Recent comments

Glen Allport -- First, I was being presumptuous when I wrote "your government"; I presumed that you use a "chattel number", a Taxpayer Identification Number (U.S.), a number which identifies you as a member of the U.S. government. If I am wrong, I will humbly apologize. Second, what I was "thinking", and my point, too, is simple, is that even if I was in the place called "So. Cal" I would not be "using government services[1]", just because I breathe the air there. [1] Services. Things purchased by consumers that do not have physical characteristics. ~ Black's Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition (c.1991), page 1369

Self-ownership is an inalienable right. So much for your dialogue. If you would like to invent some other words besides 'property' and 'ownership' when discussing one's self, fine. But the concept holds. I control me. I call that ownership. When I own something, I call that something property, even if it is me. Those words don't bother me at all. Again, my self-ownership is inalienable, which distinguishes the 'me' property from all the other property I may claim.

The rejection of the reality that humans are indeed social animals is a reaction to the forced mass-society of agricultural city-Statism. That sort of "we" isn't fun or fulfilling. While it is an understandable reaction, it is an ignorant, fundamentalist philosophy that is easily debunked by empirical data. There is a "we."

-The poster you responded to told you what he will do. I have told you what I will and do (more below). What YOU are going to do is up to you...you can continue to beg for permission to run in the forest for all I care... History's Most Elaborate Ad Hoc Hypothesis By Vahram G. Diehl http://www.strike-the-root.com/historys-most-elaborate-ad-hoc-hypothesis -As for the empirical data...Neither it nor statisticians and their spurious patterns can trump what human's do (in spite of being crippled by statism). The abolitionists of the past did not know of companies like, John Deere, Kubota, or International Harvester. How could they know? They would never witness the invention of the tractor and all of the wonderful implements that can be attached to them that make life on a farm so much easier. They would never witness the fabulous invention known as the internal combustion engine, or the introduction of hydraulic systems that make all of this technology possible. What empirical data would show such? They--abolitionists--were not concerned with any of this, they did not care about what would replace the slave; they only fought to end the horrible institution of chattel slavery. This is the root I was trying to strike with my last essay. I only wish to abolish slavery. I see something as wrong, I should not have to devise a working model as an alternative to this wretched practice. Is it not enough to expose the slavery in the system to get my fellow humans to throw off their shackles? Do I have to tempt them with new systems? Chattel slavery, although practiced for many, many centuries, is now seen as a horribly immoral institution. Slave owners of the past were not presented with cost benefit analysis, or return on investment sheets. The moral argument was presented, and it was supported with the fact that man is a self-owner, no matter the color of his skin. 21st Century Abolitionists by Chris Dates http://zerogov.com/?p=2371 -It is not my job--or anyone else unless they want to--to show you anything.... The truth is no one knows what “we” will do in a completely voluntary society, there is just no way of knowing. Any answer that is given to questions pertaining to the problems that individuals would face in such a society are purely speculation. I cannot tell you what we would do, I can only tell you what I would and already do. I would honor my contracts; I would defend myself; I would choose to help others in need; I would expect no one to support me; and I would plan accordingly. I want to be very clear here, I do not disagree with the theory that is being presented on how the logistics of society would be handled. There is no doubt that these organizations and such would arise and be needed in a voluntary society. I disagree with the fact that these theories are being pushed as answers before addressing the only real and true problem; collectivist thought. *When those who are curious about voluntarism ask the “we” questions, the underlying collectivist philosophy is still there, and this is what needs to be addressed first before any practical questions can or should be answered. Otherwise, you are just trying to get them to abandon their system for your system*. There is *No We*: Challenge the Premise. http://zerogov.com/?p=2334

A good TED talk on the differences between liberals and conservatives follows: Jonathan Haidt on the moral roots of liberals and conservatives http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html Within a group of humans respecting their neurobiological social limits, known as Dunbar's Number, left and right are like legs that help each other out. Neither personality styles are more morally right or wrong, they just are, and both have great strengths. Only in the mass society of the agricultural city-State must we endure standing on one leg, or the other, for extended periods of time, until we get tired of it, and revolt to the other leg. Humans are Pleistocene band animals, and we just aren't adapted to mass society, any more than dolphins would be if dolphins had a massive industrial hierarchy, instead of having fun in small pods.

