Seeds of Freedom

I have lived in a few places around America. Some places are pretty free; others are very socialistic. Some places actually have pretty bad laws governing them, but most of the people ignore the laws and simply go about their lives regardless of what any "authorities" demand. Where I am living now is not too bad as far as the laws go, but the people have a fawning attitude toward "authority" that I find disgusting. They live as though they are subject to more rules than they actually are. My flippant attitude toward the stupid laws meets with shocked disbelief. Even my close friends will say "You don't CARE what the law is???" I refer to police officers as "enforcers" or "terrorists" depending upon what they are doing at the time. I have a Time's Up flag flying from my house and a small one on my car. Freedom, true freedom, comes from your own mind. I don't know how many of you have read this article I wrote for Strike the Root a while ago, or this one I wrote for The Libertarian Enterprise.

I don't know how much the "authorities" watch people who write things like this. They probably ignore us completely, thinking that as long as we keep venting our frustration harmlessly, we will not start the revolution. What they don't realize is that the revolution starts in our minds. We are watering the seeds of freedom with every thought. We are ignoring the government edicts a little more every day. It has begun and will only grow. Socialistic governments only cause those seeds of liberty to germinate faster and spread to more minds with every idiotic law or control they impose on us. Don't let the state worshippers trick you into accepting your chains. Toss them aside, or turn them into jewelry if you can't.

Don't Fall Into a "Cult of Personality"

Everyone is fallible. Even the most brilliant person is capable, with his next breath, of uttering total crap. This is why we should all avoid "cults of personality". Yes, there are people whose written words I read hungrily. I try to keep my BS detectors engaged, though, so that I can filter out anything that doesn't meet the test.

Form your own opinions and don't let others weigh you by how much you are like or different from someone else. Some great (famous?) libertarians of the past and present had horrible ideas or inconsistencies in some areas. Nowhere does this get more discussion than with Ayn Rand, but it is true of everyone. Cull out the bad and keep the good. In this way you can build upon the foundations others have laid while you rise higher than they could. Liberty wins.

Sometimes I even have the alarm bells go off in my own head at my own thoughts. When I am falling asleep I have the most remarkable epiphanies at times. The next morning some of them reveal themselves to be absolutely ridiculous. Aren't you glad I get to sleep on these ideas instead of having them automatically blogged? I mean with some of the things I post even after cogitating.... I shudder to think....

Libertarian Left, Right, or Wrong?

I see a lot of blogs and websites that claim to speak for "the libertarian left". I haven't run across any from "the libertarian right" but I am sure they are out there somewhere. I don't know about you, but I think that distinction is nonsense. Either you are "libertarian" or you are not. I am not talking about "libertarian purity" or anything silly like that here. You may hold some left-over views, call them "scars", from your past, but don't pigeonhole yourself by those aberrations.


I considered myself on "The Right" long ago. Does that make this blog "a blog of the libertarian right"? I hope not. I have moved beyond all that. Or at least I think I have. Yes, I defend the "keeping and bearing" of guns. I also renounce the supreme stupidity of drug prohibition and "enforcing the law at all costs" that seem to be such a turn-on for The Right. Unlike The Left, I don't believe there is any such critter as "social justice"; either each individual gets justice or no one does.


I just think the false distinctions of "left" and "right" miss the boat completely. They are both authoritarian scavengers patrolling the bottom sludge. The libertarians are up top, in the light. Therefore this is "a blog of the political top".

Welcome to The New Dark Ages

This article in Wired, Don't Try This at Home, about the government's war against home chemistry got me thinking. It really does seem like we are entering a new "dark age" with it's own witch hunts and inquisition. Mystical superstitious nonsense like creationism is replacing scientific inquiry. Intelligent, curious people are being targeted by government thugs as "terrorists".

