A misuse of the valid kind of authority

Not the bully kind of superstitious "authority", but the supposed expert kind of authority. They can be wrong, too.

Statists are particularly fond of the Argument from Authority. They are prone to fall for that sort of thing and believe everyone else should, too.

Just because some philosopher carefully dreamed up a justification for the State doesn't make his justification valid. That he lived long ago and people still fall for his nonsense doesn't add weight to his ideas.

And it doesn't make you smart, cultured, or educated to quote him and believe his justifications.

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Only a statist

What kind of person believes it is wrong for me to personally take up arms against a property violator/aggressor ("criminal"), but believes it's OK to send hired guns after the same property violator/aggressor- hired guns ("police") who exist only through robbing and violating me?

Oh yeah... A statist.

No, not all statists believe the first thing is wrong, but only a statist would believe the second thing is right.

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Best solution for problem: Get rid of it

(My Clovis News Journal column for October 2, 2015)

I am frequently confronted with people who wouldn’t want liberty if it fell in their lap.

They crave totalitarianism of one type or another.

They either love the idea of a theocracy based on their idea of God, or they want a nanny state making them feel safe from womb to tomb by taking away choices and — so they believe — chance.

Yet, these aren’t the people who make me feel most hopeless.

People who almost "get it" bother me more than those who are completely clueless. They see some of the problems, yet don't see how their support of destructive laws and institutions actually ensures the problems will continue and get worse with time.

There's one person who complains about congress, Muslims, and Cannabis, but who still believes government and more laws are where the solutions lie. His faith in this is immovable. He objects when I propose solutions which would require an examination of his faith.

If your problem is a snake which keeps biting you while you bathe, the solution isn't to put a muzzle on it, beg it to stop biting, feed it more often, swap out the snake for a different one, stop bathing, or add another bathroom to your house. No, the solution is to remove the snake from your bathtub.

People who are emotionally invested in victimhood, which depends on keeping the snake in their tub, will come up with every excuse imaginable for avoiding a permanent solution. After all, what if you remove the snake and rats take up residence in your tub? Or what if a worse snake shows up to fill the void? To me, the solution is obvious: deal the same way with the next snake or rat infestation. It is your responsibility.

You'll never fix government. The institution is founded upon theft and aggression. It feeds on belief in authority and in the belief that wrong can be made right by a majority vote or by writing a law. History shows you can't control government with constitutions or laws- it is not in the self interest of government employees to comply with either. You can't solve anything by hiring or electing different people, because the people drawn to government jobs are all cut from the same cloth: they all believe in authority, and seek out government jobs so they can have power with fewer consequences.

It's time for a change. You aren't throwing out the baby with the bathwater. There is no baby, and that's not water.

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About borders and property lines

In which I dispel a few misconceptions about me which are apparently held by borderists.

I believe in private property, and I think shooting someone for trespassing is sometimes the right thing to do. I would never want to second guess a person who shoots a trespasser- especially an adult trespasser. Or a trespasser who is littering and damaging the property, or threatening the owners. Trespass should come with a price high enough to discourage it.

I would not sit still for people moving into my house and declaring they will live there. But I don't own your house and I know I have no say in who you invite into yours. To pretend otherwise is a form of theft.

I do not want to see "others" move into the area until they outnumber me and begin to push me around. In the same way, I don't like that I am outnumbered and surrounded by people who follow religions I find abhorrent even now. Religions very popular with mainstream America, including the world's most popular religion: statism. But, the only legitimate say I have in that ends at my property lines- even if I don't like it.

I do believe some religions are worse than others, and some cultures are sick and twisted.

I do not believe "The Country" negates private property of those living inside the government's imaginary borders, but that this belief directly violates private property rights in the most evil way imaginable- by utterly ignoring or denying them. Just like those the borderists want "government" to protect them from.

I do not believe violating your property rights to make myself more comfortable is right. I don't believe using the force of government to dictate who you can allow onto your property, or rent to or hire, is the answer. It is wrong.

I do not advocate stealing from you ("taxation") to finance a gang to patrol the "borders" and to molest people both along the "borders" and well away from those "borders". Theft is theft, and everything such a gang does- except in rare instances- is an initiation of force, and is founded upon theft. You can't do good through committing evil.

