come with your birth. It is not natural. What is natural is that some people will always want to enslave other people. And those that are the targets of the anti-rightist enslavers must resist them when ever and where ever they can.
ReplyDeleteAgriculture allowed the more greedy humans to gather wealth and then empires, hire guards and then armies, and to go to war and enslave. They do it today, here in America. They just call it government and have convinced the gullible among us that the government is here to help you. I am laughing, bitterly, at that concept now and shaking my head that so many can be so ignorant.