The subject of the Wired article, Bob Lazar, is well known to UFO/Area 51 aficionados. His is a fascinating tale. He may be a pathological liar, or he may know some bizarre things about the government's UFO cover-up. Either way, it is his sales of chemicals that has government goons after him. Chemicals that used to be available in home chemistry kits, but which the government now fears for their potential use in unapproved medicines or "things that go bang". How is our country supposed to advance with a government crack-down on experimentation? Demand a separation of government and science. Remember: tyrants want you to be helpless and stupid.

"If I Can't Dance..." by Jac

Here is something written by "Jac" at The Claire Files that I ran across recently. I think it is pretty good.

If I Can't Dance... or A Certain Person's Manifesto

"I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for
anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand
the denial of life and joy."--Emma Goldman

When tyranny reaches a certain level in a society, as it always does (which
may sound strange coming from an anarchist, but hey, I'm a realist), the freedom
lover has a number of choices, which, in essence, are really three: he can
commit suicide, he can hide, or he can fight.

Suicide in the face of tyranny is, I think, more frequent than any of us
care to imagine. How many "stress-related" heart attacks and strokes in the
United States do you think have more to do with a simple lack of will to live? A
society such as we have today is truly a killer, and whether it's through
cowardice, lack of direction, or simply a lack of physical or emotional stamina,
many people succumb with little resistance. Even some who live a "full" life
commit a form of suicide, if they repress their desire for liberty; if one
allows his passion to die, can his continued physical existence
truly be called a life?

On to hiding. As often as some of the "hard core" types dismiss it as
cowardly, I see hiding as a very valid option for the liberty lover. Indeed, my
own goal is to run away (which is a subset of the hiding choice). In fact, this
continent was largely settled by those who fled tyranny rather than fighting it.
As my friend George Potter says, statism is largely a function of population
density. It is always around but, like any parasite, requires certain conditions
to truly flourish. And often, when so many people are subject to such a
parasite, quite a lot of them actually form a symbiotic
relationship with it, and rely on its survival for their own. And when a
despotic government commands such support, and has access to the resources of a
large civilization, what recourse is left to the liberty lover but flight?

Which brings us to fight. The favorite of novelists (some of them quite
good) and die hard patriots (some of them quite sane). But really, the reason I
saved fighting for last is because, despite the romance toward it felt by some,
or the terror others imagine it with, fighting tyranny is the one thing that every liberty lover does at some point along their chosen path.
The "quiet one" who goes toe-to-toe with the cops before eating his gun; the CEO
who struggled with her principles in school before accepting her "inevitable"
fate; the gulchers who fight in court for their right to homeschool, or keep
goats; the expatriates who dodge Uncle Sugar's taxes. The computer geek who
posts rambling screeds to the internet. Ahem. All of them choose their path, and
all of them fight their battles against the same enemy. In fact, the only real
difference is the weapons they choose, which is what this piece is really about.
Specifically, it's about that most potent of weapons: laughter, and those who
wield it.

Throughout history, one of the greatest banes of kings and presidents,
princes and popes, has been laughter. Whether inspired by subtle satire or
dick-and-fart jokes, tyrants cannot stand to be laughed at. Jokesters have been
the cause of revolutions and the target of book burnings and press smashings
(and people hangings).

So, I stand before you today (actually, I'm hunched over a legal pad in bed
writing this, but you're reading it on a computer, so I'll go with some dramatic
license)... I stand before you and proudly join (as an acolyte, of course... I
could only ever dream of attaining the satirical summits
reached by some) the ancient and noble line of Certain Persons, members of which
include: Tom Lehrer, Groucho Marx, H.L. Mencken, Emma Goldman, Samuel Clemens,
Ben Franklin, Jonathan Swift, Aristophones... so many more.

As one of our wiser contemporary members recently wrote (actually, he's not
really all that wise; kind of a goof really, but he's the best writer of us all
and, as a writer, needs an ego boost now and again): "I am convinced, now more
than ever, that the best action against the enemies of freedom, the enemies of
all that is best about being human, is to be human. Inconquerably human.
Unapologetically joyful."

So, if you are offended by our smart-assed smirks, or our immature sounding
attacks against statists, or our seeming lack of regard for The Cause or The
Party or The Mission, perhaps you should think twice before admonishing
us.

