Success Warrior: Alan B. Rowley II - Beachbody.com, P90X, Voluntaryism, Voluntarism

Pulling the Government Along

I believe that the human spirit never stops moving forward.  Humans may, at times, lag far behind what is possible but they will always strive to catch back up with that potential.  We are, as a race, constantly pulled forward.  We will never be content.  We will never stagnate.  There is something in human nature or the nature of the Universe that continually gets us to want to move forward.  That bond cannot be broken.  It can be stretched as humans seem to slow way down beneath their ability to move forward but the bond between future achievements and humans will never break. 

Being towed along behind humans are their governments.  In the past, governments have been sold to the people as being necessary because humans are inherently evil and greedy so they must be protected by an elite group of people (taken from the same pool of evilness and greediness) who are given vast amounts of power and resources to fulfill their godly mission (and evilness and greediness).  These governments act as dead weight on the people who have to pull them along as they strive to achieve the potential of the future.

One of the reasons that the United States has done so well is because we had a cool tow truck and a small government to pull along.  When the country started, our tow truck was pulling a little red wagon.  There were probably plenty of people that gave the government very little thought because it didn't have any direct effect on them.  It was there for national defense, which probably gave some peace of mind, and otherwise let people continue to live their lives.

Over time, the government kept upgrading its vehicle, growing larger every chance that it could.  The bigger the excuse, the bigger the growth to deal with that excuse.  We are at the point now where the tow truck of the people (still awesomely cool) is trying to tow one of those mining dump trucks.  These things are so big that just one tire is bigger than a car.  And, with our government, it's loaded down with as much dirt as it can possibly carry.  Our cool tow truck has the engine revved, tires smoking, cable incredibly taut, and is doing everything it can to keep pulling the government forward as we strive to catch up with our potential.

Worse still, as I pointed out yesterday, is that fact that the government is actually riding the brakes of the dump truck.  Not only do we have to drag this behemoth toward the future with us, it doesn't want to go.  There is nothing good in the future for our politicians.  We are evolving to a point where we don't need them or many of the corporations that they serve.  If we move into the future, trillions of dollars and an incredible amount of power over other people are going to be lost.  Politicians get significant kick-backs on those trillions and get to parade around in their elitism (although there will probably be less and less parading around in the near future - town hall meetings will probably never be quite so fun for politicians anymore).

If we can solve all our problems (as well as they can be "solved") through cooperation and advanced technology, what will politicians do?  If health care costs are reduced to a tenth or hundredth of the current costs, why would we need anyone to step in to try and "fix it"?  Just about everyone in the country would be able to afford basic health care and anyone that couldn't would be helped through charity.  Humans are incredibly generous and if you let them create a world where they can get everything they need easily, they will reach out and help others get what they need.  Anyone who says otherwise doesn't understand human nature or has been living for too long in the restricted, scarcity mindset that has been created to trap their souls.  Humans in America live in traps that have been constructed inside their own minds.  It's terribly powerful but it also has its limitations because once you see the truth, you can't be trapped again in that way.  If the government is going to try and maintain absolute control, it better get busy building physical prisons because people are breaking out of the prison in their mind.

When we are no longer restricted to using fossil fuels for energy, we won't need to be involved in resource wars in the Middle East.  If we were allowed the freedom to leap forward with technology, we wouldn't have to kill other people to get what they have.  It would mean the end of some of our current superpowers (and I'm not talking about governments).  Big lobbying companies would find themselves either out of business or in serious need of adapting to the real world.  The US government has created a fake world for them where competition is incredibly restrictive.  They pretend to have laws to stop monopolies but the truth of the matter is that competition is severely restricted in the United States.  It's cheaper for large corporations to pay off politicians than to try to be innovative or compete for business.  For example, so far this year, over $400 million has been spent lobbying for the health care sector (and that doesn't include the stuff that gets passed under the table).  

We work the first 4 to 6 months of the year in order to try to sustain an incredibly monstrous government.  While we do that, billions of dollars are given to politicians to make sure that we don't get services that would work better or that would cost a fraction of the price.  Affordable drug prices for the elderly are possible TODAY if we either didn't have a government or our government allowed it.  All drugs would cost less than generic Tylenol in a world of possibilities instead of government created monopolies. 

Ford would actually have to start making better cars (and I'm not talking about putting an MP3 player in the dash).  Pfizer would have to compete with the rest of the world.  Exxon would have to invest money into geothermal power plants if it wanted to stay an energy production leader.  Boeing would need to switch over to making trains.  Companies would have to stay cutting edge and flexible to compete (and that might mean operating on a much smaller scale).  

With a much reduced or non-existent government, our super cool tow truck would zoom ahead.  Imagine all the resources that get eaten up by the government.  Imagine an increase in personal wealth of 30 to 50%.  Imagine what we would be able to accomplish if we chose where those resources were used.  The war would be over tomorrow and incredibly improved cars would be released next year.  Schools would teach students what they needed to know to live in an advanced world.  Without stringent adherence to obedience training and cubicle-employee creation, they would have the time and resources to create a whole society of incredibly intelligent and imaginative people.  Our world would completely transform within one generation.

