(My Clovis News Journal column for May 15, 2015)
If you were sitting alone in your own home, would you seek permission to read one of your books? Or to write one? Would you be concerned with whether you are allowed to scratch an itch?
Would you wonder if you need a license to watch TV? Don’t laugh — TV licensing is a reality in Great Britain and many other places.
Might you call an inspector for a permit before you make a sandwich?
As long as you weren't violating anyone's person or private property would you feel guilty about sipping a glass of tea?
So why would you feel guilty about sticking a gun in your waistband, going out to your unregistered car, driving to a friend's house and buying some marijuana- peacefully, without first seeking someone's permission or finding out whether it's allowed?
If you'd feel bad about it, I'll bet it has to do with those things being against the law.
"Laws" are nothing but the opinions of bullies. Opinions thought of as legitimate only because of the power of those bullies to impose their opinions on everyone else through their hired guns. Sometimes their opinions match reality, such as their opinion that you shouldn't murder or commit a robbery.
Most of the time, however, their opinions don't align with reality at all, such as when they hold the opinion you should pay a yearly ransom on your house, get their permission to own and use a car, claim you can't be permitted to buy or sell certain things, or you can't be allowed to smoke anything you want. No one has the right to force their opinion as to whether you can operate a business out of your home on you, nor about what price you can negotiate for anything you are willing to sell-- including your labor.
Opinions called "laws" are always either unnecessary or downright harmful.
The only reason the harmful opinions aren't ignored even more completely than they already are is because of the prevalence of a superstition: the belief in "authority". It's equivalent to a belief in astrology, but is actually much more harmful to the individual and, by extension, to civilization.
As long as your actions don't violate the person or property of another, no one-- not one person on the planet-- has the right to stop you. It's not that you have a right to do those things, it's that the right to stop you can't exist. It's based on this myth of "authority". Even if your actions and choices offend other people, or they use the excuse of "the common good", it changes nothing. Widespread civil disobedience is long overdue.
Amen.
ReplyDelete“Law is often but the tyrant’s will.”
TJ
"So why would you feel guilty about sticking a gun in your waistband, going out to your unregistered car, driving to a friend's house and buying some marijuana- peacefully, without first seeking someone's permission or finding out whether it's allowed?"
ReplyDeleteMy gun doesn't fit in my waistband, but, otherwise, I do exactly that, regularly ...for years. And I don't feel guilty for it. The gun is primarily intended for defense against the most probable threat; police.
"Widespread civil disobedience is long overdue."
I cringe when I hear people say that they disagree with the FACTS about the fundamental coercive violent principle function of government. The people's gross ignorance of rights and rejection of reality is sometimes astounding. They don't know the difference and refuse to understand. Their opinion is the voice of their ego and id teaming up to get their way, never mind reason.
Before we can have any widespread disobedience, we have to absolve the ignorance and stupidity of the masses. But the masses refuse. Refusing to acknowledge their collective violation of the rest of us, refusing to understand they are forcing their opinion, is considered a form of belligerence.
It is irreconcilable. Kill them all and let their gods sort them out.
וַיַּרְא יְהוָה, כִּי רַבָּה רָעַת הָאָדָם בָּאָרֶץ, וְכָל-יֵצֶר מַחְשְׁבֹת לִבּוֹ, רַק רַע כָּל-הַיּוֹם.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה, כִּי-עָשָׂה אֶת-הָאָדָם בָּאָרֶץ; וַיִּתְעַצֵּב, אֶל-לִבּוֹ.
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה, אֶמְחֶה אֶת-הָאָדָם אֲשֶׁר-בָּרָאתִי מֵעַל פְּנֵי הָאֲדָמָה, מֵאָדָם עַד-בְּהֵמָה, עַד-רֶמֶשׂ וְעַד-עוֹף הַשָּׁמָיִם: כִּי נִחַמְתִּי, כִּי עֲשִׂיתִם.