Because if you can't have fun in the pursuit of liberty, what, really, is
the point?

Fun With Acronyms

BATFE=Barbaric Anti-Truth and -Freedom Extremists

CIA=Cannabis Importers and Assassins

DEA= Destroying Everything American

DHS=Department of Hitlerian Schemes

FBI= Feral Brutality Instigators

IRS=Insane Revenue Stealers

TSA=Traveller-Squeezers Anonymous

USA (as opposed to "America")=Usurpers Supressing America



Laugh at them, then abolish them ALL!!

Why I'm Radical

I'm a radical libertarian and an anarchist because I see what happens if people continue to believe that government has a legitimate function. It grows out of control. The way I see it, in the alphabet of government, too many people say "the government should regulate A but leave everything else alone". The problem is that there are other people who then pipe up and say "government should regulate X or Y and leave everything else alone". Government is always only too happy to begin to regulate something new, but never decides it is time to back off. It is like saying that cancer is good because it kills a few really bad people while ignoring the fact that it kills more far more good people. Government is not worth the destruction it causes even if during its existence it occasionally does something good. Government: there is no excuse for it.

What Good are "Laws"?

Do you think laws make you safer? Do they somehow protect you? Laws are not passed to prevent or stop any crime, but only to provide for punishing those who have committed the crime, if they survive to escape the scene and are later caught and proved to be the guilty party. How does this protect you? What about the really stupid laws designed to protect you only from yourself?

Guns in the hands of the intended victims can (and do) stop and prevent crimes. But this takes power away from the government authoritards. That is one reason they don't like privately held weapons. Another reason is that in too many cases, the authoritards in question ARE the attackers.

Some people think that fear of punishment will keep bad people from committing crimes. I don't think that works very often. Premeditated murders would never occur if that were the case. Everyone thinks "I won't get caught!" Criminals who have been interviewed admit to being more afraid of armed victims than of being caught by cops.

Civilized people need to be able to stop a crime just as it starts. The best and most effective way of doing this without putting yourself in even more danger, is to have a gun, know how to use it, and be willing to do so.

Hey NRA, Please stop "Helping"!

I have written to the NRA again expressing my disgust at their "help". Wayne LaPierre: at this rate, you will negotiate away all of my guns. Compromise is for losers. Compromise is what you do if you are on the losing side of a battle. Or if you think you have done something wrong. It is like plea bargaining. Schumer and McCarthy should be begging gun owners to allow THEM to plea bargain instead of you, supposedly representing ME, running to them to show them how to rape our rights more effectively. Our side can't be the losing side; we have the moral high-ground, we have objective reality, we have the guns. Of course, the feds have more guns. They also have you worshipping them and their stormtroopers.

How can you have time to help to violate gun owners? There are plenty of REAL crises happening right now that you could be working on instead of helping the traitors in Congress to outlaw gun ownership. If you really want to help the good guys, Mr. LaPierre, join with JPFO in calling for the shutdown of the BATFE. Hold them and their accomplices accountable for their harassment of Red's Trading Post. Insist that they immediately release Wayne Fincher and return all of his guns and pay for the militia headquarters that burned. Make them pay from their own pockets, not from "public funds".

Either start helping gun owners or merge with the Brady Massacre Fan Club. You couldn't hurt us any worse than you are now.

Ed Brown and The Feds

What is this case about now? It is purely to punish someone for not paying their bribe. How much do the feds claim Ed and Elaine "owe"? How much have the feds (and their state and local co-conspirators) spent trying to "get" the Browns? Is this a cost effective siege? What function of the US government is so important that it justifies killing a person or taking their home or business? Over tax money? Get real, Uncle Scam.


I know all the arguments about "they were convicted in a fair trial". Your definition of "a fair trial" may be different than mine. Taxation is theft. Theft can not be justified or made right by passing "laws" authorizing it.