All of this would be bad for politicians who would have to get jobs (yucky) and for corporations who would have to transform or compete.  So we find ourselves dragging along this mining tow truck, with the parking brake on, trying in vain to hold back the all-powerful human spirit.  The cable between the two grows more taut each day, with strands starting to fray and unwind.  The bond between humans and their potential is never going to be destroyed.  It's not going to stretch to a point where it snaps or be cut by governmental forces.  It is a part of us and the only way to destroy human potential is to destroy all humans.  As long as there are humans, they are going to keep moving forward, keep evolving.  The more the government tries to hold humans back from that potential, the more tension is going to build to pull the tow truck forward, and that will in turn create more tension on the artificial tether between humans and governments.  That tether can be broken.

At this point, the government has two choices.  It can let off the brakes and dump all its useless load and make it easier for us to pull it along or it can continue to fight against human nature to the point of the inevitable separation.  Right now, it appears that the politicians have both feet on the brake pedal and both hands pulling up on the parking brake.  That's too bad.  When a tow cable eventually snaps, it has a lot of force and is capable of cutting people in half.  It would be so much better if the government went along with the people, making the load lighter and trying to keep up.  If they continue to fight against human nature, they are going to be left completely behind, and someone is likely to be hurt.

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Remember, I'm going to be funding my return to college by being an affiliate of BeachBody.com products so please visit the site and make a purchase, no matter how small.  Insanity has been released so go check it out.

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Democracy Could Work Better

If there just weren't so many people involved.  The people mess the whole system up.  Without them, everything would run along smoothly. 

Instead, we have to deal with all these people whining about what they want and have to somehow steer a majority of them into believing the same thing because when they don't, it gets really messy.  

For instance, if 60% of the people in this country were against wars in the Middle East, as a politician, how do you continue to murder hundreds of thousands of people for your corporate puppet masters and still make people believe that you represent them?  It gets hard and it's all the fault of the people.

I read an interesting article this morning about how liberalism is taking some hard hits because it isn't based on reality it doesn't appear to be working very well currently.  The author, Matthew Dallek, believes that health insurance reform could be the saving grace for liberalism.  If raising everyone's premiums and reducing the effectiveness of the health care system can somehow be shown to work, liberals can point to this and say, "Liberals created universal health care, and they saw that it was good, and it was good."  Dallek does admit that initially it will be bug-ridden and will take years of tweaking to get it right and that politicians are failing in not asking for people to sacrifice more "for the common good".  Dallek, they don't need to ask.  We're all going to sacrifice whether we want to or not.  

What does Dallek see as the biggest obstacle?

"Public opinion research shows the stubborn persistence of the idea that government is too big and needs to be scaled down."

Damn the people!  And damn their stubborn persistence!  Can't they just do what the politicians say is best for them?  Why do they all have to have their own opinion?  Watch American Idol, eat your Cheezy Puffs, and leave the rest alone, dammit!

This idea is something that I see in news articles all the time.  Government ideas have to be "sold" to the people.  It's not that something is inherently right or wrong, or what people want, or what's in the best interest of the people.  Corporation write up legislation, give it to their representatives, and then everyone on that end tries to spin the idea so that people support it.

Don't get me wrong.  If you have a good idea and want it passed in a Democracy, you should go around convincing people why a law should be passed. 

Here's the thing though.  If you can't convince 51% that something should be passed, then obviously in a Democracy, it shouldn't pass.  If 60% of the people say that it's time to bring the troops home, you don't send 30,000 more troops into war.  At least you don't and still claim that you represent the people in any way. 

When the people speak out against bail outs and stimulus programs and all the other blatant corruption, you either put better spin on it and convince them or you don't pass the legislation.  Not that I'm complaining at all, mind you.  You all know that this administration is doing just what I asked it to do a couple years ago.  People need to see that we live in a corporate controlled oligarchy and that Democracy is long gone.  They need to see it and they need to be outraged.  

Obviously, the best Democracy, a government that is ruled by the people, can only work when those people actually rule themselves.  You can't hand over untold power to an elite few and expect them to do what's best for everyone, or even as we're seeing, the will of the majority.  It can't happen.  It never has and it never will.  Some rulers may take better care of their subjects but at some point, there is going to be disagreement and in fact, the rulers are going to do things that adversely affect the welfare of the people.

We find ourselves in a time where we can actually solve our problems if we choose to.  Not legislate problems but actually solve them.  We have the technology.  We can make our society faster, stronger, and better and for much less than six million dollars (well, okay, to remake the entire society might take more than that but it would take much less than you would think if government protections of corporations were removed).  

I don't even know what's possible because we aren't allowed to think that far advanced.  The government will tell us what's possible.  The government will tell us what we can do.  And, for now, the government is supporting corporations that don't want things to change too drastically.  If people were allowed to build and sell any car they wanted, we would all be driving around in electric cars that went for hundreds of miles on a charge (remember, the reality of possible is probably way beyond what I'm typing here because we've been held back for so long).  Those cars would be powered by something other than coal and oil.  We would see complete new industries created (and old ones fall into obsolescence - which is one of the main points of regulation, to keep that from happening).  We would be traveling across the country and around the world in maglev trains that went faster than jets, again without burning oil or gas.  Geothermal power, especially here in Nevada, would power just about everything, including those cars and maglev trains.  