Empirical data demonstrates that there is always a State in an agricultural city-Statist (civilization) sociopolitical typology. Show me a society with settlements of roughly 5000+ that doesn't have State level politics, and I might regard your anarcho-capitalist fantasies with a little more respect. Anarcho-capitalism is just that - an immature fantasy, on the level of the rest of your scatological and infantile discourse.

Actually, there are farmers who actually enjoy farming. I am sympathetic to your view here, but there is one little problem now. We have painted ourselves into a corner. The Pleistocene existence can support on the order of 6 million humans on this planet, not 6 billion. Looks like agriculture is here to stay, for that reason alone.

Repudiation--the answer to odious debt.

Where did you get the idea that there would be a "state" or an "officer" to answer to in an anarcho-capitalist environment? If you were to habitually gambol through and destroy portions of a corn patch, orchard, etc or shit on a lawn that I've nurtured and claimed for my own, I may recommend therapy before I go to the age old remedy of treating you like any other varmint. Furthermore, don't be masturbating in front of my kids.

I look at most -isms much the same. Capitalism, Communism, Socialism, Fascism. Even libertarianism or anarcho-capitalism or agorism or syndicalism. All of them reveal their agricultural city-Statist nature with one question: Officer, am I free to gambol about plain and forest to live a Non-State society's lifeway? All of these political flavors of agricultural city-Statism (civilization) have the same answer: NO!

Right on target Scott. At least the socialists admit they want to use the state to steal from others to pay for their "needs". Conservatives pretend to be against socialism until their pet "needs" must be funded by others and then they say "of course" the state must provide them. Further proof that conservatives have no real principles.

"In Indigenous societies, we are told that Natural Law is the highest law, higher than the laws made by nations, states, municipalities and the world bank. That one would do well to live in accordance with Natural Law, with those of our Mother [the Earth]." ~ Winona LaDuke, of the Mississippi Band of the Anishinaabe of the White Earth Reservation, Minnesota

This, Atlas, is an excellent response to the naysayers of freedom. How many there are of us who cannot grasp the idea that we do not need to build a free society. We simply need to be free ourselves. I think I'd like to rephrase that: I simply need to be free myself. All too often when blogging about "freedom" I find myself wanting to use the most dangerous word in the world: "we". And as your last sentence says, (using my own words) "...if it's going to be it's up to me..." I can't speak for you. But I can learn from you. And you can learn from me. That's what STR is all about. I think the thesis you've laid out for us above is what gave rise to my use of the term, "...I am a sovereign state..." We've had some argumentation back and forth over the white man's legalese, and I've certainly had some challenges over that declaration even from freemen I truly respect. But it simply means, as Bill Bupert indicated in the "zerogov" essay you linked at the end of your well-thought-out reply: I'm not sure how "society" -- or even you -- or even me for that matter -- will pan out under "freedom". Trial and error may be the game plan some days. But the responsibility for my freedom resides with me and me only. The hallmark of the white man seems to be obfuscation -- using lots of words to camouflage lack of knowledge or understanding. Wouldn't it be simpler and more honest to say, "I don't know"? Speaking of hallmarks, I believe honesty must be one of the badges of freedom. I don't know. Sam

"Well, you're being a bit presumptuous yourself. The government isn't my "masters" or "gang" anymore that it is for you." ~ WhiteIndian I apologize, I presumed from your self-proclaimed belief; "...the best I can do, for now, while inside the prison of civilization, is to unschool and rewild and survive the inescapable prison sentence of city-Statism", that you had not formally "withdrawn from membership" in the "gang", and that you used a chattel number (U.S.) to obtain benefits.