I would much prefer that Mr. Brown refuse to pay on the grounds that taxation is immoral rather than using the "show me the law" tactic. That isn't my call. America is watching the US government. What will it do? Murder or otherwise destroy lives over some money? Why not. It does this and worse on a daily basis. Just ask gun owners, or non-sanctioned medication users, or un-papered drivers, or........

Scared Sheep? Or....?

When people run into my ideas unprepared they get frightened. They call me a wacko, insane, loony, nut case, a weirdo, "Krazy Kent", and a variety of other creative names. They suggest I go back to smoking my crack pipe and leave opinions to the traditional statists. The really funny thing is a lot of this comes from people who take the Presidential Candidate Selector and find that I am their top-scoring (former) candidate.

I really don't understand this reaction. Do people think so little of their own opinions that they secretly think they are crazy? Do they fear anyone who voices these things out loud? Or do they read only snippets of what I have to say, and then take them out of context. Surely that is the only way they could be exposed to my brilliance and be unconvinced. (<---- a joke)

Claire Wolfe Time

Claire Wolfe, in her book 101 Things to Do 'Til the Revolution, made the statement "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards."

The question constantly arises, "Is it time, yet?" Yes, it is time. It has been time since the dawn of humanity. Look back at history and you will see there has never been a time that fighting against oppressive rulers was the wrong thing to do. If our species had always remembered that fact, and exercised it, we would not be in the situation we are in now.

Our problem is that we abdicated our responsibility when it was easy to fulfil. We thought that the tyrants were not too bad; besides we knew them personally. Now the rulers have erected a huge wall of "laws" designed to ensure their "continuity of government". People with a blind sense of "lawfulness" will point to those laws and say that it is wrong to fight back against the evil rulers. Only if you look at it through the eyes of the tyrants themselves is it "wrong". Of course they will forbid fighting back. Tyrants always do.

Before anyone gets worked up, I'm not advocating any actions here, I just want you to realize that regardless of whatever "laws" the tyrants erect around themselves, fighting against tyranny, with whatever you have, is never wrong.

Safety Nets?

I know some people (OK, a LOT of people) feel that modern society owes some sort of "safety net" to the poor, sick, or disadvantaged. I don't think it is a case of "owing a debt", but I do think that a civilized society will provide something to assist those in need. In fact, just about every society always has. Where I have the problem with a "safety net" is when it is financed through theft. Government runs on theft and is not legitimately responsible for taking care of anyone. Private charities (or even "private charity" as in "personal kindness") are not coercive and are more able to adapt to the individual situation. They are also more likely to detect those who abuse "the system" and become parasites. "Kindness" does not then attempt to take possession of the lives of those it helps. "Safety nets": another empty excuse by people who fear freedom and do not trust themselves to do the right thing if no one is holding a gun to their head.

Legitimate Government

What is the legitimate purpose of government? From my radical libertarian perspective, the only legitimate purpose of any government is to protect the rights of the individual from being violated. This is what The Declaration of Independence was talking about. If the government fails in this it has to go. If the government becomes the main culprit violating individual rights it has negated the very reason it had for existing in the first place. Therefore in order to fulfil its duty to protect the rights of the individual it is necessary for that government to abolish itself.

Every government sooner or later, usually sooner, becomes the people's worst enemy.

My Neighbor's Nuke

The right to own and to carry any weapon is often belittled using the extreme scenario of your neighbor having a nuclear bomb in his garage. Forget for a moment the fact that extreme cases make for really bad laws. If you have an absolute right to own any weapon, what can you do if your neighbor has a nuke?


If my neighbor had a nuke, and I thought he was that much of a danger to me, I would try to destroy his bomb or shoot him before he had a chance to use it. Then I would take my chances with a fully informed jury. "Self defence" applies here, as it does in any instance of imminent danger. My neighbor would also be able to claim "self defense" if he shot me when I tried to get him, so it would probably be better to try to reason with him first. If I felt he was so mentally unstable that reason would not get through to him, then I'd take my chances.


What I would not do is use this case to argue that since my crazed, nut-case neighbor wanted to threaten my life, and the lives for miles around, by keeping a nuclear weapon in his garage that government should ban me from owning guns or ban children from having and using rubber band guns. That is insanity.

