Is there hope? (Please convince me.)

[memenode]

I watched Endgame last night. Please don't make any assumptions about that yet.

I do not accept that secrecy is the crucial problem that we're facing, nor that it matter whether there is a conspiracy or not. It doesn't matter to someone who by default rejects all forms of coercive authority. The value that I find in the movie Endgame, once I strip it off the conspiracy stuff, is in roundly describing the kinds of things that can and are happening so long as there are coercive monopolies and people believing they can run other people's lives. These kinds of things can happen regardless of whether someone is planning them or not. People do terrible things out of pure genuine conviction that what they're doing is right, not necessarily because they have some corrupt secret agenda.

It's just that they're having the wrong ideas and are too disconnected from the consequences of following such ideas.

So what am I talking about, to be more specific? Well, this is Earth today. Virtually every piece of land on Earth is ran by a coercive monopoly. There is no place to go where some government wont threaten you for living the way you want. Furthermore, most of these governments were or are waging bloody wars which end up increasing their coercive power over people. Government kills people somewhere every single day.

These gangs also cooperate with each other to form so called "unions". In only recent couple of weeks we've seen some incredibly and unthinkable encroachments by the European Union which more clearly than ever before show that EU is in fact a superstate in formation. Similarly, there already is a South American Union, African Union and an Asian Union. North American Union may very well be established soon (probably some time after the elections).

This means that in addition to one government, a local government, we will have two or even three (in US, state government, federal government and NAU government) governments cooperating with each other or controling each other for the purpose of controlling everyone in their jurisdiction. Governments may be inefficient, but I'm afraid this sort of mutual cooperation will make them much more efficient in silencing dissent.

In EU, by October we may be facing a law that will allow government to spy on everything we do online (in the name of stopping "piracy") and sending threatening letters if you do or say something that is "illegal". My livelihood depends on the internet folks. I live in Croatia, a country led by politicians who lick european politician's feet and can't freaking wait to enter the union. I have a feeling that even if we don't enter, though, croatian politicians will keep copying european laws so whatever laws are passed in europe, I wouldn't be surprised to see them here as well.

My point is this. We are in a great minority yet people who continue believing in coercive monopolies are in great majority. As time goes by the governments are getting bigger and more powerful, forming unions and alliances that increase their efficiency in oppressing dissent. They are abusing new technologies to increase efficiency even further.

How can so few of us ever hope to convince enough people to oppose the idea of government before our very voice is taken away from us, our means of communication, our freedom to move and talk freely?

I know about Free State Project, but if the ideal of secesion is ever achieved, what if federal and NAU governments DO decide to intervene by force? Do voluntaryists in NH really stand a chance?? And if we are a little more conservative and let the minimal government stay in NH, we again risk that federal government wont just legally or not, put their own people in place and make them cease greater coercive control over the NH area.. It's like, whatever we do we're darned.

Are we fighting a hopeless cause? Is there hope? Why? It's hard to work towards something without hope and being rational people we can't have hope without some reality based reasoning that could support it.

Thanks

[Russell Kanning]

How can so few of us ever hope to convince enough people to oppose the idea of government before our very voice is taken away from us, our means of communication, our freedom to move and talk freely?

ask russians ... who have more freedom than they used to have

I know about Free State Project, but if the ideal of secesion is ever achieved, what if federal and NAU governments DO decide to intervene by force? Do voluntaryists in NH really stand a chance??
Are we fighting a hopeless cause? Is there hope?

oh no ... I am bummed now ... I thought you had been sent to save us and now even you have doubts

[K. Darien Freeheart]

This means that in addition to one government, a local government, we will have two or even three (in US, state government, federal government and NAU government) governments cooperating with each other or controling each other for the purpose of controlling everyone in their jurisdiction.

This might seem scary, you and I have discussed this before and I recall pointing out that the notion confused the hell out of you. ;P In the USA, we're already subject to several governments at once - municipal (city), county, state and federal. I'm not downplaying that by any means... it is scary, but realistically, having one more government doens't make us more or less free since it only takes one to do violence. From a real practical standpoint, ten men with guns is no better than twelve when you reasonally believe that any or all will use violence.

