We need to outlaw government slavery

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for July 9, 2025)

Note: This is NOT the headline I would have written for this.

Defenders of government like to pretend government isn't slavery. They also pretend government is necessary and ethical; without it, humans would not survive and would have never advanced beyond the Stone Age.

Supposedly, government ended slavery. Government also legalized and enforced slavery for thousands of years. Now, because of rules which replaced the old rules, individual humans can no longer pretend to own other individual humans, but we are all required to act as though we are owned, collectively, with government as our master.

Our money isn't ours until government scoops its percentages out of the middle. Then it skims off more of our money every time we make a trade- and sometimes, like with property taxes, into perpetuity because someone bought property in the past.

Laying claim to the fruits of another's labor is a defining feature of slavery. Your body isn't your own, and the value its work creates is claimed by someone else. In this case, the "someone" isn't an individual who can be defended against, but a spectral collective which is nowhere, yet everywhere at once.

Government tells you what you mustn't put into your body. It forbids certain medications, and requires you to seek its permission for many more. Your body isn't your own, and government doesn't want you damaging its property.

Government would prefer you not have the most effective modern tools for defense. Not necessarily because it sides with criminals (it does), but because its employees fear you might come to realize that you need to defend your life, liberty, and property from their legalized daily assaults and theft more than from the occasional freelance thug.

Abolitionists of the 19th Century faced the excuse of "Without slaves, who will pick the cotton?" Abolitionists of today are asked, "Without government, who would build the roads?". Or invent new technology, fund science, keep a record of who owns which property, settle disputes, or dozens of other things government currently does, no matter how poorly.

Is government really necessary for these things, or have you been blinded to reality by government and its childhood indoctrination centers called "public schools"? Has this crippled your ability to think of alternatives to having the cotton picked by slaves?

If you can't figure out a way to accomplish great or mundane things without letting someone or something assert ownership over human beings, you shouldn't be making decisions about the future.

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