Finding Cogitative Harmony in a Statist World

The solution to the quandary of 'the state' is to see it for what it is: an illusion. 'The state' does not exist, it is only the sum of the people who act as though it is real, who believe it is real, that makes it appear to them as though 'the state' is real at all.

Those who do believe that 'the state' is real, is indispensable, has good utility, believe also 'the state' is endowed with powers no individual, and therefore no group of individuals, can legitimately take upon themselves: the initiation of the use of force. Use of force in self-defence is permissible but use of force to exert one's will against others is never permissible except, apparently, in the imaginations of those who believe in the legitimacy and utility of 'the state'.

It is not 'the state' that beats a protester, that steals goods from reluctant tax-payer, that kidnaps and imprisons a dissident, that goes to war, that bombs families in their homes. It is the sum only of the actions of the individuals who believe in 'the state'. Those 'statists' are lost in a delusion, true, but there are masses of them. It is a mass delusion! It is a mass delusion in a belief in a thing that does not exist but that they, the believers, believe does exist and that they believe has the right to powers that exceed those that are natural to a man.

The believers believe the power of 'the state' is legitimately greater than the natural powers belonging to any individual, that 'the state' rightly has extra powers, that 'the state' holds the right to powers above the natural powers, that 'the state' rightly has a super-natural power. This sort of belief is a religious belief, an unquestioning dogma, a blind capitulation to an inevitable existence and legitimacy.

And belief in this religion, the religion of the supernatural power that is 'the state', is so deeply ingrained in almost everybody, so all encompassing and fundamentally indoctrinated, it is a cult. A cult religious belief. Not 'like' a cult, it is a cult.

 
So I do not want to add to the worries for you, dear reader.  You have, no doubt, found all this 'stuff' you see wrong with the world, and, I trust, concerned yourself with seeking solutions; but if you are going to worry you may as well worry about the right thing! The solution we should be seeking is that we need to get rid of the false paradigm of the cult belief in the religion of 'the state'. For whilst we retain 'the state' we will never be free of the harmful effects caused by 'the state'. (Because the very existence of 'the state' is the cause of the greatest propensity of harmful effects).

I accept: it is not so easy to see this solution, to the harm, as leaving an effective mode-of-operation for human society to function within.  I know, I understated.  To see this requires a pealing back of the multi-generational layers of statist indoctrination, from childhood, from school, from home, from life, from almost every direction.  Indoctrination that we are all constantly exposed to.

To realise, to learn how to see, that humanity is infinitely capable of finding solutions, good and proper solutions, without central planning and control, is to see that: not only would the problems caused by 'the state' be dispensed with, in its absence, but that the utility of a stateless human society is far more efficient, faster to react, more creative of wealth, more innovative, infinity more peaceful, more compassionate, more durable, infinity more logical, defiantly more enjoyable, more harmonious and on and on, without the illegitimate false utility of 'the state' utterly spoiling it all, life on this Earth, for almost everybody.

Better still: you will also realise, upon reaching this conclusion, that you already are free yourself. That whilst 'the state' may try, and often succeed, in forcing you to need to comply, 'the state' can not force you to believe in it any more. 'The state' cannot make you believe it is moral, legitimate, truthful, necessary.

And with that understanding, that understanding of your existing, innate, freedom, your sovereignty within yourself, with that understanding comes happiness. Anger occasionally, perhaps from frustration and such, but the happiness of being a free man, albeit for now in an un-free world still burdened with the primitive doctrine of rulers being necessary, but an understanding that brings happiness nonetheless.

Crime and Incarceration In a Stateless Society

At the core of 'the state' is the coercive threat and use of violent force. If 'the state' did not reserve for itself the use of force it would fail. In general people may appear to willingly comply with the requirements of the state but that is either because:

* they would act in that way regardless, (they would generally not want to transgress against other people's property), or
* they would act in a different way to the edicts of 'the state' but do not because of the prospective repercussions, or
* they believe it is moral to comply with the edicts of 'the state'.