In EU, by October we may be facing a law that will allow government to spy on everything we do online (in the name of stopping "piracy") and sending threatening letters if you do or say something that is "illegal". My livelihood depends on the internet folks.

John Gilmore, self-proclaimed "Civil Libertarian", founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and all around smart dude said it best... "The internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it". Again, I don't mean to belittle the threats being faced, but realistically it's impossible to censor the internet. I believe that one of the most dangerous things about government people (aside from the violence) is inefficiency. You see this in the number of dead after disasters... The length of time needed to process a new drug and so on. The reason the internet today is largely unregulated isn't because they haven't wanted to regulate it. The internet simply moves too fast for government people to regulate in any meaningful way. Ban torrents? Encrypt and tunnel.

You, of all people, should have faith in the hacker community.

My point is this. We are in a great minority yet people who continue believing in coercive monopolies are in great majority. As time goes by the governments are getting bigger and more powerful, forming unions and alliances that increase their efficiency in oppressing dissent.

Last night we were chatting about "distraction" from the real issue, and I think this might be one. Yes, the geographic areas claimed by government people are getting bigger. I, however, don't really believe in the existance of government. There are people who call themselves government and people who beleive in government, but there's no government. To FULLY internalize this, you realize that the problem is more of a social issue than anything else. And when you look at it in that light, nearly 100% of the worlds population accepts the "government exists" paradigm. With that level of saturation, you really can't get "bigger".

The message of liberty in one way, shape or form, is spreading. The number of people questioning government is rising. There's still a hell of a lot more activism needed before anything happens on any massive scale but it's working, and that gives me hope. The Free State Project will be the epicenter of that when that change begins making global ripples.

But you're right, we're a minority today and we need to keep being active in whatever ways work for us. Personally, I think that there's no hope right now outside of the Free State Project but with more people moving and doing things, perhaps that amount of liberty will do things elsewhere but if you want to live to see it, you've got to be in New Hampshire making it happen. We've chatted before about wanting to do things in Europe to see your family and such, and while I understand that line of reasoning, I have zero faith you'll see liberty there.

How can so few of us ever hope to convince enough people to oppose the idea of government before our very voice is taken away from us, our means of communication, our freedom to move and talk freely?

This, essentially, is why I urge you not to listen (even IF there's some sort of gain from them) to the conspiracy mongers. There's an underlying message in every one of those conspiracy theorists that this threat is "looming" and all evil and merciless and whatnot. The assumption is that the people wanting to control the world actually can do it efficiently and I think that premise is false. Government people are essentially like a gigantic marshmallow. They're big, slow, and sticky. Yes, if you end up being crushed by it, it's dangerous to you, but if you're aware of that danger you can just, you know... walk a little faster to avoid being smooshed.

Violence, which the government always uses, destroys wealth and is not an effective means of accomplishing anything - including world domination. To dominate the world, the government people would have to stop using violence which would essentially mean an end to governments of today. The problem is, however, that since so many people are steadfast in the belief in government, those who want to rule seek to do it.

Keep in mind... In 1984 even members of the Party are enslaved by liberal use of doublethink.

I know about Free State Project, but if the ideal of secesion is ever achieved, what if federal and NAU governments DO decide to intervene by force? Do voluntaryists in NH really stand a chance??

I'll begin with "I don't know". Today, the world wouldn't accept raining nukes on the entire state of New Hampshire. With the growing violence of the government people... they might in 10 years though. Knowing this, IF liberty is to survive, it must be fought for NOW.

That said, the Free State Project isn't pushing for succession, it's pushing for activism and while I think the goal of succession is the best one, it's not even feasible right now because of public support (or lack of it) so the only think that matters now is increasing that support. The more people In New Hampshire, the more self-sufficient the region becomes economically, making it more and more difficult to obliterate if that's the route they choose to take.

With all of that out there... Who knows? There's never been a voluntary society on the scale of this and right now it's in it's infancy. By the time there's an agorist economy in place, using hard money and with market players who simply won't accept being ruled over to end the liberty movement would require effective ideocide (systematic slaughter of people with a particular ideology). Just as there are no governments, only government people, there is no "liberty movement", only people who hold and idea.

