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12A012
What's To Be Done?
by Jim Davies, 2/29/2012
There's some, but not very much disagreement that things are very bad, and very likely to get worse. Government has caused a recession, it is waging wars that are failing, and intensifying its tyranny over us defenseless civilians. If there is any doubt about any of that, read this or this and any of several frequent, realistic articles on LewRockwell.com or the Economic Collapse Blog or Strike the Root. John Stossel's documentary here shows how innocent activities even by children have become prohibited by a rapidly proliferating forest of laws. The mainstream media either don't get it, or do get it and are determined that we shall not. Fortunately, they are no longer the only dispensers of news and analysis. I tend to discount some of this gloom and doom; perhaps it isn't quite that bad, or at least perhaps the anticipated collapse and chaos will take a lot longer to arrive than is implied on such web sites. Government has proven it is remarkably skilled in postponing the evil day. Yes, it will arrive, but nobody knows when and I think kitting up with survival equipment is premature. About survival in a broken-down society: it won't be a matter of just "going off the grid." If and when chaos (not anarchy, of course, but chaos, which is quite different) does take place I doubt that handy devices for generating power and filtering water will serve for long. There will be thousands of starving people ready to loot anyone who appears to own food and water, and ammunition will kill only a few of those desperate raiders before it runs out. It's what chaos means.
For some who are young, without many family responsibilities, or who have above average earnings and skills that can be marketed anywhere, that's not a bad solution. Consider Argentina like Doug Casey, or Chile like Simon Black, or any of several places around the world where - at present - economies are thriving and governments are a lot less oppressive than the ones here. Singapore, New Zealand and Hong Kong are often mentioned, and even Mongolia has its merits. For those with roots that go deeper that option is less attractive, and in any case I'm not impressed. Two reasons:
By "stay and fight" I mean this: cause government to evaporate right here at home, in short order. The resulting freedom will spread like wildfire, worldwide. Government is a completely useless appendage to human society; none of it is needed by any rational standard; those few of its functions that are in true economic demand can and will be performed by the market. This radical change will remove the need to take further action such as emigrating; the anarchy we can introduce will prevent the social chaos mentioned above. Instead of running away from the problem, we can remove it. The task is formidable, but I repeat that it can certainly be done (in fact, it is being done) and in not many more years. It will be a race, to complete it before the inevitable social chaos arrives, but the more who take part (you, for instance) the sooner it will be finished. What's needed is that having learned the nature of government and freedom, nobody will work for government. When nobody will do its grunt work, it will cease to exist; for it consists of nothing and nobody else. How can everyone (all 250 million literate adults!) come to learn those things, in time? - there is only one way, and it's by exponential growth. Sounds worse than it really is. What's involved is just that one person learns (from a suitable school) and then brings one of his or her friends to the same school, to learn also. Once a year. Pretty easy, right? As well as finding one new student a year, graduates will also quit their government job, if they have one, in disgust. Now do the math. The number of graduates is 2 after one year, 4 after two, 8 after three and so on. After 28 years, there are 268 million. And the best news is that it is already in progress, as if that first year had been 1999. So I estimate Evaporation Day will happen in 2027. There will probably arise several alternative liberty schools, but for now there is one: The On Line Freedom Academy, and although it's still on-line here as the name implies, really it functions off-line because graduates bring it to friends they introduce in the form of a downloaded CD copy. This makes it proof against any future government denial of service attacks. That's what I meant by fighting smart. There are no protest demonstrations to be broken up by thugs with water canons and tear gas; no political action to waste resources of money and time; no visibility, in fact, at all; no "leadership" whom the government can take out in order to cripple the organization - for there is not even an organization. The first time government people will become aware of the revolution that is pulling the rug from under their feet will be when some worker says to take his job and shove it. It will be an exciting process, and you can read more of it in my Transition to Liberty. Do take part, if you aren't already. There is a race on, and your early participation might make sure we finish first. We'll win anyway, but it would be far preferable to prevent that intervening chaos, bloodshed and starvation. That depends on you.
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So to my main theme: what's to be done.
Survival equipment will buy one a few days, a few weeks possibly.
That's not good enough. More seriously, writers I've noticed are
now more often prescribing emigration. Get out of
America, they say, while you still can. When government gets
really desperate it will close the borders like totalitarian
states usually do, and then our goose will be cooked.
