How to Get There From Here |
Homework Word-Spreading Non-Support Getting Started
The vision of liberty presented in these web pages will remain just a vision, a dream, unless a way is found to turn it into reality. Government will not just go away; it will have to be abolished. It is a powerful and malevolent organism which will fight desperately for its survival. Must it be dispatched with violence?
This author certainly hopes not. It probably wouldn't work, for government is already heavily armed; and our great strength does not lie in might but in moral power - right. We don't wish to become just another government; we want to abolish initiated force. Instead, the tactic must be simply to stop propping them up; to withdraw the support on which they ultimately rely.
No argument: the "how-to" is by far the most difficult of all the ideas on this web site. Very little here is new, though hopefully it forms a useful short summary of its subject; but nobody before has proposed a simple, logical answer to the key question "how can we get there from here?"
In Maine, the traditional answer is "you can't". Here's how we can.
1. Bone up on the Theory
Not simply in this web site - it's too short. Read the books it references. Join the interactive freedom school mentioned in #2 below. Until we clearly know where we're headed, there's little point in starting out; and that is a shortfall of many otherwise good organizations.For example, many good freedom-lovers stop short of being anarchists - with an incredibly foolish departure from reason, they settle for a "minimal" government as the ideal to which they strive. Why? - if government is evil, why not be rid of it altogether? If it is a disease, why not eradicate it totally? If the free market can deliver better justice then government does, why retain the latter even for that supposedly basic function?
Some in that class favor a return to Constitutional rule - and for certain, a government which stayed within the bounds set by the US Constitution would be far, far preferable to what we have today. But why give it an inch, when we know it will take a yard? - why return to the state America was in in 1781 or 1793, when we already know that government will grow all over again and poison our descendants? - do we hate them that much? Why repeat a strategy which, however honorably intended, has been proven such a spectacular failure? 
2. Spread the Word
Thanks to the Internet, this is easier than at any time in history - and is the main reason why we can now realize the age-long dream of liberty. So...Recommend this site to your email list. Many of us have at least 100 people on our list - so send out a short note asking them to take twenty minutes to expore the Anarchist Alternative here at www.TheAnarchistAlternative.info because you really think it will change their lives for the better. Then ask them to do the same! Then do the whole thing again, every few weeks!
100 recommending 100 each day for 5 days would bring it to the attention of more people than live on the Planet, in less than a week. That's the power of the Internet. Of course, realistically not all 100 will do so; but even 10 of the 100 at each cycle would bring it to 100 million people in just over a week. Sometimes we see a really clever joke in our email inbox and everyone we know has seen it too. That's how it happens, so this isn't just theory! And this site is a whole heap more memorable than a joke.
"Talk it Up" in any other way too - for example, name it on social media. There are so many bad and tragic things going on in the world, it's not hard to pick any one, any day, and point out that if government wasn't around, it almost certainly would not be happening. Admit that many have a hard time imagining life without it, and end up recommending readers to visit this site and make up their own minds. Always be concise and polite, of course. (If the host will not allow hyperlinks, refer readers just to "TheAnarchistAlternative", without spaces, which a search should reveal.)
Build a Network. This is probably the most powerful way of all, to spread the good news. It's more than broadcasting, as above; it's systematic recruiting, one by one; "each one reaches one and teaches him to reach another" in an endless chain.
Two important tools can help that:
One is an e-booklet called Freedom and How to Find It which you can download and send to everyone you know on your email address list; that can be done in a couple of weeks or less. It spells out the urgent need to dispense with government and explains how it can be done: by not working for it. It also suggests the one who receives it from you, when he agrees, do the same - sending a copy to his email list. If even a couple of readers (on average) do this on each such cycle, the number quitting their govenment job will grow exponentially, leaving it with no employees after a little over two years. The booklet also recommends the second tool...
It's The On Line Freedom Academy, or TOLFA. This is an intereactive, in-depth school of liberty, which you can recommend to friends in a similar way - but because it's detailed, not so rapidly. It therefore helps both network building and completing the vital homework as in #1 above.
3. Withdraw Support
Government continues because its victims - ordinary people, our friends and neighbors - thoughtlessly vote for it, pay it and work for it; so it will evaporate as soon as they stop. Notice again that no violence is needed - not even the violence of casting a vote to compel people to "accept" freedom! A simple withdrawal of support is entirely sufficient, because government is totally incapable of supporting itself. It's always parasitic.
Of those three, not voting is the least important. Reducing voter turnout gives a handy indication that we're gaining ground, but ultimately, it doesn't matter whether anyone votes for government or not. Voting is, after all, quite a modern invention but government is rather ancient. Still, we can help make the turnout smaller yet. Maybe use that great b-sticker: "Don't Vote - It Encourages Them".
The money matters more than the vote, so at first sight the job might be done by withdrawing the support given in the form of taxes. Unfortunately a closer examination reveals two serious flaws in this method.
Firstly, sales and property taxes cannot be avoided unless one neither eats nor takes shelter, and that's not feasible; the alleged "income tax" can be avoided only with serious risk of getting caged, so it is not feasible to persuade many to do so. Secondly, even if it were possible, government can do without! - for it can simply print "money." Paper money is "legal tender", meaning not that it can be accepted in payments but that it must be accepted, so government doesn't depend on our financial support. This is how many governments in South America financed themselves through much of the 20th Century, and how the Zimambwean one has been doing in the 21st. This can go on for many years, though ultimately taxes are needed to prevent runaway inflation. In summary, a tax strike cannot do the job, even if one could be organized so that everybody struck at once.
Do not work for government in any capacity, and firmly resolve never to do so if at present you aren't. This is the one certain way that will do the job, because government relies totally on those who work for it. The politicians and top bureaucrats are unlikely to quit any time soon, for they are the ones who do really well out of the whole scam - but their support staff and humble ancillary workers who serve the coffee and take out the trash are entirely essential. Without them the whole superstructure would (WILL) collapse.
Just tell the boss "I Quit". Government can get by without votes and taxes, but it will certainly grind to a halt without employees. The short QuitGov web site has more on this, and a tour of it is strongly recommended.
Government employs nearly a third of the population directly and indirectly, and when all of those employees quit their jobs government will absolutely vanish, for it consists of nobody else.
4. Getting Started
All being well, after reviewing this site you'll be rearin' to go. Where, you may wonder, is it best to start?Answer: right here, on this page, with item #1: Homework. First and foremost, clear out the confusion government has placed in your own mind. 12 years of school indoctrination and four more perhaps in college, and then all the government- licensed media saturation since, left their mark. Nobody can withstand that unscathed. So take time to deprogram; revisit the "Theory" page and read what it recommends.
Then will you be ready to move on to Word-Spreading and Support-Withdrawing, and at that stage an excellent start under heading #2 is to make use of the two tools it recommends.