How do you stop that? The Free State project is an entirely new beast altogether. There's only one way to know what will happen; putting it into action yourself.

It's like, whatever we do we're darned.

This is the underlying message behind all conspiracy theories. It's an excuse to do nothing, to curl up and pity yourself because the world is too big and you can't do anything to stop it. This is, interestingly enough, the same message they teach children in government schools. The image is the same (there's something bigger than you that you can't change), only the color pallet is different (government's "white" save everyone from themselves versus the conspiratorial "black" killing off and enslaving everyone).

Yes. I know you're not talking about the secrecy aspect, but my point is the same. If you believe somethign is too big to change it, you can't.

Now, here's the question to seperate the conspiracy nutjobs from the activists. What are you going to do about it? If the world is being controlled by people who want to rule you, what are you going to do? If there's hope that freedom and liberty can stand against tyranny and oppression, what moves are you going to make to ensure that? You can only be defeated by doing nothing, because that's what the people who would run your life REQUIRE you do to in order to run your life.

Are we fighting a hopeless cause?

Put bluntly, if I had some God-like ability to KNOW that the fight for liberty would fail, I'd go home and kill myself. I'm not suicidal by ANY means, I've actually got a lot of hope and feel encouraged by everything going on in terms of bringing about more liberty. But if I beleived liberty was something that I couldn't have, living would be pointless. "Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils."

Is there hope?

Only if you work for what you want to see. You tell me, is there hope?

[memenode]

ask russians ... who have more freedom than they used to have

That's after millions of people died for it and dead aren't free. For the dead, it was a lost cause. For the living today it was, in a limited sense "won", yet they continue to have a government, one of the more oppressive ones in the world at that. Every dictatorship fails. The thing is that if the goal is preventing it from happening in the first place, the fact that it still happened means that the goal was not reached.

I don't want to sound defeatist though regarding our current struggle. The fact that Stalin's regime did fall means that people who remained alive and active against it did won, provind that winning is not impossible. I'm just saying that too many victories in the past came only after even bigger defeats. And ultimately, we're still at a loss, or else we wouldn't have to fight to eliminate governments.

From a real practical standpoint, ten men with guns is no better than twelve when you reasonally believe that any or all will use violence.

It's no better in a sense that in both cases you face a threat of violence. However, if 10 men with guns should attack the 10 of us, for example, and we are forced to defend ourselves, we stand better chance than if 20 of them attacked the 10 of us, obviously. And that's what I mean. More people believing in the idea that it is right to coerce us with guns tends to result in more people willingly coercing, obeying their leaders and makes our fight harder.

No matter how inefficient, more of them acting by coercion still means they could do more in less time. Every single day that voluntaryists make certain acts coercionists do certain acts as well, and they outnumber us by a sufficient factor to still be more efficient in some areas.. Although, most of the people who carry an unchallenged belief in coercive monopolies are dormant followers. They merely provide funds (by paying taxes).. So who is left are armed forces and politicians who command them and are also active enough to push the agenda towards what they believe in on a daily basis. Do they outnumber all people who carry a voluntaryist idea? If yes then there is still a chance that they may be moving faster than us.

And they also have an advantage in that their structure of power is already in place whereas our structure of freedom is not, yet. They also have more unquestioning followers than we have activists.

I think these kinds of facts matter, not necessarily to tell us our cause is impossible, but to give us perspective about our current position and what we may have to do. I've mentioned something similar in last nights discussion.

The internet simply moves too fast for government people to regulate in any meaningful way. Ban torrents? Encrypt and tunnel.

You, of all people, should have faith in the hacker community.

Hmm, you might be right.. Though it again requires that we are aware of all the ways they are trying to regulate the internet before we can come up with a "route" against it. I guess that's where Freedomware movement may come in handy... They, or "we", are all about that kind of stuff.

Honestly, what you said there made me smile though...

We've chatted before about wanting to do things in Europe to see your family and such, and while I understand that line of reasoning, I have zero faith you'll see liberty there.