I could go on and on with just what my imagination could think of and I would still only be scraping the surface.  Each invention would be a stepping stone to the next invention.  We would be absolutely amazed at what we would achieve if we were allowed to.  Our world would probably change so quickly that it would be dizzying at first compared to the snail's pace that we have been reduced to.  And people think that we are moving quickly now.  This is absolutely nothing when you think of the human and technological potential that has yet to be released.  People have absolutely no idea about what is possible.

For now, people will continue to let the government dictate what's possible and what's allowed.  For now, they will let their "democracy" go against them and murder more people to support corporations who make their money on keeping humans from advancing too much, who are fighting to keep from being outdated.  For now, the people will watch their president send 30,000 more people to fight a war that can't be won so that he can pocket some money while preserving the status quo.  

Hopefully soon though, people are going to get at least a small glimpse of the reality.  Not the reality of our pretend Democracy.  That's obvious to anyone that looks.  But rather, a glimpse of what we, as a race, are truly capable of.  We can all be more free.  We can all have a better standard of living.  And, by all, I'm talking about the entire planet.  When the governments of the world stop holding people back, the entire world is going to move forward.  Every super-advancement in technology will help everyone else on the planet.

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Remember, I'm going to be funding my return to college by being an affiliate of BeachBody.com products so please visit the site and make a purchase, no matter how small.  Insanity has been released so go check it out.

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I Find Myself Oddly Optimistic

Not about me or my life.  I'm always personally optimistic.  That's just the way I am. 

No, this morning, I find myself optimistic for the human race.  I believe that we can transform ourselves and dare I say it, even in my lifetime.  That might be too optimistic but if you're going to be optimistic, you might as well go all the way.  There is nothing harmed in believing in the best.

The fact that people with the same beliefs can connect around the globe via the Internets is magical.  Geographically, I would be isolated but with the social web, connections become possible.  Education and support is just a click away (and it's that way for everyone - it's just a matter of time). 

It's not that I'm completely oblivious to the reality of the situation.  People have been well trained to believe in governments, religions, and corporations.  These illusory institutions derive all of their power from the belief of the people.  The bailouts for businesses "too big to fail" was nothing more than the audience clapping to keep Tinkerbell alive after she swallowed the poison.  We used fake fiat "money" to bail out make-believe entities to prop up the phantasm we call the national economy.  In reality, it was all done to keep the power in the hands of the elite and keep the rest of us subjugated for a while longer.  The great thing about the bailouts and stimulus and letting Goldman Sachs openly run the country is that it signals a change is coming.  The curtain is being pulled back and we get to see the sorry excuse of a wizard who really knows absolutely nothing about what to do and is struggling to maintain control in any way possible.  The bad news that I've pointed out is that one of those ways is going to be an increase in the overt use of force.  That curtain will be pulled back as well.  Now, every attempt is made to keep the government force as something under the surface that isn't talked about.  Politicians never talk about it and people have been trained to ignore it.  The coercion is just "normal".

As the system continues to break down, the thin, opaque veil covering the government's guns is going to be pulled aside to reveal what was there all along but held in reserve as long as the tax-slaves did what they were told to do.  When the bribery of the people begins to fail, as taxes rise, as laws become even more restrictive, as the Constitution is torn into smaller bits, people are going to become harder to control.  They are going to demand things for themselves.  This, of course, is going to take away money from those in power.  They have built a world based on false scarcity in order to be in the "haves" while creating a system where everyone else is a "have not" but if they work hard enough, they too can have the American Dream.  An elusive and obscure thing, which probably general translates into having money.

While the struggle between freedom and oppression continues, it gives us time and the forum to point to other answers.  People are going to be looking for answers.  Answers that politics, religion, and corporations can't answer because they only have two guiding principles: money and control over large groups of people (which leads to more money, of course).  None of them can give any credence to freedom or to the inherent beauty and connectedness of people.  They have to create a world that is divided.  Divided by social class, by made-up geographical boundaries ("These are my tax-slaves, go get your own!), by different gods or different interpretations of the same gods, by laws, and any other way that they can.  We cannot be allowed to see that we are all part of the same one-ness and that we could create so much good if we stopped paying heed to the people ruling over us.

When (and at this point, it's "when" - which plays a big role in my optimism) people spread the word and start to come together in understanding that we don't need some rich guy in a big white building telling us how to live, we are going to start into the next level of our evolution as a race.  We will move toward being civilized.  What we are told as being "civilization" today is anything but civilized.  We can't go around killing hundreds of thousands of people based on politics, religion, or corporations and really, truly believe that we are civilized.  Civilized people don't kill people for money or for land or for disagreeing.  Our rulers are not civilized and away from the cameras, they probably don't even pretend to be.  They live the high life and plan their next move in keeping the people subjugated and work every angle so that the people do it with the least amount of visible coercion.