'The state' is central to, sets the tone of, modern human society in great part. Because people individually agree that employing the use of force is only moral in defence of self and property and agree that groups of people have no more right to employ force than they do individually, there is an unanswered dichotomy, a dissonance, between the circumstances when an individual can morally use force and when 'the state' makes use of it. There is no moral justification for 'the state' to use force outside of those same perimeters of an individual's moral legitimacy.

When 'the state' employs morally illegitimate violent force it attempts to set itself apart from human morality and instead endows itself with a false morality to break this code. Without violent force at its disposal 'the state' ends. 'The state' is nothing without the use of violent force. 'The state' is nothing but violent force. 'The state' is violence.

This violence, which is 'the state', is the cause of enormous harm that runs through human society as a virus. 'The state' breaks the moral code that is the foundation upon which a harmonious human society should be founded. The overall effect of this violence at the core of 'the state' is that the infection spreads through human society and especially manifests in weak points within the social order.

So how would a stateless society deal with crime? In a fully functional stateless human society crime would be vastly reduced as a result of having taken the use of faux legitimated violence out of the core of society. There would still be crime one can suppose, human nature remains and part of that may be for some to still act immorally, against others and their property, if they can get away with it. So assuming there would remain some crime in a stateless society it would need to be dealt with or the immoral people would simply be unconstrained and encouraged.

The lesson to be understood when accepting the utility of a stateless human society is that: answers to every supposed problem are possible to find and then develop. All the people working toward finding resolutions to the needs of society will develop a plethora of solutions and the best of those will rapidly be widely employed. Further, attempting to predict what these solutions will be is as ridiculous, and likely as inaccurate, as it would have been attempting to describe how society and the economy would appear and function after the abolition of slavery. Slavery was not ceased because a 'slavery-free' future was planed and understood in detail but because the immorality of slavery demanded it was made to end. So it must be demanded that 'the violent state' is made to end too.

I do have many ideas of cause as to how free-market policing and justice would take place in a system offering a level of service and accessibility clearly unobtainable when these functions of human society are usurped and monopolised by 'the state'. I too have ideas for what would replace 'the state' operated penal system. The focus of that would greatly depend on what the free-market demanded and what the free-market judicial system could legitimately find legally sound and therefore moral.

I suppose when people cannot be made, by the threat of violent force, to pay to incarcerate offenders there will be a very different criteria emerge as to what is realistically desirable, such as cost-effective achievable goals for reform, deeper psychoanalytical understanding, life-retraining and so on. People who had to be removed from society because of the danger they presented would need to also be accommodated within a system, but clearly; being faced with an entire population entitled to carry whatsoever means of protection they felt prudent the population of hardened criminals would soon reduce to manageable numbers too.

The Nobody Who Rules Rules Anybody Rule.

The natural laws which exist without the rule of man are fundamental, determined by nature, and are therefore universal in their application.  The core of natural law in relation to human social order is that a man has the right to his own being, that is: to own himself, he is his own property.  If you do not agree to that stop here and reflect or ignore the lot as you wish.

'The state' is a violation of this fundamental precept from the get-go!    The justification for the legitimacy of 'the state' is dependent on the paradigms of the 'consent of the governed' or on the 'divine right of kings'.  Both are false.  The will of the people cannot truthfully exist because there is no such thing, in nature, as 'the people'.  This is an invented collective, a rule of man and not a natural law.  Where a group of people decide to co-operate in some way, that is their privilege, but they have no more right to co-opt the individual who does not agree with their choice than he has to co-opt them all to act as he dictates.

'Human society' generally understands better today that the  'divine right of kings' is false than they understand that the 'consent of the governed' is false too.  The 'consent of ALL the governed' would not be false but that is not what is currently on offer in any land across the world.

