I feel utter contempt for people who support the existence of government because it makes them feel "safe".
But... part of the reason I hate government so much is that I know it makes us less safe. It's the primary violator of our rights; therefore, having it around makes me feel less safe.
So, am I as contemptible as those who want to govern me so they'll "feel safe"?
OK. Fine. I will do so by refusing to v*te for one of your anointed, pre-selected political criminals.
In this way, I will cast my v*te for liberty instead of for the status quo.
I choose to reject your options, which amount to more of the same.
I refuse to give my consent to your bad guy as a way to stick it to the "other side's" bad guy.
I don't need to be governed, and I don't need you governed on my behalf; to protect me from what you might do.
The criminal institution known as "government" will declare someone or something the "winner", with or without my help or consent. Nothing I do will change that. That "winner" will work hard to make all our lives worse.
Whichever "side" gets the offices, Americans are screwed until government is abolished and our rights and liberty are respected again; something no government will ever do. Respected because we have the will and ability to defend them from ALL violators. This is the only way they'll ever be respected. Government and its "laws" have been abject failures in that department, and so will it always be. That's because no matter how bad freelance criminals are, government is always the Prime Violator.
So, if someone is going to consider a refusal to play their rigged game as a play in their rigged game, that's a problem with their brain. Do what you want, but don't accept blame that isn't yours.
I had posted:
"Killing in self-defense, or in defense of others, at the moment of the attack, is 100% ethical.
Carrying out an execution for government is murder. It makes the killer just as guilty as the person being killed by the state.
https://kentmcmanigal.blogspot.com/2022/03/i-oppose-capital-punishment-and.html"
Someone responded that while he believes that killing in defense of yourself, your children, your pets, or your property is the right thing to do, he believes that killing in defense of others, without their prior consent to do so, or their post-defense consent to have acted in their defense, is murder.
That's not the point I expected pushback on!
OK. People see things differently. But I'm still trying to wrap my head around that one.
If you wait until you get permission to defend someone- or a whole mall full of people- from a credible threat, it's going to be too late.
No, I would just have to act and hope the people I defended are happy about it. If not, I'm willing to face arbitration.
I think we may be descending into a new Dark Age where the vast majority of people- especially young people- just don’t care. As long as they have entertainment, convenience, and the illusion of safety, that’s enough. They don't see any value in liberty. They are too busy dreaming up new ways to feel like victims. New mental illnesses to build their personalities around.
That won't last because it's unsustainable. But it has lasted too long already. Liberty has suffered as a result of this manufactured distraction.
The flame of liberty has been relegated to the corners of the room while all manner of anti-human ideologies and policies take center stage and get all the attention.
I think liberty will eventually rise again, in an upcoming generation sometime in the future. A generation that finally understands that the solution is never political. I wish we didn't have to wait.
If it turns out to be longer than a human lifespan before that new generation arises, I hope we can pass the flame on to a few holdouts so they can do the same when their time comes, just to give that future generation something to expand on. If not, I hope we leave a legacy they can discover and use to build upon. I hope I can contribute something to that future generation.
Half of me gets really mad at all the stupid governing and bullying that goes on. At the spyware the regime is paying to have track us and (soon) read our lips. I hate that so many are so opposed to liberty. I'm frustrated over the monumental cowardice that leads to government.
I want it all to fail, no matter the consequences.
The other half of me wonders how much it really matters. How real is any of this?
Do those who see themselves as "in control" and "running things" really have any control? Are they running anything? It doesn't look like it. What do they believe they are controlling and running? To me, it looks like they are flailing around, and the only people who see them as "leaders" are the weak-minded followers who'd insist on following someone, regardless.
Evil humans have been trying to govern others for a very long time. Eventually, the people being governed always have enough, and then heads roll. People find a way to exercise their liberty in spite of the best efforts of the evil government addicts. This arms race isn't going to stop- the tighter they grasp, the more of us who'll slip through their Imperial fingers.
I feel bad about how many innocents will end up harmed or dead before things settle down. But I'm not the one insisting that this path must be followed.
I'm saying we should all respect each other's equal and identical rights to avoid this. If statist clowns demand otherwise, I'm afraid they'll get what they've asked for.
Get good at ducking, sneaking, hiding, and/or sniping.
With the second half of my brain, I think liberty will prevail in the end, but it might get very interesting on the way to that end. For us, and for the bad guys.