Meanwhile, the masses, who have been trained that obedience to the law is the highest ethical principle possible, do what they're told but now they are starting to look around more.  Something isn't right.  Where does it end?  Where do the privacy violations end?  Where do the Constitutional violations end?  How high can taxes go?  Is there ever going to be a point where the people in power have enough?

The answer is no and more and more people are coming to this understanding.  There is no static area in the control of people.  If you don't continue to exert more control on people, the people will take more control for themselves.  This is completely unacceptable to the ruling elite.  The whole system is a fraud.  The elite know this and they have to protect it.  If the number of people who realize the truth gets to a critical mass (and some say that number is between 5-20% of the people), the system will completely unravel and the "haves" who really don't "have" anything (when you consider that our money is nothing more than glorified Monopoly money) other than the control of the people will find themselves not only losing what they do have but facing the potential of facing the wrath of an awakened people.

I have seen this on a much smaller scale with people who figure out that they have been lied to all their lives by the religion that they were brainwashed into believing.  When they figure it out, they lash out.  Sometimes in destructive ways, sometimes in self-destructive ways, sometimes falling into a deep depression, and all of this over the loss of a belief system.

When you take away a belief system and add the realization that 50% of your money has been taken from you for your entire life to support the elite in outrageous style of gross opulence, people might be more than a bit peeved and might tend toward the destructive side rather than the self-destructive side (although, physically battling against the elite could be classified as both). 

My goal, before all of this happens, is to spread the word as much as possible that we can create a peaceful transition.  We have the technology to live in a civilized world but where no one needs to die because of starvation or the lack of drinkable water.  We can do that today if we choose, if we quit letting the elite choose who will live and die.  It's within our power to come together and move our race to the next level.

It all begins when people stop clapping to save the fictional fairy called the government.  That is our first step toward freedom.  We need to distance ourselves as much as possible from that particular evil.  It will destroy itself in time (all governments do) and we can speed it up by not giving it any support other than what's taken from us by force and by teaching people about the possibilities that we can achieve if we are free.  The government is not real.  It exists in the minds of the people.  When they stop believing, it will go away.

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Remember, I'm going to be funding my return to college by being an affiliate of BeachBody.com products so please visit the site and make a purchase, no matter how small.  Insanity has been released so go check it out.

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And If I Don't Agree?

Democrats are considering a 1% tax on everyone that makes between $30k-150k a year to help pay for the ongoing and escalating war in Afghanistan. 

"I have a great idea.  Let's tax the middle class to fund a war that they don't want to be involved in."

"Sounds good to me."

Obviously, if you disagree, umm, too bad.

This is one of the things that has lead me to Voluntaryism.  Even if this was a Democracy and the majority of the people believed in destroying other nations to take advantage of their location or resources, I would be against it.  If I had a choice, I would not fund it.  Now they are thinking about putting a gun to my head and taking another 1% for something that I don't want.  Then they'll go out and kill people in the name of America (of which, I am a part). 

Obviously, a better system would be to allow people that want to fund murder, let them but don't force me to fund murder.  

The problem that our rulers would have with that is that at least 60% of Americans would opt out of funding wars and the other 40% wouldn't be able to make up the difference.  The wars would end.  If this was a Voluntary society, there would be no war in Iraq.  Hell, if this was a Democracy, there would be no war in Iraq.

If the rulers decide to take more in taxes (and don't forget that taxes are going to be raised for health care too and for what ever else the rulers want to buy), I'll pay of course.  Protection money.  I'm not going to let them take away my house or throw me in jail.  I'd rather pay the protection money than have the IRS try to ruin life for me and my family. 

Luckily for us, we live pretty frugally and don't have any debt aside from a mortgage.  After our next move, we're going to pay off our mortgage as quickly as possible.  We want to get into the best position that we can. 

The next few years are probably going to be eye opening for a lot of people.  Our government is unsustainable but it's going to try hard to stay alive and it's going to have to destroy a lot of lives in the effort.  Sacrifices will have to made on the alter to appease the corporate gods.  Human sacrifices.  People are going to die, probably lots of them.  It's my goal to not have my family be numbered amongst them.

Some 20+ states are going to be raising unemployment taxes on businesses this year, some as high as 9 times more from last year.  When those taxes hit businesses, more people are going to lose their jobs.   I don't think people understand the government's magic money tree.  Unemployment benefits are great.  It's so nice that the government just hands out this free money.  How wonderful.  How kind.  Since the states lowered unemployment taxes during the good years, there wasn't enough to deal with the bad years and that money has to be made up somehow, while still in the bad years.  Obviously raising taxes on businesses is just going to mean more lost jobs.  That will raise the need for unemployment funds and, well, I'm sure you have it figured out.

I'm sure that you have also heard about the University of California raising tuition rates by 32% because they don't have funding anymore.  Good gawd!  People will either be blocked out of the system or have to incur that much more debt trying to get some kind of education.  We have a Prussian school system whose educational focus (the main focus, of course, is to teach blind obedience - or else, again, there would be no wars) is to prepare students for college, which they won't be able to afford, even if the failing system somehow manages to get them to pass the SAT.