Thank you for your polite and patient reply, Sam. I'll not take up any more of your time debating with you, my friend, other than to say that I hope you, (and anyone else who may be reading this), understand that a "declaration of independence", is not a "treaty" or "agreement" of any kind, and it does not require anyone's "approval"; it is what it is, an "(law) unsworn statement that can be admitted in evidence in a legal transaction", and nothing more. In this particular case, it is a "manifest proclamation[1]" that lawfully rebuts their "presumption in law" that I am a citizen/subject. _____________________________________________________________________ [1] Manifest. Evident to the senses, especially to the sight, obvious to the understanding, evident to the mind, not obscure or hidden, and is synonymous with open, clear, visible, unmistakable, indubitable, indisputable, evident and self-evident. ... ~ Black's Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition (c.1991), page 962

I've got and have read all the deceptive and fantastical "Agorist" literature. The "Agora" was an open "place of assembly" in ancient Greek city-STATES...free-born male land-owners who were citizens would gather in the Agora for MILITARY duty or to hear statements of the RULING king or council. (wiki) See what the "Agorist" evangelicals left out? Oh sure, later, the Agora also served as a marketplace. (wiki) The "Agorist" premise is false, and they have overlooked some simple facts of empirical observation: • Humans never have had, and never will have, settlements of 5000+ (civilization) without hierarchical State-level politics. • Hierarchy begins above 150-500 population as a non-egalitarian chiefdom (the proto-State.) • Formation of hierarchy is related to neurobiological evolution in the concept of "Dunbar's Number." It's not sin. It's not corruption. It's a neurobiological limit related to brain size. • Domestication and agriculture are the primary behavior that lead to increased violence, cannibalism, sacrifice, famine, subjugation of women, war in culture after culture. Agorism is going to work at saving the world about as soon as that famous zombie is going to rapture the elect to heaven. Both of the salvationist hopes to escape the hell of the agricultural city-State (civilization) are founded on false premises. Agorists wants to magically have the agricultural city-State, without the oppressive political hierarchy. It won't happen any sooner than animated corpses can be conjured. The State is an integral and inseparable part of the cultural package of agricultural city-Statism (civilization.)

Yes, it is frustrating that a good word like "no king" in Greek (an-archon) has been destroyed by past association with statist collectivism and initiatory force. And it is frustrating that a system of privately owned resources and free markets could be described by a word like capitalism, except for the long-standing association of that word with cronyism and fascism—the marriage of big government to big business. Nor is it pleasant to suppose that a system of putting people before power structures described by a word like socialism has been associated with statism and power structures to the detriment of people. But why fret about some words? There are plenty of other words. Or you can invent a new one. I like "indomitus" as a word for "not part of YOUR system." Or "not enslaved." It is Latin for "savage" but it carries these other meanings. And we can make it mean what we want to.---I like the word "agorism" because it comes with 95 theses, it has a nice ring to it, it hasn't been connected to statism or initiatory force, and it seems like our best path forward.-----Whatever you choose to do, worrying about what labels are used to describe what you do seems like the last thing to do. In general, worry is a wasted emotion. But this sort of fixation on words is a sort of idolatry. As if getting just the right words were going to fix everything. They won't. The good news is, we don't have to treat words as though they were a scarce world resource. They aren't. New words are invented every day. State socialism is evil whether you call it capitalism or socialism. Statism is evil whether you identify it with the right or the left. Anarchy is almost certainly a botched word because of its association with chaos and bomb throwing. Socialism is almost certainly a botched word because of its association with state ownership of everything. Capitalism is almost certainly a botched word because of its association with cronyism and fascism. One of the reasons I like "agorism" so well is that it is not tainted by association with a lot of past indiscretions by people who had their heads firmly stuck in their own rectums. But, look, type the word "agorism" on your Facebook status, or in a comment, and your computer probably identifies it as misspelt, *depending on your browser and whether you've added this word to your dictionary*. It is a new word. Where did it come from? It comes from the word "agora" which is Greek for market place and forum or gathering place. It was used by Samuel Edward Konkin III (SEK3) to identify his economic and political philosophy of withdrawal from... There is no magical incantation of just the proper words that is going to cause everyone on the planet to embrace individual liberty, private property, free markets, and lay the foundation for ending the state, freeing the slaves, and stopping the wars. We're going to do those things, and we'll do them using whatever words work with a particular audience. It isn't rational to worship words as though they were going to be our salvation. We should find the ideas that work and use whatever words we need to convey those into each mind we encounter. After all, every individual is different, and worthy of whatever words are needed to shine the ligth. One size does not fit all. Paraphrased from Word Idolatry http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2010/tle563-20100328-03.html In closing, freedom has no system, and it never will. Billions of humans making trillions of decisions could never be harnessed or thoroughly theorized by even the most brilliant voluntaryist thinkers or free market economists. I try not to use the term, “free market system” anymore, because humans trading goods and services is not a system, it’s what humans do. I have abandoned the use of the word “system” completely. Of course, some of the more logical folks out there might say that having no system is a system. Well, for those of you who would say that and discard this whole essay, I would ask you this…. Is there a difference between those who seek to build a system, and those who only seek to build? Objectivist-Anarchist-Agorist-Autodidact students have stood on Rand's, AND Mises and Thoreau's shoulders to make breakthrus based on their work...And now their students are standing on their students shoulders--Samuel Edward Konkin III and Jim Davidson, and Chris Dates--to make new break thrus... There is No We: Challenge the Premise. http://zerogov.com/?p=2334

