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What is the state of things and where do we go from here?
by Edwin E. Smith
[email protected]

Attribute to The Libertarian Enterprise

Perhaps I should begin with "I" instead of "we" since I long ago discovered that I am only in control of myself and my body as everyone else is in control of their respective selves. I know this to be a fact and I've got the AA and CA chips to prove it. To paraphrase Robert A. Heinlein, "If you think you can control the actions of anyone else then you should try herding cats."

There lies the dilemma.

In Issue 584 I read L. Neil Smith's "The Plan", with great interest. As with most of L. Neil's stuff he's great about pointing out things and what ought to be done etc... etc... etc... HOWEVER, while the solution sounds so simple the reality is that it isn't simple at all. Before even one little thing that's wrong with this country can be changed the opinions and values of a huge number of people will have to be altered. Like herding cats doing that is no simple task. Even if I had the power of Hari Seldon it would, as in Isaac Asimov's Foundation, require thousands of years to accomplish. Had I the power to reach into the minds of a large group of people, the Democrats for example, and turn this knob to this setting and adjust this lever to such a position as I thought was right it would still do little good.

Alas, I have no such power and neither does anyone else. Nor should they.

Being an atheist myself I cannot look to God for help or answers. In all of my years of AA and CA 12 stepping the single most important thing I had to figure out is that contrary to the premises of the Big Book I could not ask God for help to take away my desire for drugs and alcohol. But that is in itself another story. So God isn't going to help us even if you do believe there is a God or Gods or whatever. Everything I've ever read asserts the postulate that God gave us free will. Philosophically he had to give us free will, otherwise there could not be any such thing as Sin. Humankind would be little more than organisms which sole purpose would be to reproduce.

So now that I've established the fact that an individual, which I am, can only control himself, which I do, and likewise does in fact bear the sole responsibility and consequences for whatever he does, and I do. There is no hope that God, any group, or anyone else but I can give me what I desire or make the world to be what it ought to be. To believe such is nonsense. Likewise for a Democrat to believe that O'Bama, Pelosi and Reid are going to deliver the utopia they promised is also sheer and utter nonsense. I'm 60 years old and in my 40 odd years of political activism I have never seen or heard of a politicians promises coming true in any way to be to the benefit of his constituents.

Achieving the Libertarian ideal is NOT going to happen through political means either. Not now. Not in 5 thousand years. Remember those cats.

Where we are, and what we have is a political system that rewards not the people but the politicians and the bureaucrats that support the system. From the lowliest janitor that sweeps the courtrooms where the political will is heartlessly meted out, to the president himself. They one and all exist at the expense of everyone else who works to create and produce the wealth and IS the economy. Asking a politician to fix the economic system which was broken by the previous 1000 political fixes just isn't going to work. The government has perfected the art of bribing the voters with their own money.

So how does an individual who can control only himself attain freedom for the rest of the world? The answer is he doesn't. Since I am in control of only myself I can only make myself as free of the machinations of the political and proletariat classes as I possibly can.

That is all that I CAN do.

I have spent the better part of the past 15 years doing whatever I could to become and remain free.

Today I am in a travel trailer in just about the midlist part of the continental U.S. as one could possibly get. Less than 200 miles away from the center, that is, which is still far enough to make me hard to find. Not that I'm worried about being found because in the larger scheme of things I'm just not worth it for anyone to find.

I didn't file any tax returns from 1986 to 2007. I filed 2007-2009 in 2010 because I wanted to clear up an ancient tax lien that had never really bothered me. And my accountant expensed my business to the point where I owed nothing in taxes. I didn't file for those years because I discovered that there's not a whole lot the IRS can do to a non-filer who doesn't own any real property. I believe it was H.D. Thoreau who said that we don't own property. Our property owns us. But this doesn't mean that anyone who wishes to follow in my footsteps needs to take a vow of poverty. I certainly didn't. There are many ways to control and use property that one doesn't own directly. Of course the IRS could find me and put me on trial for "Willful Failure to File a Tax Return. But they always go after the idiots who file so-called 5th amendment or protest returns first. They go after the loudmouthed zealots who somehow believe that the Tax Code doesn't apply to the average taxpayer because they don't live in the District of Columbia. BUY a CLUE! They make the rules and they enforce the rules. If they want to they can get a warrant and drag your silly ass off to the federal penitentiary where guess what, you don't have to file tax returns because you have no income!