Speaking of debt, here's a good question.  If the Federal Reserve is the only entity allowed to create money and all the money that it creates is lent out and then has to be repaid with interest, where does the interest come from?  If they only give out the principal and they are the only ones that can create money, where does the interest come from? 

If more people understood how the Fed worked, they would absolutely freak.  We are tax slaves and we can never, ever be free because there is no way to ever pay off the interest.  It will just keep building.  Inflation will continue to rise.  Debt will continue to rise.  Taxes will continue to rise.

Until it all gets to the breaking point.

Do you think we have enough troops to continue the illegal occupation of Iraq, surge in Afghanistan, start a war with Iran, and suppress all insurrections at home?  Seems like something is going to have to break.

Back to my question.  And if I disagree with the wars and their funding?

For now, all I can do is bide my time, protect my family, and continue to point out what's happening.  Government only exists with the consent of the governed.  When enough people stop believing in the most pervasive religion in America, we can move on to real answers, and peace.

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Remember, I'm going to be funding my return to college by being an affiliate of BeachBody.com products so please visit the site and make a purchase, no matter how small.  Insanity has been released so go check it out.

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What's the Deal with The Gun?

 The Gun. 

Mentioned non-stop in Anarchist writings.

Why?

That's the question I asked as part of my question from yesterday.  We all get it.  Even people who support the government.  Everyone who understands the government understands that it accomplishes its ends by force.  People don't voluntarily take part in supporting the government.  Hell, if they did, the war in Iraq would be over now.

Last I heard, 60% of Americans opposed the war in Iraq.  If they stopped paying taxes as a protest until the war was over, the war would end.  The only way the American government can continue to attack other countries is to use force to take money from its own citizens to fund those wars.  The Neo-Cons that believe that non-Christians deserve what they get wouldn't be able to afford it on their own.  Plus, a bunch of them would just join in the protest so they could keep their money.  Given the choice between wiping out Middle Eastern countries or buying a new 9,000 inch, super high def, billion pixels per square millimeter, ultra-light, self-cooling, connected to the Internet so it can order beer and pizza, wall-mounted, TV - well, the choice would be clear.  Live and let live.

Anyway, yes all kinds of evils will end when the government ends but the question for today is: why is "the gun" mentioned so often in Anarchist writings.  As is the norm for these posts that appropriately started with "Exploring Voluntaryism," I'm just getting into this topic so if you have been studying it and want to add your thoughts in the comments, please do.

So, in my brief study, I came up with a couple of reasons.  First is probably to build awareness and second is as a shortcut for people who are already aware.

I went off on quite a tangent here originally.  I have deleted all that and now I'm trying to wrap things up for the night so I'm going to be quite succinct for now.  Maybe I'll add more later.  Is it December 14th yet?  (That's the last day of this college semester) 

First, Americans have been trained to not see the force of the government.  Most people don't have any inkling that government = force.  In a nutshell, that's what government is.  Without the force, it would be a corporation or some such and have to compete for our money.  As it is, it can do what it wants and it can just take our money, regardless of services rendered. 

Anarchists of all flavors (and good gawd there are a lot of them) probably use the term "the gun" in some kind of effort to point this out to people. 

I feel that in many cases, it probably misses its mark because people probably don't see the connection.  Besides the Prussian school system to hide the force and false cliches such as "social contract", there are plenty of other steps between non-compliance and bringing out the guns.  Fines and incarceration are used as the threats and people may not associate the gun to these things even though if you asked them if they would go to jail if people without guns were sent to persuade them to go, they would probably laugh. 

Second, I think it's used as a shortcut when talking to people that do understand that at the end of the day, the government carries out its business at the end of the barrel.  If you look at yesterday's discussion of non-payment of taxes, all of that is pretty lengthy.  It's much quicker in many circumstance to say, "the gun" and people with an understanding of how the government works know what you're talking about.

I had more to add but I am out of time for today.  Never again will I set my schedule up like I have for this college semester.  Ever.

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Remember, I'm going to be funding my return to college by being an affiliate of BeachBody.com products so please visit the site and make a purchase, no matter how small.  Insanity has been released so go check it out.

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The Gun in the Room

Back in the comments some time ago, there was mention a couple of times that Anarchists may be too quick to draw the conclusion that the government rules the country through the use of deadly force.  I've kept this in mind as I've been reading blogs and articles to see what I felt about that.  Today, you get to hear where I'm at on this thought.

There is absolutely no doubt that the government's "gun" is mentioned A LOT.  Seriously.  It's in article after article and I even used it in a comment last week. 

Who will build the roads?  The gun.

Who will give us health insurance?  The gun.

Who will win between the Vikings and the Packers?  The gun.

A LOT!

This doesn't really answer the question though because it doesn't really put it into context.  I also asked myself why it was so common and I came up with a couple of possible answers.  If you've been studying Voluntaryism or Anarchism, please add any thoughts in the comment section.  Okay, first context and then tomorrow reasoning.

The gun.  Explicit deadly force or not?

