Volunteers of America
by Victor Milan
[email protected]
Exclusive to The Libertarian Enterprise
When I last ventured into a grocery store, I was assailed by the
cover of one of our cookie-cut "weekly newsmagazines" -- don't worry
which, it'll soon be on all the others. It showed that lovable loser,
Colin Powell, pointing his finger at me and saying "I want you."
You want me for what, motherfucker?
What's currently griping the piles of the man who couldn't unseat
Saddam Hussein or get George Bush reelected is, of course,
"volunteerism." Peep this: the government already takes at least half
of all our incomes, and probably way more, in taxes, hidden taxes,
and opportunity costs imposed by insanely arbitrary regulations. Now
-- in the person of Bill Clinton and his near-twin Powell -- Moloch is
telling us we ought to feel obligated to work for Him for free.
I won't bother dissecting the fascist absurdity of Clinton's
"mandatory volunteerism" for high school students, nor the bigger lie
"service" -- if you don't know what's wrong with that, please go clean
your lawnmower with gasoline while enjoying an Al Gore-subsidized
cigarette, thereby sparing your species further genetic drift.
I will point out what all this signifies: as Orlin Grabbe puts
it, in a slightly different context, the dickheads are getting
desperate. They know they're running out of money, but they gotta
find some way to feed their uncontrollable power jones: as the
commercial jingle has it, they want more, more, more. Overtly raising
taxes would be a bad move now; but they're unwilling, possibly
unable, to wait for their media blitzes against "selfishness" and
"austerity" to convince the American public that it's wicked to want
to keep some of the money it actually earns. But that's OK --
government has grown masterful in evading any restrictions that can
possibly be placed on it -- which is why, for you slow learners out
there, the only hope we have of "limiting" government is to abolish
it: anything else is just playing along.
So what our rulers intend now is to sell us their latest
oxymoron, "mandatory volunteerism." I'd say it's just a step from
that to the ancient forced-labor corvee -- except that's a lie. It's
no step at all.
Terror Bill and the Colon aren't content with you slaving for
their profit and power four hours of every eight. No way. Once
quittin' time rolls around, it's on with your OSHA-approved hard-hat
and ankle chains and out into the hot sun for your "volunteer" work.
Still, like charity, no matter how much the government tries to
co-opt, and thereby spoil, it, volunteerism has merit. Accordingly a
few suggestions:
1) Buy guns. Learn to use them. Get together with a few trusted
friends whom you know extremely well and learn to use them in
concert. Read all that you can find on guerrilla warfare. Once again
-- for you cringing cowards and sneering traitors who are afraid the
government will put you on a "list" if TLE prints anything more
controversial than Barney might say -- I say: the objective isn't
overthrowing the US government by force. Indeed, if any group did so
overthrow the government, we'd need to fight them, perhaps more
urgently. No, the US government will likely overthrow itself with its
monstrous greed and stupidity. We need to be armed and, in a limited
way, organized to preserve ourselves and loved ones when a dying
Leviathan starts flailing His tentacles.
I'm not suggesting you join a militia; you are in a militia,
the militia, by reason of being an American. That's the way the
country was set up, folks.
I also don't suggest you join some big paramilitary organization
whose members call each other "Colonel," "Captain," or "Field Marshal
for Life" and run around the woods wearing cammies and toting
emasculated, semi-automatic versions of true assault rifles. For one
thing, adopting the military's Leninist hierarchy is no way to
promote individual liberty; it conduces only to making yourself into
a government, which is what the overrated Montana Freemen really had
in mind. For another, such organizations are what we technically
term, "targets." They're already lousy with infiltrators -- like the
provocateurs who set up the Vipers and framed the Georgia militia
people, not to mention the ones who aided, at least by omission, the
government-subsidized Aryan Republican Army in blowing up the OKC
Federal building.
There's a point to such organizations: they serve as a standing
rebuttal to the government's claims to control the population, and
they righteously piss off the bad guys. But when things grow warm
their main function will be to draw fire. Don't stand too close to
them or you will burn.
2) Share the joy of shooting -- and, subtly, the values of
self-responsibility implicit in the concept of self-defense -- with
friends. Don't try to recruit them. Once they feel the -- yes, I'm
afraid I'm going to use the word -- empowerment of being able to
protect themselves, there's a good chance they'll finish the job of
subverting themselves. All it takes is confronting the government's
campaign to take that feeling -- and the means which induce it --
away.
3) Use encryption. It doesn't matter if NSA can bust PGP. The
government can simply -- as the Brit government is trying to do --
outlaw use of encryption period, and bust you if you use it. But as
PGP creator Phil Zimmermann points out, if a sizable percentage of
the populace encrypts all their online correspondence, the government
can't jail them all. It also can't red-flag encrypted coms for
special supercomputer attention -- and not even No Such Agency can
possibly decrypt a hundred million messages a day. Why do you think
Crime Bill and his idiot Nazi sidekick Al Gore are so hysterical to
ban useful encryption?
4) Most important: lay away supplies, particularly food and
medicine, for hard times. Figure out ways you can shelter evaders
from the "law" -- i.e., from the uniformed outlaws -- and discreetly
let freedom-minded others know of your willingness to do so. We're
talking "networking," here.
Buy and read Dean R. Koontz's thriller Dark Rivers Of The
Heart. First, it's well worth it as an entertainment. Second, it
describes just such a network, created to assist victims of
government's increasingly brutal and arbitrary violence -- not just
in escaping and hiding out from their tormentors, but eventually
assuming new lives and occupations, under new identities. All this is
possible -- and it's important that it become actual. There are
already tens of thousands of victims of the government's
alphabet-soup paramilitary forces out there. One thing is certain:
there will be many, many more.
Beyond that, use your imagination. We're not talking altruism
here -- we're talking intelligent beings working for their mutual
benefit. The ass you save may be your own.
Let's show Slick and Colon the real Volunteers of America.
Up against the wall, motherfuckers!
Prometheus Award-winner Victor Milan is the author of over 70 novels,
including the just-released CLD from AvoNova and War In Tethyr
from TSR.