All government "jobs" are welfare. Money is stolen from the owners and handed out to people doing harmful busy-work the market won't fund. Those "jobs" are used to directly violate the life, liberty, and property of the people forced to pay. This is even worse than the migrants' (largely exaggerated) use of welfare. End all welfare- including government paychecks. Or be hypocritical and hate some people's use of welfare while celebrating those on other forms of welfare.

Borderism is socialism. Sometimes it is even communism. It is always collectivism, theft, and aggression- which is what statism is.

If those setting up an armed guard to repel trespassers are acting as though they believe in their own property rights, but advocating "borders" and "immigration control", they are acting as though they don't believe in anyone's private property at all, but only collective property administered by a State. In that case, what are they trying to protect? Is it "property for me, but none for you"? Their behavior makes me see them as being contradictory and deluded. I would gladly help protect my neighbor's property from invaders, using force or arms, unless he advocated taking my property from me under the guise of "government". In that case, he isn't acting as though he believes in my property rights, so why endanger myself protecting his?

If that's what you advocate, own it. Stop complaining when I or others point it out. If your position is right, why be ashamed and why get angry?

Rightful Liberty leaves no room for Borderism or other forms of communism- not even if you really, really want them. Protect and defend your personal property lines, and help your neighbors if they ask- I would- but keep your hands to yourself when it comes to stealing money to fund gangs to violate life, liberty, and property in the name of your State.

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Who uses whom?

A while back on a "libertarian"/conservative's blog, the following quote was used: "DOES THE GOVERNMENT SERVE THE PEOPLE OR DO THE PEOPLE SERVE THE GOVERNMENT?"

Well, now, that's an interesting question which can only be asked by someone deeply indoctrinated.

Government has never served "the people"... except as a snack. And that's why the problem exists.

People allow a dangerous predator to control every aspect of their lives, and act as though it can be a friend. Or a tool. 

I have especially seen government compared to one particular tool: a gun. But if it is such a tool, it is a tool that kills the one using it. Always. It either kills you physically, or it kills you spiritually, morally, and ethically. You can't use government without taking damage.

If government can be compared to a gun, it is a highly radioactive gun, and you aren't immune.

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Government from a blank slate?

(Previously posted to Patreon)

Last week, things got busy and I forgot to read The Libertarian Enterprise. Until today, when I went to the archives and dug out last week's issue before moving on to the current issue.

But, before I go too far into that without telling why I mention it, I'll tell you about last night. I woke up in the middle of the night with ideas for columns and blogs swirling in my head. Yeah, it happens fairly often. I didn't want to get up and disturb the cat sleeping on my legs, and didn't feel like turning on the bedside light to write a note to myself, so I stuck the ideas in my rather pathetic mind palace and eventually fell back to sleep.

When I woke up I was able to write out all the ideas except one. Somehow it had been misplaced in my mind and wasn't quite accessible.

Back to today. I was reading last week's The Libertarian Enterprise, specifically a classic essay of L. Neil Smith's under the wordy title "Unanimous Consent and the Utopian Vision or I Dreamed I Was a Signatory In My Maidenform Bra"

A ways into it I came across the words:
"We're trying to envision a new society uncontaminated by a previous social order."

Suddenly, my thought from last night fell into the open.

My thought had been that I wonder, if someone could erase the political memory of every human on Earth, whether they would fall into the trap of forming "governments" once again. In other words, if "government", or more specifically The State, didn't exist, and no one remembered it once had (or the forms it had taken) would anyone organise it again? If people didn't already believe it was "necessary", would anyone bother to invent it?

Anti-liberty bigots are always lecturing me that "government" is natural, and humans will always form them no matter what. And, I accept the fact that ignorant humans who are unable to think for themselves or to take individual responsibility will always seek out someone to "govern" them, and that evil humans who want to attack and steal, but who wish to find a way to do it more safely than "common thugs" will always seek to become government. But, how much of that is real "human nature" and how much is conditioning combined with a knowledge of "this is how it is done"?

I don't know, and I don't think anyone else really does, either. It would be interesting to find out, though.

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Other people's (bad) choices

I can't understand when people choose to enslave themselves. I want them to choose liberty. I find myself wanting to force them to be free... which is a horrifying contradiction.