Actually, even a bigger reasons for not moving there yet are financial and the fact that I probably can't move in legally. And if I try illegally, is it even possible today. I am not sure if I could even board the plane or even a boat in Croatia without a visa.. let alone cross borders when I come there... Maybe I should build a rocket, launch myself into space and then fall from the sky above NH wearing a shoot. That's expensive too.

The assumption is that the people wanting to control the world actually can do it efficiently and I think that premise is false.

Well.. he does shout through his speaker in front of buildings where Bilderberg folks are saying things like "Humanity will defeat you." which would assume that their plan isn't infallible. On the other hand, whenever I see a scene of him doing it he seems a bit ridiculous and the prevalent idea in the movie is how they CAN and ARE establishing a world government...

Trouble is, I can't really shake the thought that this is true, actually, that they CAN. The crucial question may be, CAN we stop it? Gosh.. now Obama's "Yes we can" slogan rushed to my mind.

To dominate the world, the government people would have to stop using violence which would essentially mean an end to governments of today.

Hmm, that's partly the idea presented in Endgame.. All they have to do is convince people to, indeed peacefully, accept them as their rulers.

This is the underlying message behind all conspiracy theories. It's an excuse to do nothing, to curl up and pity yourself because the world is too big and you can't do anything to stop it. This is, interestingly enough, the same message they teach children in government schools. The image is the same (there's something bigger than you that you can't change), only the color pallet is different (government's "white" save everyone from themselves versus the conspiratorial "black" killing off and enslaving everyone).

Good point.

Now, here's the question to seperate the conspiracy nutjobs from the activists. What are you going to do about it? If the world is being controlled by people who want to rule you, what are you going to do? If there's hope that freedom and liberty can stand against tyranny and oppression, what moves are you going to make to ensure that?

I'm going to help make voluntaryism an internet wide phenomenon. Today, it seems like many technologists are already fairly close to libertarian ideas. Digg.com commenters, for example, seem predominantly libertarian, and digg is an excellent way to put a given web site out there, launching it to social bookmarking and blogs sphere..

Put bluntly, if I had some God-like ability to KNOW that the fight for liberty would fail, I'd go home and kill myself.

That thought crossed my mind, if there is no hope then everything is pointless... albeit I tend to be extremely against the idea of killing myself EVEN in the situation where I may feel everything is hopeless. The reason is simply the fact that my mentality can change. Tomorrow I may feel differently. Suicide robs you of a chance to feel differently the next day.

Only if you work for what you want to see. You tell me, is there hope?

Well.. yeah. Though I still feel like some things in my biz need to be adjusted for work to be most efficiently directed in that direction.. EDIT: And some of those adjustments have consequences I'd rather avoid. I built my business with too much focus on freedomware, a mere subset of the issue... and moving my whole network in a voluntaryist direction may shake off even more of the current supporters.. I already was in a few skirmishes with some freedomware people, including more influential ones..

[K. Darien Freeheart]

I won't respond point by point, because this one general realization kind of covers many things.

A while ago, I told you that "the vast majority of people don't matter". Look at the world today and you'll see that most people simply don't care about their world enough to do anything. I mean, most people will live their lives uncaring of one ruler or the other. There are some people that simply can't be moved to act for any damn thing at all.

That works against us, as you said, because the government paradigm is entrenched already, but it works for us too. People who refuse to act don't matter. It's not "voluntaryists against the world" and it never has been. It's "people willing to act for one thing" versus "people willing to act for another". The supermajority that is "people willing to accept whatever if it doesn't affect a few things in their lives" will move along with their lives when government is made obsolete and they'll simply sit back in the meantime. They're "neutral" if this movement has "sides".

Most people hate taxes. Most people are simply afraid to not pay taxes. Get people comfortable with that idea and "doing nothing" will win by default, and "doing nothing" stops feeding government people.

[memenode]

I tend to agree with that, though various cultures have more or less people actively involved in politics and there also tend to be many people who, while being fairly inactive, are still deeply nationalist. If you just start talking about them they'll start repeating nationalist propaganda like drones.

That could mean that government people, once they feel their state is being threatened, could appeal to those kinds of people and awaken their activist spirit to "protect the nation".