If you don't allow people to say what the solution is, you are actively hiding the solution, and fewer people will understand; the situation will get worse. Every single time. You're the bad guy causing the problem to escalate.
Yes, the solution is sometimes violence- but never aggression.
This is the reality that needs to be spoken. Expressing it needs to be normalized, not punished.
If you punish people for saying so- for telling the truth- you're empowering the bad guys. You're picking the wrong side to defend.
I understand that the thought of being violent upsets many decent people. They want to see themselves as "peaceful" for some odd reason. They think suggesting violence, even when that's not really what was done, needs to be stopped. They confuse violence with aggression.
The thought of their intended victims being violent to stop a crime scares the bad guys and upsets political criminals and those trained to think like they do. There's a lot of overlap in that Venn diagram; it's basically a circle unless you go microscopic.
Find ways to speak the truth, even as the bad guys try to stop you. It's necessary. Normalize self-defense so completely that bad guys- freelance, governmental, and corporate- can't silence us all. Stop letting them hide the solution.
Before the Federal Reserve scam began, perhaps there was a connection, but not anymore.
The tax rate could be 100% or 0%, and government would spend the exact same amount. It simply counterfeits, through the Federal Reserve, all the money it uses.
Even if government stopped spending money altogether, it would keep taxing. Taxation isn't for funding government; it's for impoverishing you, controlling your behavior, and getting you to incriminate yourself- all useful for government power.
The Federal Reserve's counterfeiting operation achieves the same result by inflating the money supply and stealing the value of the money you already have or are getting, while enriching those who get the first counterfeited dollars.
If you are hurting financially, and government offers you money or "benefits", it can control your behavior and get you to accept the lie that government is "essential". You might oppose any reduction in government, afraid that you'll lose the handout.
The biggest problem with taking "givernment's" handouts ("entitlements" and promised $ 5,000 bribes, for example) isn't that you're taking money stolen from someone else, but that it weakens you and might buy misplaced loyalty to the giver. If you are immune to this, congratulations- you are a better person than most.
The issue with accepting "government money" in exchange for a "job" or a government contract is that it strengthens and perpetuates government.
Government is the arch-enemy of liberty. Government goes away when no one is willing to debase themselves by working for it anymore. If you value liberty, you shouldn't settle for anything other than no one working for government in any capacity. Not even to monkeywrench.
The understandable position that money handed out by government was stolen from someone else just isn't as true as it once was. It's no longer possible to starve the Beast, or to bleed it dry. Its "money" is disconnected from taxation, for whatever that's worth. Do with that what you will.
But, according to those who prefer criminals over the good guys, this suggestion promotes "violence", and self-defense is much worse than being the archator attacking innocent victims. We must protect the poor, aggressive monsters among us from their uppity victims. Right?
Anyone who reports this as "violent speech" needs to be locked out of their account. They are the ones promoting violence- that's what demanding that criminals be protected from their victims is. I've always thought that those who make the false reports need to suffer the consequences they bring onto their victims, but that never happens. Whether it involves false reports of content or false reports of a sexual assault. The karens who report others are treated as precious jewels who must be shielded from the consequences of their actions- just like the archators they apparently care so much about.
Censoring the suggestion that there's a solution to such attacks is not helpful.
Come on @X, do better.
They’ll try to beat you over the head with the “social contract”. Since that doesn’t exist, it’s like a mime flailing at you with an imaginary hammer. It can't hurt you if you don't let yourself be hypnotized into believing it's real.
I'm going to help others when I can because it's the right thing to choose to do, voluntarily. Not because they believe a "social contract" I've never seen or signed says I'm obligated to do so. Or says others are entitled to my help. There's ONE thing I promise that comes closest to an "obligation". The only thing anyone is really entitled to is to not have their rights violated.
They’ll try to scare you with “what if”. That only works on people who aren’t sovereign and who are afraid of every shadow and sound. "What if?" Then this… and I’m still responsible for myself.
Most of their scariest "what if" scenarios are a description of the current situation anyway. Warlords have already taken over. Crime gangs already attack, kill, and victimize your children- they just bring badges and official titles. Hordes of thieves already take your property; most of them call it "taxation", "asset forfeiture", "licensing", or "property codes".
You can't scare me into going along by threatening more of what you're already getting away with.
Don't get pulled into their hallucinations, but remember that hallucinating people can still harm you. Be ready to defend yourself, but don't fall for their nonsense.
