There's "my government" and there's "your government", there is no "our government".
My government is me. It is not political. It is not a State. I don't share it with anyone else, I don't impose it on anyone else, nor do I accept anyone else's government as my own.
Your government is you-- even if you don't recognize yourself as such. Even if you imagine you have a spare government lying around somewhere. A political government. Your government has no hold on me or anyone else.
Every time someone says "our government" it is a lie. The lie may be calculated to manipulate-- to hypnotize you. Don't fall for it.
Now, maybe you believe you share a government with someone else. I hope not, but people believe weird things. In that case, you'd need to have a conversation with the other person before you started flinging around the words "our government" to see if you truly do share a government of some sort with them. But don't assume. It's rude at best, and a dangerous lie at worst.
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Writing to promote liberty is my job.
YOU get to decide if I get paid.
I hope I add something you find valuable enough to support.
Writing to promote liberty is my job.
YOU get to decide if I get paid.
I hope I add something you find valuable enough to support.
Excellent summary!
ReplyDeleteQuite so! One of the most enduring mysteries to me after a long life is the credence and respect the herd has for the exercise of social power; that bizarre and grotesque belief that anyone could have the wish, much less the right. to run a life other than their own. In my opinion, this is the root of almost all evil.
ReplyDelete“Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.”
---- Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
“Liberty, then, is the sovereignty of the individual, and never shall man know liberty until each and every individual is acknowledged to be the only legitimate sovereign of his or her person, time, and property, each living and acting at his own cost.”
~ Josiah Warren
It's taken me a while, but I've finally trained my statist brother to stop calling it "our" government! Still working on my parents.
ReplyDeleteAmazingly, it's only been in the past several years that I ever heard anyone say "our government" or "our president", etc. And it's always like fingernails on a chalkboard to my ears.
DeleteIt's not your job to tell others what to think or believe, that way, you become their government. You "trained" your brother? Slavery is NOT libertarianism.
ReplyDeleteIs it slavery to tell the rapist "Stop or I will shoot you!"? No. And it's not imposing on the statist to say "Keep your filthy state off my life!". No one has the right to advocate theft or the initiation of force, and it doesn't violate them in any way to remind them of this.
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