Help Red's Trading Post

Red's Trading Post is the oldest gun store in Idaho. The thugs from BATFEces are trying to shut it down. There is a lot of background information at War on Guns Blog about this case and today there is a suggestion on what YOU can do to help.

It's a Protest Vote - Really

I realize that any write-in votes for me won't be counted by "election officials" because I am not willing to jump through the hoops to become "legitimate" as far as the feds are concerned. I am a write-in candidate only as a protest; just like if you write in "Bart Simpson" or something. The difference is that I stand for something. If you tell someone that you wrote in "Kent McManigal", they can Google me (if they can figure out the spelling) and see exactly what I am all about. I think we all know Ron Paul doesn't have a chance of being the Republican nominee; not the way the system is rigged. (If he did become the nominee, I would need to question whether the system is rigged like I think it is.) A Libertarian has even less chance of winning the election than Ron Paul has of being the Republican nominee. If you still feel that not voting is shameful, then you can write-in my name, knowing the Powers-That-Be will not count it, but still sending a message, just the same.

Domestic Enemies in Black Robes

When elected officials take office they pledge to protect the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Then they immediately break that oath by not recognizing that almost every thing the federal government does is in direct violation of the Constitution, and trying to stop it. In direct violation, but sanctioned (wink-wink) by federal courts.

How can you protect the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic when some of the worst domestic enemies have placed themselves in charge of deciding what the Constitution means? Whether or not the Constitution is worth defending is another matter. As has been said, either it established this governmental monstrosity we now suffer under, or it did nothing to stop it. Fortunately "freedom" does not depend on a piece of paper, but on each of us as individuals. Freedom is ours to take and live, if we will only do it. Pay no attention to the black-robed gremlins of the court. Let them paint themselves into a corner with their pronouncements-from-on-high. Just get on with the business of living free from coercion.

Leaders or Rulers?

Leaders can be a good thing. They lead by showing the rest of humanity the trail, and then striking out along that path, alone if necessary. If you trust the Leader, you follow him. If not, you find your own path.


Rulers dictate which path you will follow, often times from the safety of their fortresses. A Ruler may send an envoy in front of you as a decoy to make you believe you are following the Glorious Leader. You are given no choice whether to follow the path the Ruler chooses for you. A set of imaginary rules will be enacted to show you that the Ruler's way is the only right way.


Is the President (or governor, senator, etc.) a "Leader" or is he a "Ruler"? If you have a Leader and he begins leading you astray, you are free to stop following. If he threatens you or forces you to continue following him by dragging you along, he is no longer a Leader, but a Ruler. The Rulers in the US claim we are free to follow them or choose another "Leader" in the next election. We will be dragged along unwillingly until that time, of course. The "Leaders" insist we are not free to say "No thank you. I don't need a Leader".


Leaders lead; governments drag. Which situation seems more like America in 2007?

"Bill of Rights" or Simply "Rights"?

A group I belong to, JPFO, is working to educate people everywhere (not just in America) about the Bill of Rights; advocating what they call a "Bill of Rights culture". I would like to live in such a culture, but I don't think it goes far enough. People need to be reminded that rights were not created by the Bill of Rights. Some of the founders of America were afraid that if a Bill of Rights were written, government would try to claim that those rights mentioned were the only ones held by the people. Even though the 9th and 10th Amendments were adopted to try to avoid this, it has still occurred. Plus the government has "reinterpreted" away any protection of rights enshrined in the document.

Instead of a "Bill of Rights culture" I think we need a "Rights culture". A deep understanding that rights exist regardless of government attitudes or usurpation; are inseparable from responsibilities; are inborn in every person everywhere; do not come from "Bills", government or anyone else; are not additive or divisible; are absolute and not subject to restrictions; are the opposite of privileges; and are worth defending to the death.

The Bill of Rights was a good idea, but learning that actual Rights exist with or without government permission is more empowering. At least it has been for me.