Well, you're being a bit presumptuous yourself. The government isn't my "masters" or "gang" anymore that it is for you. You, me, or anybody else in the agricultural city-State (civilization) live under a hierarchy enforced by daily violence. If you see a cop's lights come on behind you, you will pull over. If you don't, you'll eventually get caught, get arrested, and possibly go to jail. Good luck with telling the cops you've "seceded." Do you really think that claim will change their behavior? Whether or not you recognize such hierarchy legally or morally, it's there. It's real. And you'll behave accordingly, and so will the enforcers of hierarchy, from the point of view of a dispassionate anthropological viewer.

Monsters incubated and propagated by Govt have everything to do with the practice of altruism (sacrifice) and nothing to do with the man who neither sacrifices himself to others nor sacrifices others to himself. The anti-concept definition of selfish is accepted as its actual meaning. The idea of a truly selfish man is not part of our culture... I don't hold Ayn Rand responsible for uncritical zombies--and certainly not sociopaths--nor those who will not help themselves and smoke cigarettes just because Rand smoked. Such have been with us a long time. And they will even join up and perhaps assimilate the unwary with package deals... Selfishness...is so alien an idea in our culture that Rand dedicated an entire book to dissolving misconceptions about its meaning and extolling its virtues (The Virtue of Selfishness). And while some are uncritical, more and more of her Objectivist-Anarchist-Agorist-Autodidact students have stood on Rand's, AND Mises and Thoreau's shoulders to make breakthrus based on their work... Some Examples: "Objectivist Resistance to Anarchy: A Problem of Concept Formation?” Column by new Root Striker Carrie Burdzinski. http://www.strike-the-root.com/91/burdzinski/burdzinski1.html Even though her description of Galt's Gulch is a functional anarchy (no rulers), Rand abhorred what she thought of as "anarchy" and she explicitly embraced the idea of minimal government. HOWEVER, as George H Smith points out "...Rand's principles, if consistently applied, lead necessarily to a repudiation of government on moral grounds". “IN DEFENSE OF RATIONAL ANARCHISM” http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~thomas/po/rational-anarchism.html Stephan Molyneux's Handbook to Statist.."In the interests of efficiency, I have decided to distill every argument I have ever had with your average statist, so that I can hand it out to *those who argue that government is voluntary*, if I don't like it I can leave, taxation is not violence, etc... http://www.strike-the-root.com/72/molyneux/molyneux4.html Morris and Linda Tannehill's "The Market for Liberty" Book review--Freedom Naturally http://alpha.mises.org/daily/5305/Freedom-Naturally Making it possible to see thru the political myths men have lived by since Neolithic times. Making it possible to understand that liberty is the mother of order not its daughter and that If revolution comes by violence and advance of light the struggle will have to be begun again. http://mises.org/resources/6058 Walter Block and Wendy McElroy at Mises.com and LewRockwell.com 238. Lew Rockwell Attacked By a Parasite On December 2, 2011, In Podcast, By admin Standard Podcast Ron Smith talks to Lew Rockwell until a federal employee intervenes. http://www.lewrockwell.com/lewrockwell-show/2011/12/02/238-lew-rockwell-... Doug Casey--Fresh Starts http://lewrockwell.com/casey/casey100.html And of course myself....