I can't make other people's choices for them.

I can live my live, by the Zero Aggression Principle, and help others when possible.

And I can grit my teeth and stay out of it when people make dumb, self-enslaving choices. Even though it hurts sometimes.

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"Keep out! applies to all

You can say "Keep out!" to anyone, but those bullies who work for The State  believe they are exempt. They believe if they are the ones doing it, it can't be "trespassing". They believe there is nowhere off limits to them because otherwise they couldn't do their "job".

They are actually a much worse threat to property rights than the migrants so many "conservatives" fear and hate (and use as justification for the property rights violators of the State).

And, most of the time they get away with it.

Shooting them for trespassing comes at a high cost. You might avoid being violated, or even murdered, at that moment, but stopping their immediate violation brings unending numbers of their brother gang members down on you. And disgusting copsuckers and other State worshipers will say you deserve it. Think of Cory Maye.

Well, trespassing applies to everyone. Badge or no badge, "papers" or none, "warrant" or none. If you trespass to conduct an inspection, you are still a trespasser. If you trespass to get where you want to go, you are still a trespasser. If you trespass to conduct an investigation, you are still a trespasser. Your "job" can't exempt you. And if you trespass with intent to commit acts of enforcement, I hope you die for it- preferably in such a way that your victim doesn't get blamed.

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Watch your step or fall into a statist bog

Over and over I see people who are very good allies of Rightful Liberty in so many areas, trip on that one "small" area where they really want government to meddle. Of course, there is no such thing as a "little government meddling".

Often the area that trips people up is "immigration", but recently an area I keep noticing cropping up is "traffic laws".

"It's dangerous to drive, so driving is a privilege, not a right!"

"Someone I know was killed in a car wreck, so we must have the State making and enforcing laws to prevent that from happening!"

It's really sickening.

How can a person advocate liberty so well, in just about every area of life, yet miss one giant log of statism in their eye?

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LibertyLand- population: You

Because Govstatistan is global, you can't just "love it or leave it"; there is nowhere to go. No, not even Somalia, regardless of the claims of the liberty-ignorant.

So, you might as well carve out little pockets of liberty in the midst of Govstatistan, right where you live now.

It's nice when you can find or create a larger pocket, but even an individual can be his own tiny bubble of Rightful Liberty. Yes, there will be obstacles and bullies trying to get in your way (as there would be in Libertopia). Be creative. Work around them. It won't be perfect, but it'll be better than giving up.

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Fear leads to obstruction of liberty

(My Clovis News Journal column for September 25, 2015)

When people who believe in government face the possibility of life without it- even hypothetically- they imagine all sorts of things they fear to lose. Never mind that if something is wanted or needed, someone will provide it. Affordably, because if you can't attract customers you haven't accomplished anything at all; you will go broke. Even charity would thrive again after being displaced and marginalized by "welfare" for so long.

The fearful never see the things they don't even realize they are being cheated out of. Things prevented from being realized by too much central control. Their imagination only leans toward doom and gloom scenarios, never toward positive possibilities.

Faced with the concrete fact of government failure over thousands of years of recorded history, they demand to know exactly how liberty would solve every single problem they can imagine, down to the smallest detail, before giving it consideration. If their faith in government weren't so dogmatic they would recognize government could never live up to the certainty they demand of a free society. But they won't, because it is. And, because overcoming inertia is too uncomfortable.

When people start putting their fears into words, usually prefaced by "what if", I see it as an opportunity to think. I can think of many different ways each of these supposed deal-killers might be solved without violating any person or property. There's no guarantee the solution which would rise to the top would be among those I think of. Humans are very innovative when not bound by artificial constraints. The solutions found would probably be better than anything I can come up with. The solutions I can think of don't even have to be one of the options tried.

The existence of possible solutions should be enough to calm fears, but it never is, because there is always uncertainty. Uncertainty in something innovative and new is scarier than tragic certainties in the familiar. At least for most people.

It wouldn't be an issue if the fearful would not try to stop the rest of us. I have no desire to force liberty on anyone, but I resent when fear leads them to try to obstruct the liberty of myself and others. It's a case of "lead, follow, or get out of the way", where they refuse all those options and instead pull guns on us and say "No, you are staying where you are because I'm scared". It's a situation that can't last.