I'm going to go with "no" on this one.  It's the threat of deadly force with actual use of deadly force being the very last option.  Deadly force is bad for business.

Our rulers are very much like dairy farmers.  We are the tax-cows from which they draw their tax-milk.  Unlike cows though, we have the ability to reason things out.  If cows were being whacked for some reason or another, the rest of the herd would take no notice.

"Dude, you seen Hebert?"

"Saw him yesterday.  He went into that barn and then there was this loud noise.  Bessie and Zeb went in there the day before and I haven't seen them either.  Hey, looks like you get to go in the barn now."

"Cool, maybe I'll find the others in their watching movies or something."

Bang! goes the bolt gun.

As humans, we probably wouldn't put up with that for very long before there was an uprising.  Uprisings are dangerous and expensive.  The tax-farmers are wise to avoid that straight out.

Not to mention that when you are milking the herd, killing the herd off is not what you want to do.  Every tax-cow that you kill reduces your taxes collected.  If they get to the point where they are no longer pulling their weight, then it's perfectly okay to cut some funding to Medicare.  Once the tax-milk stops, all bets are off.

So, when Voluntaryists talk about "the gun", they aren't talking about a situation where you stop paying taxes and the government sends over a couple of assassins to kneel you down and shoot you in the back of the head.  The object of the game is to get you to comply with the commandments of the tax-farmers long before they get to that point.

It starts in the Prussian school system.  You learn that the government is this wonderful parent that has nothing but the best wishes for you.  "It's not perfect but it's the best on the planet," you're reminded time and again as you make you're way through school.  "It could be worse," is pointed out to you with plenty of examples of worse rulers tossed out for you to peruse.  "It could be better," is never broached.  This is the best government on the planet, the best possible, and if you don't like it, you need to join in to change it or move to some other far-worse country, you ungrateful bastard.

As an adult, should you do something as disobedient and dangerous to the state, such as not pay taxes, they'll start off softly.  A reminder letter maybe, pointing out penalty fees and late fees and interest.  If you continue to disobey, maybe a harsher letter.  Next, maybe a garnishment if you have an employer.  If you don't, maybe freezing up your bank accounts.  A lien on your house.  Maybe seizure of your property to sell off to make up for the part that you ripped off from the government (you know, because they own you and everything you think you own but they let you keep some of it if you behave).

If all of these things fail, then they will likely send over some agents to chat with you.  These agents will have guns.  They aren't going to use them if you will go with them to jail.  They will just be wearing them on their hips, no harm to anyone.  If you still won't comply at this point, the guns might have to come out.  You might even have to be shot but they'll try tasers and stuff first.  The hope is still to put you in time-out for misbehaving and see if you have learned your lesson.  With any luck, you'll emerge from jail as a rehabbed tax-cow that remembers his duty.

No one has to be killed.  No one wants to kill anyone.  The rulers don't want to kill you.  The agents don't want to kill you.  You don't want to be killed.

And since you don't want to be killed, or put in jail, or even have agents with guns at your house, you do what you're told.

It's not deadly force but it would all fall apart without the guns as last measure.  If the government didn't use threats against people, most people would simply stop paying taxes.  No taxes, no government.

Tomorrow, I'll give a couple of reasons why I think "the gun" is mentioned so much in Anarchist writings.

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"Won't Violent Criminals Take Over?"

Haven't they already? 

But Who Will Build the Roads?

Continuing my thoughts for Mrs. Chili's mind-bender project.

That's the subtitle of a book sitting on my desk that I haven't had a chance to even crack open yet because of school.  It might just be the #1 cliche when talking about Voluntaryism.  So, without researching the answer, I'm just going to give it a shot off the top of my head.  Here's my proposal:

I'm going to create a killer business plan and submit it to potential investors so that I can carry out my plan and offer an opportunity for people to make a little money at the same time.  When I have sufficient funds from the investors, I'm going to hire a crack team of former SEALS/Delta Force/Rangers.  Let's face it.  Without a government, these guys might be looking for a little work.  This proposal is a win/win all the way around.

I'm going to give my team a kick-ass name like Road Warriors.  This has to be done these days because the media eats this stuff up.  In fact, I think CNN has people on staff whose only job is to think up stupid names like Brangelina and Hill-o-copter.  Road Warriors has a double meaning.  The first and obvious one is that this the team that I'm going to use to carry out my plan to make roads.  Second, Road Warrior was the name of the Mad Max movie when it was released in America in the 80's.  Mad Max is probably the #2 cliche when talking about Voluntaryism and I may get around to discussing that in a later post.  But first, we have to take care of the roads.

My Road Warriors will sneak into the (hopefully) abandoned super secret Department of Transportation building and try to locate the super secret vault, or SSV in Road Warrior terms.  Once they have found the SSV, they are going to try to compromise the vault without destroying anything inside the vault.  Once inside, they are to find the super secret plans: how to make roads, or SSP:HMRs, sometimes shortened down to SSPs or HoMeRs.  They will deliver the HoMeRs to me and receive the remainder of their pay.

