How to Get There From Here |
Homework Evangelism 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, and is encouraged by the drastic reduction in the size and scope of governments East of the Elbe in 1989 and 1990 - with almost no bloodshed. The peoples of Eastern Europe simply stopped propping them up, and so they fell. Maybe we can do the same, only do it fully so that ours falls all the way.
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. Especially,
when it is ready, wrestle with Alexander's "Liberty" - it's a major mind-adjuster, a
masterpiece of reason. Meanwhile 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 today.
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 know 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 proven to be 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. Most 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, write your local
newspaper editor. Pick a current topic he has reported,
and make the point that the absurd or tragic anomaly, whatever it is, was ultimately caused by the
existence of the irrational organization called "government". 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.
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.
You could set a personal objective of finding one person every 3 months and working intensively to convince him about the principles of anarchism found on this site. You'd "sell" him on the vast benefits he will enjoy in a zero-government society. Additionally, you'd train him in that period to do what you're doing - to find and train someone else.
So after 3 months there are 2 of you, and after 6 months, 4 of you; after 12 months, 16. After only 5 years (20 quarters) there would be 220 or over one million convinced, self-educated, evangelizing anarchists poised to turn our hopes into reality; two years after that, the job will be done. And that's starting from a base of just one person - you!
In 2006 a new facility began, to help both network building and completing the vital homework first:
it's The On Line Freedom Academy,
or TOLFA. This makes the task a lot easier - strongly recommended.
3. Withdraw Support
Government continues because its victims - ordinary people, our friends and neighbors - thoughtlessly vote for it, work for it and pay it. 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.
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 is doing so today. 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.
Government can get by without votes and taxes, but it will certainly grind to a halt without cooperative work.
Government employs about a third of the population directly and indirectly, and if all of those employees quit their jobs government would absolutely vanish, for it consists of nobody else. Furthermore, that process can be done gradually, it need not be all at once; if an increasing number of workers quit their jobs each year over several years, government will slowly cease to operate - so it's not necessary to persuade everyone to walk out on a single day. That's useful, for aside from the extreme difficulty of persuasion, it would be virtually impossible for them to find alternative work, if all entered the job market at the same time.
That task of persuasion can (and is being) done gradually,
which is all that's needed, using the method of the same freedom
school mentioned in #2 above - The On Line Freedom Academy. As
each student learns what an immoral and destructive entity
government is, if he happens to be working for it he will quit in
disgust. He is also asked to find one friend a year to join that
interactive school, meaning that its graduate body doubles in
number each year. Starting with one person, such annual doubling
re-educates the entire literate US population in just 28 years.
The present reader is encouraged to take part.
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.
Only then will you be ready to move on to Evangelism and Non-Support, and at that stage
an excellent start under heading #3 is to join the freedom school it recommends.