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Whoosh! Right over his head

"Get over this 'mean cop' thing".

Ummm... if that's what you think it is when I share the latest murder-by-cop or bullying incident by a badgethug, you have completely missed the point. It isn't that cops are "mean"; it is that by doing their "jobs", they are evil. They are enemies of liberty. They are where the boot heel of tyranny meets the human face.

Even if I "got over it", the truth would still be the truth.

It's like if I say Ebola is deadly. Or refuse to say so in order to not offend someone- or some virus. Refusing to say its nature is deadly doesn't change anything. It isn't rude to point it out; it is helpful to remind people why they might want to avoid the disease. If you don't like it and tell me I should "get over this 'deadly Ebola' thing", does that change the nature of the disease?

If so, we should all ignore heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and other diseases.

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"All rise as we recite..."

I don't lead children (not even my own) in anarchist chants. I am not out to indoctrinate anyone.

Even if there were a "pledge of Rightful Liberty" I wouldn't make kids recite it. Nor would I make them parrot the Zero Aggression Principle back on cue.

Statists do make kids recite statist chants, though. All the time. In ways both open and hidden.

That's probably why there are so many more statists.

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See a good idea? Grab it.

All good ideas are essentially libertarian in nature. Yes, really.

Anyone can have good ideas you should adopt. I get good ideas from people who oppose everything I stand for all the time, because most people are libertarian in their personal lives- otherwise they would be dead. This means they already have libertarian ideas bouncing around inside their skulls. Sometimes those ideas will become public. When they do, grab them.

Any idea which advocates initiation of force or theft is not a good idea. The advocate may believe it's "necessary", or "pragmatic", or some other dishonest justification, but it still isn't a good idea. And it's an anti-libertarian idea.

So, even if the most despicable statist you have ever heard of comes up with a good idea, accept it. If it's good, it's libertarian.

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Answering a possible Borderist

(Previously posted to Patreon)

And I say "possible" because I am not quite certain I understood his point.

Sometimes I get an email I must answer at length. This is one such, inspired by my latest CNJ column:

Human have been migrants for 6,000 to millions of years, i.e. for as long as there have been humans. There are still migrants, willing to move to better their lives. As a retired couple, travelling around in our 5th wheel, the majority of people we meet are migrant Workers. There are the non-migrants that expect the Government provide them with all that they need to live. People take out huge mortgages and then lie to themselves that they own their own home. If their job disappears, the Government is responsible for them to keep their home. If not, they walk and it is evil banks that are responsible for their loss of home. People even Believe that the Government will save the world from “Climate Change,” creating a “Garden of Eden,” where they and their progeny can stay forever and ever. There are migrants that are willing to migrate to where there are jobs, opportunities; the right climate. Not sure why you want to denigrate migrants and bait and switch them with people who are in the US illegally. Wouldn’t that be the “hate” you are religiously judging people of a certain political persuasion to possess?
Waving the Federal flag in their face? You have political parties confused. Republicans want States’ Rights and the Democrat Party wants a strong, centralized “Federal” Government in Washington, DC controlling “We The People.” BTW: the Supreme Entity of the Federal Government has turned our secular government into a Religion/Church. The SCOTUS morally judges “We The People” and commands us how our laws should read.
Calling people who are in the US illegally makes them illegals, rapists and murderers is wrong in your mind? How is that different than saying people who are in the US legally are citizens, Democrats and Republicans? This is not an all or nothing reality. What is rape? 99% of the time it has nothing to do with “sex.” What is murder? People murder Shakespeare all of the time.
In reality, most emigrants, whether legal or illegal, are attempting to be independent and self-reliant. It is the people that Believe that the Federal Church of the United States Government is responsible for the welfare of its flock that is “denying” independence and self-reliance.
Trump, for example, has specifically explained what behaviors he would defend against and then you bait and switch to make it all inclusive. All illegals are migrants or emigrants. Not all migrants and emigrants are illegals. One can’t arbitrarily bounce between these three distinct definitions for the benefit of profit or political gain. But it is obviously done every day. You claim you aren’t taking sides? It is obvious that you have in this case. Don’t you find it ironic that while the Democrat Party claims to “hate” Christians, the majority of issues on their platform comes directly from the Judeo/Christian Bible? Don’t you find it equally ironic that the Republican Party preaches “Family values,” the majority of issues on their platform is derived from the Theory of Evolution: Survival of the Fittest; Adapt; and their favorite Natural Selection?