If the building has been claimed by someone else, that changes the whole plan.  I'll hope that the new owner does a garage sale to get rid of everything they don't want from the inside of the building and hope that he puts the SSPs out, like people do with comic books that end up being valuable.  This way, I'll be able to pick up the HoMeRs on the cheap.

Then I will hide the SSPs in my own SSV where they will sit until the roads start to seriously deteriorate.  Supply and Demand baby.  The bigger the demand, the more money I can make for the sale.  Plus, once I sell the first set of plans, they will probably end up on the Internet for free so I need to hold out for as long as possible but not so long that someone else comes up with an idea on their own for building roads.

Once the demand is there and people are whining and crying about the state of the roads, I will offer up the SSPs for sale where I will recoup the money for the investors plus a little (or a lot) of profit for all of us.  The Road Warriors get to use their training and get paid, the investors will get a good return, I'll make a little sumpin', and the people will get roads. 

Winners all around.

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The Pay Off for Me: Voluntary Zen (Part 1)

What I have noticed in myself from working toward Vountaryism is peace of mind when it comes to politics.  Politics can drive you absolutely bonkers if you let it.  It could from a Voluntaryist stance too, I suppose.

One of the best analogies I've heard about politics goes like this:  The government is a dagger thrust int he body of the American people.  Republicans and Democrats (the people, not the politicians) are fighting over whether the blade should be twisted to the left or the right.  Libertarians argue that it's probably better if we pull the dagger out a little bit (or a lot).  Voluntaryists think it's probably best to pull the dagger all the way out and put it away where no one will be cut by it again and then work on healing the body.

Watching people fight about twisting the dagger *could* make you crazy but for me, it hasn't worked out that way.  After the Neo hyperventilating, puking, passing out stage (see yesterday's post), things have become very calm for me.  I watch the struggle between the left and right and the libertarians and know that things are the way that they have to be.

People have to keep trying everything in their power to influence politicians.  They need to give it everything they have.  Politicians will keep doing what they do (keeping themselves rich and powerful) as their part of the charade.  Corporations will continue to use legislature to force money from the people and into their bottom line.  This is the way that it has to be.

The other part of the equation is that Voluntaryism needs to grow slowly.  People have to come to this view of life one by one, of their own accord.  The concept is too foreign for too many people.  It needs time to percolate.  The current government can't be overthrow.  It must slowly dissolve.

If it's overthrown, the people will demand that a new government be put in place, probably with the leader of the resistance army as the new president.  That doesn't help anything.  Setting up people as elite rulers over the masses is always going to lead to corruption.  People who could be trusted to not be corrupt have no desire to be in control of everyone's lives.

I understand that this may not come to pass in my lifetime.  I'm okay with that.  The people with all the guns aren't just going to turn over control of the people to, uh, themselves.  To try to stop them without using force is going to take time.  There will likely be a turning point.  It won't even take a majority for it to happen.  Some estimate that great changes will happen when 20% of the people believe in peace.  The current percentage is probably less than 1% so we have a ways to go even to get to 20%.

It will happen though.  It will just take time.  It will take people throwing all their effort into the current system in order to see that it can't work.  It will take people showing that there is an option to violence.  It will take a change in mindset, a belief that people can live in peaceful cooperation without someone pointing a gun at them.

Until then, I can breathe a deep sigh as I watch the world.  Where I once would have been upset, I no longer am.  Things are happening that are beyond my control but my thoughts and my beliefs and my actions are in my control and I find it all very comforting despite the chaos. 

Voluntaryism Explored

Mrs. Chili requested that a bunch of us submit an article or blog post that might challenge the belief system of her Freshman college students.  The subject matter should create intellectual controversy and stay away from obvious contrived controversary like Holocaust denial or the sacredness of marriage garbage.  I didn't find one that suited my purpose so with Chili's permission, I wrote up my own for submission.

Voluntaryism, which is sometimes shortened to Voluntarism, is the belief that people have a right to their own mind, body, and possessions and do not have a right to infringe (or delegate others to infringe) on that same right possessed by all other people.  This idea is nothing new for most people, having been taught the basics before entering the school system (and this is a very important key to Voluntaryism).

Most of us, as children, were taught lessons such as: don’t hit, don’t bite, don’t pull hair, don’t take things that don’t belong to you, and other rules that belong in the domain of cooperatively getting along with others.  These lessons on not forcing your will onto others are so universally taught to young children that they were lumped together and commonly referred to as the Kindergarten Principle.  This was unfortunately too easy to confuse with the kindergarten princiPAL and the name was changed to the Non-Aggression Principle or now, gaining more popularity, the Zero Aggression Principle.  Regardless of the name, most people still believe in the lessons that they learned as young children.  Unfortunately, these same people who live by this principle in their daily lives have been trained with a huge blind spot or have been taught that there are exceptions to the rule.

The government of the United States (and all other governments) is based on aggression.  The government claims to have the right to initiate force on people to achieve its ends.  What we would call robbery, kidnapping, and murder, the government euphuistically calls taxes, incarceration, and war.  What we know is evil and would not do, the government calls good and does on a daily basis.  Those who practice Voluntaryism (as much as they are *allowed* to) see that these acts are not good and cannot be called good.  If they could be called good by one set of people, then they could also be called good by another set of people.  I will explore this concept in further detail later in this article.  Voluntaryists understand that in regards to theft, assault, and murder, there is only one set of rules.  Thou shalt not.