But I figured the best way to not pay taxes was to drop under their radar. When I move, as I frequently do, I don't leave a forwarding address. DUH! Those who I want to know where I'm going I tell and nobody else. Being hard to find is the best way to get under the radar. I don't respond to any of the IRS letters which somehow find their way to me. I don't respond to the numerous demands for tax payments or lien's that have been filed against the wealth which I don't have, at least not that they know of and neither do you!!!

And guess what. The IRS persecution of me never went beyond a tax lien. No state ever filed a lien against me and after 10 years an IRS tax lien drops off and is released. At present I still have everything I started with and a little (lot) more. I've done little other than refuse to comply with the demands of the government.

Can you imagine what would happen if more people simply did what I have done? Namely refuse to comply. Even if the IRS or other government tax authority locked me up and as many others as they could they would soon run out of prison spaces and the resources to feed them. This is what amounts to civil disobedience.

Civil Disobedience... is the only group action that has ever in the history of mankind effected the greatest political change for the least amount of bloodshed. The best example I can think of is the British occupation of India. One simple individual by the name of Mahatma Gandhi never raised a hand against the British occupiers yet his simple refusal, along with millions of followers, to comply with the rules or pay the taxes placed upon them drove the British to eventually give up and go home.

And Civil Disobedience is what in the end will cause lasting political change in this country. Not God, Not the power of Hari Seldon, not turning knobs or moving levers in the minds of all of the proletariat. Only will a refusal to comply cause the government to sit up and take notice. Think about it. The usual way of voters is to pay their taxes go to work every workday obey all of the rules and regulations put upon them by the politicians and yes even to believe that it is all just because they went down to the polls last November and voted. It doesn't matter that their candidate lost. It doesn't matter that the law they voted against passed anyway. It doesn't matter that the 10 trillion dollar bond issue they so hoped wouldn't pass was nevertheless passed and levied and they now were paying for with higher sales taxes. It doesn't matter because no matter How they vote, they still obey the rules and they still pay the taxes. But what would happen if they stopped?

If one person stops, it's doubtful the leviathan would even notice. If 1000 people stopped they still wouldn't notice. If a million stopped they would notice but since there was no discernable head or organization to arrest the leviathan would be nearly powerless to do anything about it other than arrest and try the 1,000,000 refusers. A task that is huge in and of itself and guaranteed to be a net loss for the government for the only thing the government can do is house the refusers in prisons which are already overcrowded or even if the death penalty was decreed for refusers the government still loses because of the cost of the trial and the mandatory observance of the 'rules.' Because if they don't follow the rules then they lose all legitimate claim of being in power.

The last estimate which I heard about 15 years ago is that there exist 16 million non-filers. They file no tax returns even though the government say they must. Care to hazard a guess how many there are now. How many individuals simply stopped paying and stopped filing. 30 million? 100 million? Why do we not hear about them? Could it be that the IRS is deathly frightened of the fact that 16 million people who should file returns simply didn't? It wasn't common knowledge then and it certainly isn't being publicized now. Even the IRS itself states that the Tax System is based on voluntary compliance. I simply stopped volunteering!

Because once an individual refuses to comply he instantly becomes a free man. He is instantly in control of his own destiny. Others may control his body and physically restrain him but they can never tame a free individuals mind. Yes they can brainwash him and drive him insane be he is still a free spirit once he declares himself to be a free and sovereign individual and refuses to be ruled by others.