Every day, I anticipate the Wordle hint on Thomas Knapp's blog. Not so much to play Wordle as intended, but to see if I can guess the word in one try based on his hint- and maybe by using the first letter. I usually can.
Getting hints and the first letter isn't technically playing Wordle, but it is the game I'm playing. For me, it's more fun than the game they designed.
I've realized that I do this in a lot of other areas as well. That doesn't always work out well, but it's what I tend to do. Especially when I find the "game" uninspiring, dumb, or rigged against me.
The "game" as established isn't for me, so I play it my own way. Other people can play it however they want.
I really believe I've written this story before, but I can't find it, so here goes.
One year, just before Christmas, I went to the mall with my first wife. We were walking through the parking garage when I heard someone yelling, "Stop him!"
There was a guy running directly toward us, holding a shopping bag or two. I think it was a snatch-and-run.
I tensed. My wife grabbed my arm and said, "Don't you dare!" I was so shocked and taken aback that I lost my concentration, and the guy ran past us and climbed over the fence bordering the parking garage.
That gnawed at me for years afterward.
If no one does anything, bad guys keep getting away with it. I think I could have tripped him, at least. This was just a couple of years before I started carrying defensive tools, but I still believe I could have done something. In the long run, it might have even saved the thief's life.
Maybe it was better for me, personally, that I didn't intervene. But it tore me up for a long time. I had such guilt haunting me when I'd be trying to go to sleep.
That was the time I failed to stop a crime, and I swore I'd never be in that position again. I know it's a promise to myself I may not be able to keep, but I'll do my best.
My wife-at-the-time was at work, and it must have looked as though no one was home. I glanced out the window, but my wife hadn't come home early.
I picked up the only gun I owned- a lever-action .22 rifle, which was loaded- and went towards the sound.
Standing in the middle of my living room was a kid of around 12 years old. He was startled by my sudden appearance (I'm a stealthy walker) and by the fact that I was holding a rifle at low ready.
I asked what he was doing in my house.
He stammered something about looking for me. I said, "Here I am. What do you want?"
He couldn't think fast enough and came up with some obvious nonsense, and I told him to get OUT of my house. He did.
Later, I found out that there had been several burglaries around our rural neighborhood. I have no doubt that had I not been home, we would have come home to a burglarized house. Of course, if I hadn't been home, the front door would have been locked, and I'm not sure the kid was breaking in or just opportunistically checking for unlocked doors. Either way, the burglaries stopped. Or moved.
And that's the story of how I once stopped a crime in progress.
Somewhere, I believe I've written about the time I failed to stop a crime, and have felt bad about it ever since. Not my finest hour. I can't find any such blog post, so I'll write it for tomorrow. Link here.
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Thank you for reading.
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An account that shared the link said, "men don't care".
When I said I care, she (I'm going to assume the account owner is female) doubled down. I wasn't trying to start a fight, but she had other intentions, it seems.
So, I shared this true, painful story from my past (that I didn't really want to tell) as anecdotal evidence to the contrary of the claims made:
I once found out an acquaintance (and her children) was being physically abused by her husband, who was (until then) a friend of mine. I lived 700 miles away*, but I made one phone call** and got her out of that situation. She never spoke to me again, because she'd told me in confidence and sworn me to secrecy. That's not the kind of secret I will keep. If he had killed her, I would NEVER have forgiven myself. It was worth losing her trust/friendship to save her life.
I responded to a video of a racist socialist who was happily exposing their plot by posting my "socialism" meme.
One of those kind and tolerant people with a "***.bsky.social" X account (to distinguish itself from run-of-the-mill "fascist" X users) replied:
"Don’t worry, when our time comes we’ll be taking a lot more from you than just your 'stuff'."
Here's one of these people saying out loud that they plan to "take" something more than just our property when they can get away with it. What else, besides "stuff", is there to take? Well, there's also life and liberty.
They seem to imagine they are on the right side of history, while admitting they will act like previous generations of fascists/socialists as soon as they get the chance. It sounds like a credible threat; one that justifies any level of self-defense.
It makes me a bit angry to know so many people mindlessly align with this view.
Then you have the people who are supposedly on our side who say some version of "resistance is futile".
"You can’t eradicate human nature. Most people want to be led."
"We’re never let out of it. We’re always caught up in the tides of tyranny because we’re so outnumbered."