I guess you have to be 95 to avoid TSA humiliation. Or is that 105?

"Civil liberties" is an oxymoron. Agricultural city-Statism (Civil-ization) is a deliberate Prison of domesticated plants and domesticated animals, including the human Pleistocene band animal. Just because you have a plush "private" cell and "Prison Liberties" negotiated with the hierarchical elite wardens, doesn't mean you're anything close to free. Yet talking about the civi/prison walls, or even suggesting that they're collapsing from rot, really upsets most people in the "liberty" movement. They merely want incremental changes, like prison guards who will treat them with respect, a "privatized" mess hall, "privatized" prison janitors, and private prison cells instead of group dorms. Libertarian types are mostly in favor of the prison itself. It's their comfort, its the only life they know. They want the walls. It's sort of like Stockholm Syndrome.

If you're an evolved Pleistocene band animal on home planet Mother Earth, whom we call a human being, it has to do with you. You don't even know that nature of the beast from which you wish to secede. Better get interested in empirical observation and inductive logic from facts, not deductive libertarian-thinkery based on demonstrably false premises.

The foremost big-government regulation(1) of the agricultural city-State (civilization) is a Land enTITLEment program that restricts the free movement of Non-State society families to gambol about plain and forest(2) to forage (gather and hunt) as sovereign individuals.(3) Who wants Gambol Lockdown deregulation? Certainly not the Mises-Marx axis of agricultural city-Statists. Officer, am I free to gambol about plain and forest? MARX: NO! MISES: NO! ____________________ (1) "Agriculture creates government." ~Richard Manning, Against the Grain, p.73 (2) "Gamboling about plain and forest, hunting and living off the land is fun. Farming is not." ~Richard Manning, Against the Grain, p.24 (3) "Historically, people in non-state societies are relatively autonomous and sovereign. They generate their own subsistence with little or no assistance from outside sources. They bow to no external political leaders. Nor are they routinely exploited by outsiders." ~Elman Service, NON-STATE AND STATE SOCIETIES, http://faculty.smu.edu/rkemper/cf_3333/Non_State_and_State_Societies.pdf

I appreciate your sentiments; many dissent and do not consent to agricultural city-statism's virtual prison lockdown on 99% of our home planet's surface. The problem I see with the sovereign movement, -- constitutionalist, libertarian, an-cap, or other flavors -- is that they imagine that some "pure" form of government within the agricultural city-state (civilization) that isn't brutally aggressive can be somehow conjured. They call it limited government, pure capitalism, constitutional government, privatized defense associations, etc. They would be as deluded. An integrated study of neurobiology, biological evolution, anthropology, and archeology will show that humans not only have not formed such a fantastical organization, it is most likely humans cannot, about as likely as conjuring an animated corpse. Most libertarian/anarchist literature, while expressing sentiments for a return to the freedom we humans lost with civilization -- and I share in that -- ignores significant empirical data obtained in the last 50 years, and is based on many false premises, thus leading Mises, Rand, etc. to significant errors. The most telling error is that libertarian types swallow is the Hobbesian mythology, which is a fabricated apology for city-statism. "Nasty, brutish, and short" has been discredited by empirical data; the more accurate view is "The Original Affluent Society." (Sahlins) In conclusion, I now judge libertarianism as a secular salvationist hope to escape the horrors of agricultural civilization, much like Christianity seeks to escape the curse of agricultural civilization in Heaven.