In my short time studying Voluntaryism, I have found that people who do not accept this principle fall into two categories.  The first and largest group is those that have been taught not to see the force.  They are taught that the government just *is*, that the American government is the best on the planet, that taxes are paid for services, and on and on.  Anything and everything except the fact that “government = force” and is a violation of our inalienable rights.  The second, and a much smaller group in my experience, is those that understand that all the government’s action are done by force and they further believe that the end justifies the means.  As long as the government says that it will do good things for people, it’s allowed to do bad things to people.

The first group, those that were not taught the basic idea that government is aggression, cannot be faulted for their position.  Most of these people attended public education, which is based on the Prussian system where schooling is mandatory and a great emphasis is placed on blind obedience and the completion of tasks.  Some argue that the Prussian education system, which was also adopted by Germany, helped Adolph Hitler convince so many people to go along with genocide.  In this system, obedience becomes the over-riding virtue, rather than the lessons of respect and kindness that children learned before entering the system.  Doing what you’re told, conforming, and most definitely, not questioning the validity of the government system, are taught to children for 12 years.  In any question of the government, they are taught that the best thing they can do if they don’t like it, is to participate and change the system from the inside.  For this group, it is very understandable that the idea of Voluntaryism is foreign but there is a silver lining for these people.

Don’t hit and don’t steal are such universal concepts that once these people see the truth, they may voluntarily adopt Voluntaryism.  That is, of course, the only way that Voluntaryism can spread.  Whereas, our current government uses force to indoctrinate people into its system, Voluntaryism cannot do that and maintain the integrity of the Zero Aggression Policy.  Not that accepting the ethical standpoint is easy for all of them.  Like Neo in the Matrix after his first visit back to the Matrix, it can be rough.  When Neo came back out of the Matrix and realized that everything he had been taught was a lie, he hyperventilated, puked, and passed out.  People may not have as dramatic of a response when they learn the truth about government but it can certainly be emotionally difficult on them.  In the end though, they find that there is a certain peace of mind that comes along with living an ethical life (as much as they are *allowed* to).

The second group, the group that believes that the end justifies the means, is best left to its own devices.  Their view of the world is different enough that there is probably very little that could be said to change their values.  Remember, persuasion, the illumination of the truth, is the only tool of the Voluntaryist.  No one can be forced to accept Voluntaryism.

Again, from my brief experience, I have seen two major dilemmas with the “end justifies the means” people.  The first is that of arrogance.  That not only do they have the best answer for every complex social issue facing mankind but that their answer should be the *only* answer and should be forced on everyone else.  The second is that I don’t believe that the end justifies the means.  There is no end, there are only means.  Or stated another way, every means is also an end in itself.  The two cannot be separated.

How many different types of ketchup are there?  50?  100?  I have no idea.  A lot.  Way more than we need, in my opinion.  I’d be happy with plain ole basic Heinz on every table in America.  Ketchup is ketchup.  Seriously.  Other people do not see it that way.  300 million Americans have their own thoughts on ketchup and ketchup will continue to evolve into new flavors of ketchup over time.  People would not accept it if I declared that Heinz ketchup was a good average ketchup that will suit everyone’s needs and so all other ketchups were going to be outlawed because it was a waste of time and resources to make 100 different kinds of ketchup.

If 300 million people can’t agree on something as simple (at least it’s simple in my mind) as ketchup, how can anyone possibly say that they have the “right” answer on such complex social matters such as education or health care?  How can anyone be so convinced that they have a “one size fits all” good average answer that it should be the *only* answer?  (And should we be aiming for *average* anyway?)  Further, how can anyone be so convinced that their average answer should be thrust onto 300 million people with all the coercive force available to the government?  Arrogance is the only answer that I have been able to come up with to answer these questions.

As far as the end justifying the means, Mahatma Ghandi put it this way: “They say the means are after all just means.  I would say means are after all everything.  As the means, so the end.”  Each action is based on its own merits and is an end in itself.  If you do evil, you have done evil.  If you later do good with the proceeds of the evil, it doesn’t erase the fact that you did evil.  Further, if you do good, good will come of it and many believe that if you do evil, despite your intentions later, evil will come of it.

Voluntaryism is simple.  Good is good.  Evil is evil.  However, it’s not easy.  People are going to have to take a much more active role in playing out the destiny of their lives.  The first step is understanding, is seeing the truth, and pointing it out to others.  Stealing is bad.  Kidnapping is bad.  Murder is bad.  No matter what politically correct names you attach to them, these are universal truths.  No good can come from violating these natural laws.  We, as humans, have evolved to the point where we must live our lives with kindness and cooperation and all the good things that we teach our kids.

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Remember, I'm going to be funding my return to college by being an affiliate of BeachBody.com products so please visit the site and make a purchase, no matter how small.  Insanity has been released so go check it out.

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