Please sir, may I have some more (freedom?) Part 4

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In the first post in this series I argued that we are no longer in any way truly free.  There is literally no part of our lives or interactions with others left to our total discretion.  We are regulated and legislated to the nth degree, by federal, state, and local governments.  Any way we try to turn, any action we wish to take, is watched, regulated, and constrained.

In part 2, I argued against the incremental approach to regain our freedoms, including the incremental approach of using the electoral process.  Instead, I made the following proposition:

Like-minded people who believe in liberty should begin working together to have their objectives realized in their own lifetimes.

In part 3, I delineated many of the "repeated injuries and usurpations" with which the federal government has assailed our liberties and imposed their tyrannies upon us.  Having provided ample evidence of such tyranny, the question at hand now is what we should do about it.

Although the historical model of removing tyranny is armed revolution, I do not believe this is the course that must be taken.  Voluntaryists by definition do not believe in the application of violence or force to obtain our ends.  In general we abhor violence and seek to live in peace with all men. 

According to Wikipedia, "voluntaryists seek to dismantle the state by non-political means such as secession, counter-economics, civil disobedience and education..." 

Note:  It must be understood that although voluntaryists do not believe in the instigation of violence to acheive their objectives, most do indeed believe in self-defense, and firmly believe and support the unalienable, God-given, extra-constitutional right to keep and bear arms.  Therefore if violence is instigated against us, we are free (and certain to) defend ourselves.
 
In the quote above I have said that like-minded people (i.e. voluntaryists, minarchists and even open-minded constitutionalists) should join in efforts to acheive true liberty in our own lifetimes.  But how do we do this without incrementally chipping away at tyranny and tyrants, or without armed rebellion?

We do it by openly, vocally demanding our rights, and backing up our demands with non-violent action, including civil disobedience.  We want freedom, and we want it NOW.

We do not believe that just because of the fact that we were born in a particular geographical area we are subservient to its national authority, ordained to follow their rules and do their bidding.  This is the opposite of freedom.  It is slavery.

The Declaration of Independence makes it clear that government's only legitmate authority comes from "the consent of the governed."  In order for one to give his or her consent, he or she must be asked for it.  Telling is not asking, and we now have a government which only tells, and never asks.

Subservience to national authority is also what we broke from England over.  Can anyone truly believe that all we really wanted to accomplish by staging a revolution was a simple switching of masters? 

So now the people, as sovereigns, need to rise up en masse and demand our freedom.  The people, as sovereigns, need no leaders.  We are our own leaders.  "Popular" leaders are likely just politicians anyway, and popular leaders can easily be taken down, by threat, bribery, libel, or assassination.

Creating popular leaders is the establishment's preferred way for us to operate.  Why, they'll even create the leaders for us (Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, et. al.) if we let them.

Likewise organized groups are easily maligned, infiltrated, scandalized and corrupted.  Finally, both popular leaders and organized groups are inadequate at best, and at worst will become tyrannical themselves, poor substitutions for true self-government.

This is not to say that free people cannot organize to bring about public good.  For example, in a truly free society communities could still organize courts, militias and hire sheriffs to protect property and individual rights.  Voluntaryism is not opposed to organization per se, only to organization that seeks control over, rather than service to, the true sovereigns, the people.  In other words, voluntary organizations.

In the case of sheriffs, they would be servants of the people in every sense of the word, not elected to a specified term, but hired, "at will," subject to being fired or even prosecuted by their employers if not performing their duties in the best interests of the people.

These days to "serve and protect" has been twisted into "harass and collect."  An "at will" employed sheriff could easily be monitored for the quality of service to the people--the protection of their individual and property rights.  Period.  No more harassing, no more collecting to fill the city, county or state coffers.

Of course we would like to see the entire territory known as the United States become at least as free as we were under the Articles of Confederation.  For that matter we'd like to see everyone, everywhere become free.  But that's unlikely to happen, so what can we do?

OK, we need to rise up en masse and demand our rights.  But what if most people won't listen?  What if most people are still sheep and are allowing fear to prompt them into giving away their liberties to the state?  In this sad but likely case, we need to demand a place to go to realize our dream.

But where should that place be?


To be continued...
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