So, I answered. You'll get a sneak peak at a blog entry I am in the process of writing, because it fit in with what I needed to say to him.:

Thanks for taking the time to write. I'm not quite sure where you were going, but if you think for a moment I believe in "government" or want it to do anything, to anyone or "for" anyone, you are mistaken.
There can be no such thing as an "illegal" person. I am not a believer in documents binding people who didn't physically agree to them, but most people who speak of "illegals" are, and yet the Constitution doesn't allow "immigration control"- it does allow control over the number of slaves imported, but that is different. Until the late 1800s no one believed the government could tell people where they were allowed to live. Since then many different groups have been targeted for "immigrant" paranoia: Catholics, Irish, Eastern Europeans, etc. It just so happens that the scary "immigrant" of the moment is Hispanics.
One reason those words- migrant, emigrant, immigrant- have different meanings is because people use language to trick people into believing what they want them to believe. And, no person can be an "illegal".
A migrant is someone who moves to a new place.
An immigrant is someone who moves into a new place claimed by a different gang of thugs than the place he left.
An emigrant is someone who moves away from where he lived before. I don't denigrate migrants, because there is nothing wrong with being an "immigrant".
An "illegal" is someone who moved to a new place in spite of unconstitutional "laws"- and the Supreme Court even declared in the early 1800s that any "law" contrary to the Constitution isn't a real law and no one is obligated to obey it. No one. "Immigration control" is a perfect example of that.
Borderists make a lot of assumptions about me based on my unyielding respect for Rightful Liberty. And, if you don't know what Rightful Liberty is, here is Thomas Jefferson's explanation: "Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual." Jefferson knew what a counterfeit "law" was.
Here is some clarification about what I actually believe from an upcoming blog I have written:
I believe in private property, and I think shooting someone for trespassing is sometimes the right thing to do. I would never want to second guess a person who shoots a trespasser- especially an adult trespasser. Or a trespasser who is littering and damaging the property, or threatening the owners.
I would not sit still for people moving into my house and declaring they will live there. But I don't own your house and I know I have no say in who you invite into yours. To pretend otherwise is a form of theft.
I do not want to see "others" move into the area until they outnumber me and begin to push me around. In the same way, I don't like that I am outnumbered and surrounded by people who follow religions I find abhorrent even now. Religions very popular with mainstream America. Including the world's most popular religion: statism.
I do believe some religions are worse than others, and some cultures are sick and twisted.
I do not believe "The Country" negates private property of those living inside the government's imaginary borders, but that this belief directly violates private property rights in the most evil way imaginable- by utterly ignoring or denying them. Just like those the borderists want "government" to protect them from.
I do not believe violating your property rights to make myself more comfortable is right. I don't believe using the force of government to dictate who you can allow onto your property, or rent to or hire, is the answer. It is wrong.
I do not advocate stealing from you ("taxation") to finance a gang to patrol the "borders" and to molest people both along the "borders" and well away from those "borders". Theft is theft, and everything such a gang does- except in rare instances- is an initiation of force.
Borderism is socialism. Sometimes it is even communism. It is always collectivism, theft, and aggression- which is what statism is.
Those who are setting up an armed guard to repel trespassers are acting as though they believe in their own property rights, but by advocating "borders" and "immigration control" they are acting as though they don't believe in private property at all, but only collective property administered by a State. Which makes me see them as being contradictory and deluded. I would gladly help protect my neighbor's property from invaders, using force or arms, unless he advocated taking my property from me under the guise of "government".
If that's what you advocate, own it. Stop complaining when I or others point it out. If your position is right, why be ashamed and why get angry?
I don't believe in government at all, particularly not that it can create a Garden of Eden. I believe all welfare, including Social Security, farm subsidies, corporate bailouts, government pensions, medicaid/medicare should be ended immediately.
There is no real difference between Democrats and Republicans. It doesn't matter if you value "state's rights" over individual rights, or "federal rights" over individual rights. Because "states" and "the federal government" can have no rights. Rights are purely individual, not collective. No collective can have rights- they can have power, but that power is never legitimate- and there is no such thing as "authority" (belief in "authority" is the most dangerous superstition). And most of the people I see worshiping the federal flag most reverently call themselves Republicans, even as they claim to want "state's rights". It's odd. I find Democrats and Republicans equally statist and equally disgusting and dishonest. They only vary in how they propose to violate Rightful Liberty and sacrifice the individual to the collective. If a person who calls himself by one of those labels actually respects Rightful Liberty, then he is showing, by his beliefs and the actions which will result from those beliefs, that he isn't a Good Democrat/Republican, but is instead a good person. You really can't be both.
If an individual commits aggression or property violation, then that individual is guilty. Be it rape, murder, or whatever. Calling people you associate with him a rapist/whatever is wrong if that individual didn't commit that specific act. And, again, breaking counterfeit :laws" isn't wrong, so calling a person who ignored "immigration laws" and "illegal" is dishonest. Are you an "illegal" if you ignore some unconstitutional anti-gun "law"? Not at all. But that's the argument of those who call people "illegals" for ignoring unconstitutional "immigration laws". It simply won't fly.

