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.

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 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.

The money matters more than the vote; already, fewer than 50% even of registered voters bother to turn out on polling day, and that's another most encouraging sign that the long dark era of government is nearing its end. Still, we can help make the turnout smaller yet. Maybe use that great b-sticker: "Don't Vote - It Encourages Them".

Government can get by without votes, but it will certainly grind to a halt without money and cooperative work.

Government hires work by paying for it, with the money it steals; it employs nearly half the population and the danger of withdrawing that labor is that one may be fired. But there is something that can be done even there; for example if at the start of the recent Iraq invasion senior military officers had said to President Bush "No, Sir, we have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution and we will honor it. There is no credible threat from Iraq and we will have no part in waging non-defensive war" then Shrub would have been powerless to wage it. Those in more humble employ can do something comparable; draftees in the Vietnam era famously said "Hell no, we won't go" and in due course that offensive war was abandoned.

Likewise John Turner, Joe Bannister and others have "blown the whistle" on the illegal practices of the IRS and honorably quit, causing it great and sustained embarassment. In fact any government employee can find a way to impede the outfit he is working in, if he gives his mind to it, and without losing his livelihood; the movie "The Nazi Officer's Wife" tells the true story of how a Jewish girl in 1942 Munich escaped the Holocaust thanks to the kindness of a prominent Nazi Party member and a mid-level manager in the Nazi racial-purity administration. Both knew very well who she was, but each acted as human beings instead of obeying their orders.

Government steals money in three ways:

- it imposes taxes
- it borrows, making future taxpayers repay, and
- it prints it

All of these are of course forms of taxation, a ripoff by the parasitic from the productive. Exactly how you choose to withdraw that vital support will depend on your inclination, on the nature of the tax (countries vary) and on how easy or difficult you find the task.

In the USA tax avoidance has been one of the most effective form of Non-Support, because the biggest single tax (the alleged Federal one on "income") has never been enacted into Law and almost certainly cannot be. Accordingly, a well-prepared refusal to pay it has been...

- effective in the damage it does
- low-risk, to the refuser and
- immediately rewarding, in saving money

Such avoidance became in October 2005 much less low-risk however, when the landmark case of US v Schiff was decided in the government's favor - details here; in summary the government made up for the absence of any tax law by using its judge to prohibit Schiff from telling jurors about that absence, and then to assure them that there is one. Nobody has ever seen it, but they were so instructed and decided accordingly.

In any country, a great deal can be done to impede their collection without undue risk - though of course, it's wise to check first on the legal status of the action contemplated. Some, for example, reportedly send the Collectors an annual return not once, but many times - each successive one correcting a minor error discovered in the one previous; so raising the cost of tax collection by a factor of 20 or even glueing up completely the process of administration.

Another effective way to reduce the level of theft is to arrange one's affairs so that all or most of one's money is earned in a jurisdiction with low or zero tax rates - while not necessarily residing there. This requires a fair bit of planning and some setup cost, but is likely to remain legal because it's a technique very popular with many of the world's government people; they rip off productive folk they rule, then squirrel the proceeds away in, for example, a Swiss bank. Here's one resource with more info.

Recalling that "borrowing" is one form of tax, support for that that too can be withdrawn, by publicizing the fact that lending to the government is very risky - since when government dissolves, no principal will be repaid (because the contract, being based upon a promise of future theft, was always void.)

"Printing" money - inflation - is another, and that too can be limited by publicity. The very dangerous worldwide inflation of 1979 has not been seen since in large part because of the widespread realization among economists and other opinion-leaders, led by the very commendible Milton Friedman, that it was indeed caused by government. When voters realize their savings are being devastated they tend to stop voting (see above.)  

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 learn how legally to avoid taxes, for that leaves money in your pocket and denies it to government - in substantial sums.