Back to the numbers, what if instead of a mere million, ten millions refuse to comply? 100 millions? A Billion? When the rest of the freedom loving people see that little can be done to punish the refusers. That those who refuse to pay and refuse to obey go virtually Scott free with nothing of the bad things happening which are supposed to happen to 'Tax cheats', 'criminals', 'civil disobeyers'. When the proletariat realizes that the actual criminals are the ones with the whips in their hands then the government will be for all intents and purposes dead.

For in actuality what power does anyone have over another that the other didn't voluntarily give up? The answer is...

NONE!!!

We live in a cage of our own construction and each of us has the key to the lock. We simply need to turn the key and the cage disappears completely. Once an individual steps over that imaginary line which separates the docile cattle from the free range animals on the plains of Africa he is free. All it takes is a step.

Just DO IT!!!

Just STOP!!! Stop complying with the wishes of those who would run your life and take the bread out of your children's mouths. Those who tell you just exactly what you can do and where you can go and who you can work for and every other life sucking rule and regulation which has reduced this once great country, filled with free individuals to a groveling mass of welfare and other government giveaway's that we truly believe we must have lest the hounds of Armageddon descend upon us. The way to be once again free is to pry your lips away from the tit of that great leviathan we call government. Don't like the Federal Reserve printing funny money? For heaven sakes stop using it for anything other than toilet paper. A fate all other fiat currencies shares and the dollar will also share. Hyperinflation is defined as the point at which the currency becomes more valuable as toilet paper that a store of wealth.

Don't like paying taxes? Then stop paying. Take all of those FRN's (Federal Reserve Notes) that you would have sent to leviathan and buy gold and silver coins instead, and HIDE them. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT keep them in a bank. I wouldn't even keep them in a storage vault no matter what assurances or the reputation of the proprietors proclaim. Dig a hole in a place you know will always be accessible and bury them.

Use your silver and gold among others, who like yourself refuse to comply with leviathan, to trade for food that you can't produce yourself. Don't worry about who will produce what you can't any more than they need to worry about obtaining the skills you possess. Economics is not something that one needs to learn in college. Economics arises spontaneously in every human group who has found that trading is much more easier than stealing. Stealing being the system we have now. AKA Kleptocracy.

Don't worry if it seems like you're the only individual who isn't paying. Rest assured there are tens and perhaps hundreds of millions who just like you have decided, to one extent or another, to refuse to go along with the Kleptocracy. There is no need to flaunt your newfound freedom. In fact I highly advise against it. Just Do it. Just drop off the leviathan's radar. Just Be Free. The others will little by little reveal themselves to you. You'll recognize a fellow freedom fighter when you meet him. He'll be the one who seems very happy and relaxed about the coming collapse and Armageddon. Which for the free and independent and self sufficient which the free cannot help but be self sufficient, won't be anywhere near as bad as the self anointed purveyors of official news piss and moan about on TV. Just like the Huge environmental impact of the Gulf oil spill they said would last for years, wasn't even a tenth as bad as they said it would be and in fact is largely back to normal as if it hadn't happened at all. Nature is like that. Life is tenacious. Even for humans. In fact humans have turned out to be some of the best survivors of all. We KILL cockroaches not the other way around.

Lead by example. Be free and happy and others will see and think how can I be like him? When they ask you how, just say, "To be free and happy one has to take a step and declare himself to be a free and sovereign individual." Don't worry if they don't believe you. Some people will never get it. They will not survive. Only the free and sovereign individual who has something others want or who can bake a loaf and skin a rabbit will survive. It doesn't require any revolution. All that is required is to stop feeding leviathan. Stop giving leviathan your money. Stop doing everything leviathan tells you to do unless you as an individual actually wish to do. Eventually leviathan will starve or at least will adapt and actually evolve into something acceptable to free sovereign individuals to trade with on a strict voluntary basis only.

The only thing that Michael Jackson said that I totally agree with is... "If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change."

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