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Perfection

Abraham Lincoln may just be the perfect politician. He is all things to all statists.

Racists can love him because he was a racist. Abolitionists can love him because the most visible form of slavery ended about the time he died, and he is credited with ending it.

"Conservatives" can love him because he was a Republican. Liberals can love him because he acted in a "progressive" way by bringing an end to the status quo (by ending the "union" and replacing it with "The Union". He "saved" America by replacing it with The United Stated. This is like saying your life has been saved by turning you into a zombie).

Yep. Good ol' Abe Lincoln; the statists' patron saint. How disgusting he was.

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Here, let me fix that

How to solve the "mass shooting problem"- or any other social (or, rather, anti-social) problem:
Make the Zero Aggression Principle normal and expose any and all exceptions. Don't excuse violations by anyone because of their "job", position, or office.

That's all it takes.

Why wait?

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Anti-gunners' predictability

(Previously posted to Patreon)

That feeling of dismay.

I'm sure you know it. It happens when you see yet another headline saying something about "Guns in the U.S."- and you know the author is going to repeat the same agenda-skewed lies and irrelevancies you've heard over and over and over.

Yep, that's the feeling I felt when I saw this: "Guns in the U.S.".

Michael Shermer is a frightened "libertarian", just like Scott Adams. Wishy-washy and unable to stick to principles and reality. He is happy enough to embrace libertarianish reason, unless it leads to conclusions he doesn't want to face. In that case he'll embrace the "progressive" agenda. It makes him look more intelligent. Or so he believes.

What it actually does is expose him as a coward. He's frightened of your liberty and doesn't want to be responsible for his own defense. And that's sad.

I could go through the whole article and point out the bad assumptions, the way the "data" was milked to get the numbers to come out the way the anti-liberty bigots wanted them to come out, and point out what was purposely left out... but I've done it to similar misleading articles in the past, and so have many other people. And the "smart" quasi-libertarians won't listen anyway.

I'm sure Shermer would blame cognitive dissonance for my reaction to seeing his article. The reality is, it isn't cognitive dissonance; it's experience. I've been down this road too many times. And I have the ability to see through the rhetoric to the agenda beneath. Even his "additional thoughts" at the end of the piece expose the faulty conclusions of the rest of it- and yet he still stands by his position. I think there's a phrase for that...

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"Back to the Future Day" and time travel

Long ago, before I got one of these "computer" things, and while living in a location more befitting my personality, I spent hours each and every day (after work or on my days off) sitting beside a campfire. Yes, I ignored government "burn bans" completely.

Between my house and the river was my camp. My tipi was set up there. I had my tomahawk block handy for when I felt like a bit of activity. I had my setup for processing deer skins into buckskin.

And I had my wikiup.