So basically, the question is, how many of those seemingly dormant ordinary people just living their lives are potential activists for the wrong "side" if just stimulated the right way (appealing to what they already believe in)? Well, I know we can't answer that directly, but it's something to keep in mind. Ideally, everyone would be talked to and convinced against all nationalist ideas.

[Russell Kanning]

ask russians ... who have more freedom than they used to have

That's after millions of people died for it and dead aren't free. For the dead, it was a lost cause.

You are right. Maybe you should eat, drink, and be merry.

[Russell Kanning]

So basically, the question is, how many of those seemingly dormant ordinary people just living their lives are potential activists for the wrong "side" if just stimulated the right way (appealing to what they already believe in)? Well, I know we can't answer that directly, but it's something to keep in mind.

all of them
you should keep that in mind while you talk yourself into not doing anything about it

[memenode]

Fair enough Russell.

I'm setting up something I'll announce in a bit.

[Pat McCotter]

DO IT!
Let's Get Off Our Buts
by Peter McWilliams

You may find this first part of the book depressing. I'm going to explain why most people aren't living their dreams--and I'm not going to pull any punches.

It's not a pretty picture.

The reason we aren't living our dreams is inside ourselves. We pretend it's people, things, and situations outside ourselves that are to blame. On the other hand, you may find this an uplifting section. You may say, "So that's why that happens!"

Further, when we know that the cause of something is in ourselves, and that we (ourselves) are one of the few things in this universe that we have the right and the ability to change, we begin to get a sense of the choices we really do have, an inkling of the power we have, a feeling of being in charge--of our lives, of our future, of our dreams.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This Was Going to Be a Truly Great Opening Chapter,
But . . .

This was going to be the best opening chapter you could possibly imagine, but so many things got in the way.

I was going to spend lots of time writing it, but, well, you know how time goes!

I was going to get lots of touching and poignant and humorous examples of people not getting things done, but I never got around to interviewing the people.

I was going to gather lots of wonderful quotes to illustrate my points, but I left the quote book at home, and this chapter is being written at a lecture hall outside Carmel, California. (Besides, I think the dog ate it.)

I was going to make sure that this chapter was so informative, so readable, and so wonderful that if you were reading it in a bookstore, you'd buy the book, or, if you were reading it in a library, you'd check it out, or, if you were reading it at home, you'd decide, "Boy, I'm certainly going to enjoy reading this book!" but I decided to watch this movie on TV last night, and I was going to work on the chapter afterward, but then I went out for ice cream, and I was tired, and decided to start fresh in the morning, but then I slept late, and then I went out for breakfast and took a drive past an aquarium and decided to stop in, then I went for lunch, and then thought I'd take a nap and start fresh in the evening, but then I started watching a documentary on TV, then, of course, it was time for dinner, then I was invited to the movies, and I don't want to be rude to my friends, and besides I sort-of wanted to see the movie anyway, then I was going to go right back and work on this chapter, but then I remembered how good the ice cream was the night before . . .

[Bill St. Clair]

We humans have free will. That means we are always just one generation away from completely changing everything. Want to change the world. Teach your children that they are free. No matter what anybody does to limit their liberty of action, they are still free. Nobody can force them to do anything they don't agree to, except fall down. Whenever it gets so bad that a reasonable portion of the population would rather die than go along, they just stop going along, and the whole house of cards that is the reality of every authoritative regime falls down. Human beings cannot be ruled, at least not for long.

[Caleb]

Are we fighting a hopeless cause? Is there hope? Why? It's hard to work towards something without hope and being rational people we can't have hope without some reality based reasoning that could support it.

"There never was much hope, just a fools hope." - Gandalf

Freedom is the ultimate state of the universe, and of all free agents in the universe.  Those who try to control freedom and bind free men with chains are the ones who are fighting the losing battle.

[error]

Yes, there's hope. Indeed, voluntaryism is the only hope the world has.

[Caleb]

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You don't have permission to access /2008/07/06/independence-day-4/ on this server.

[error]

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /2008/07/06/independence-day-4/ on this server.

If that was the whole message, it means you might be a fed.