That's where my campfire was. In winter I would sweep away the new snow before I built my daily fire. In summer I would sometimes crawl into the wikiup to weather a mountain shower. On the floor of the wikiup was a raw elk hide, beneath which the voles had made their little half tunnels. Voles would also run along the beams inside the wikiup as I sat watching. Often, if the rain continued for very long, I would fall asleep for a while- waking up to bright sun.

I had built the wikiup using only materials collected on site. And, as an extra challenge, I had used no tools but my hands and maybe a few rocks. Not even a knife.

Generally I sat outside, on a log in front of the elk hide door of the wikiup, right beside my fire. I never used anything more modern than flint and steel to light the fire- and almost exclusively used the bow drill. Even if I was very tired- or it was raining or snowing- I couldn't bring myself to use matches or a lighter. I got very good at firemaking with all the practice.

My black powder rifle normally hung nearby on a tripod I had constructed for "storage". I usually wore my buckskin clothes while out there. Modernity of any sort seemed out of place. This was the most free I have ever felt.

I would watch rafting tourists and kayakers drift past (and sometimes get dumped into the icy cold water). The times I let them see me, they would usually just stare and forget to return my wave.

And, the fireside is where I chose to socialize. I had a couple of friends who knew this was where to find me. They would show up to sit and visit. One friend would come to tell me about the people who were after him for whatever reason, and his latest "anti-government" theories. And sometimes about his newest run-in with the local "Law". He had a lot of them.

I even helped out lost tourists. Usually lost fishermen who somehow "lost" the river while walking to a new spot to try. Or their cute wives and daughters. Never did figure out how they could lose the river. But, I enjoyed helping the occasional Damsel in Distress find her way back to her family group. Thoughts of shooting people for trespassing never entered my mind.

Well, maybe that's not totally correct. Sometimes rafters/kayakers would beach and poop in my "yard" (in the woods) near the river. There are drawbacks to everything.

Sitting beside that campfire is also how I spent midnight when the calendar rolled over from 1999 to 2000. That night I had no idea my time there was quickly running out.

I guess I am just thinking lately of how drastically my life has changed in "only" 15 years.

Marty McFly and his DeLorean have nothing on me. It's October 21, 2015- the "future" day he supposedly visited in Back to the Future 2. A good day to think about time. I honestly feel like a time traveler most of the time. Maybe now you can understand why.

View out the door of the wikiup

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GoFundMe?

Appeal of statism understandable

(My Clovis News Journal column for September 18, 2015)

Since it’s a good idea to try to understand the opposition, I try to understand non-libertarians.

I’m not speaking of those who are not part of the Libertarian Party (neither am I), but those who reject the ideas that it is wrong to use violence against those who are neither being violent nor violating property, and that it is wrong to violate property.

Ignore for now the bad guys who rob and attack. They are what they are. Instead, focus with me on those who want to be decent people, but reject the foundation which makes decency possible. Most of these substitute government for principle.

I understand the appeal of statism- the belief that all people should be governed by other people- which is separate from the belief that people should control (govern) their own behavior.

There are bad people out there. Some people want to feel safe from them, and think governments, laws, and enforcers can create safety. They believe the benefits of governing outweigh the risks, and that freelance bad guys are a greater risk than are people to whom power is given- people drawn from the same population known to contain bad guys. They pretend bad guys won't be attracted to a position of power where they can do the bad things they desire, but with "authority" to give their behaviors a veil of legitimacy. Besides, Aunt Tilly feels safer this way.

I understand, but think they are mistaken and Utopian.

I also understand the attraction of nationalism. It's nice to feel a sense of belonging to a group; something bigger than oneself. Instead of actually accomplishing things personally, the nationalist can say "We beat the Commies!" and feel pride in something he had no part in. Or even something he unwittingly monkey-wrenched, but which happened in spite of his "help".

Plus, there is always the comfort of familiar rituals and symbols. Humans crave rituals and create them around the most mundane things. They come to value the rituals more than that which the ritual originally honored. Chants are recited on cue, along with soundbites with which they have been trained to respond when nationalist beliefs are challenged.

And symbols? People love them. They design flags, seals, buildings, offices, titles, and whatever else they can dream up to worship- then incorporate those symbols into the rituals.

So, yes, I understand, but I don't agree. It would all be funny if it hadn't killed around 200 million non-combatants in the 20th Century alone.

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