When advocating that a man does not rape a woman it is not a legitimate argument to question: 'how will he sire a child if he does not rape' or 'does that child not have a right to be conceived'.  When something is identified as wrong it is not the duty of those identifying the problem to know with certainty what the outcomes will be if the crime is prevented.  It was not the duty of the abolitionist to explain precisely how sugar cane and cotton would be harvested in the future without slave labour.  And if the abolitionist described the modern farming market, methods and equipment that has been developed since he would be thought insane.

One thing is certain.  If enough individual people work towards finding better ways to do things, better ways will be found, shared, developed and widely exploited.  That is evident throughout the history of humanity.  It is also evident that this approach is better than a top-down dictation as, for example, the disaster of Soviet farming was found to be.

If people have property in themselves, their own body, it follows that they too have property in the physical product of their endeavours.  The work they do they own, that which they exchange their work for becomes their own, that which they own and then work on, develop and add value to, is theirs too.  The land they buy with the product of their labour or unencumbered homestead, they own.   A man can dictate what happens to property he owns, so long as it does not harm the property of others, but a man cannot dictate what happens to property he does not own except where it is causing harm to his property.

All resources are either the property of somebody or nobody.  If property is not utilised, the property of nobody, and it is understood there is no such thing as the false paradigms of the 'consent of the governed' or the 'rule of kings' people can come and make use of that property as they wish.  But would they?

It is improbable people would come to live in a place where they were not suited, welcomed or where the resources, economic or physical, were valuable but not already well utilised.  When people do come is when they see beneficial advantage over what they have in the place they come from.  Sometimes that is because they see they can serve a need that is not being well served and that is only to the general advantage otherwise that need would already be well served. 

Often people come because they are drawn into take advantage of the social benefits provided to them by 'the state' in control of the region, benefits that are taken from the local population, via the coercive threat of the use of force in taxation, and paid to the incoming people.  Welfare holds the poor in the grip of poverty, encourages immigration at the expense of the middle income earners but to the utter benefit of a small wealthy elite oligarchy who both own the 'means of wealth production' and influence the perpetuation and actions of 'the state' endlessly to their absolute benefit.

Joe Soap has the right to shun whosoever he wishes and along with his band of pals they can get together and shun all they like within the collective boarders of their properties.  Shut away they may shun away.  But Joe Soap does not have the right to impinge his view on a 'wider human society' because, like 'the people', 'human society' does not actually exist.  It is a collective term for human individuals gathered together but it does not allow a majority of those individuals any more right than they possess individually to impinge their view onto other individuals with whom they may not agree (but who are not harming their right to their property).

If 'who rules who' is the issue from which history has a catalogue of people struggling to defend values, lands and societies from those who want to supplant, enslave or exterminate them; is it not time we looked for the issue behind this age old curse?   Since it is invalid for any individual or group of individuals to rule over any other individual or group of individuals (who are not harming your property) the solution, by default, must simply be that 'nobody should rule anybody' and to therefore end the cult belief in the false paradigm of 'the state'.

Know Who the Enemy Actually Is!

The thing to remember is it is not government, 'the state', that is the enemy. 'The state' does not exist, it is a fiction, a belief, a cult. To protest that 'the state' is out of control is to simply share in the delusion.

People individually do not have the right behave in such a way as they think do when they believe they are functioning within the remit of the fiction of 'the state'. Where do these people think the right of 'the state' comes from to act in the way no individual could rightfully behave? No group of individuals can appropriate legitimate powers they do not individually or collectively possess.

There is no mending this false belief system. 'The state' will always lead to usurpation and abuse - that is what it is conceived for regardless of the idealogical spin perpetrated to fluff the gullible. Know the enemy or at least know who the enemy actually is: the enemy is all people who believe in the cult of 'the state' - actors and subjects.

The Law of Natural Law

There is only one 'law' and that is 'natural law'. Whosoever attempts to work against 'natural law' will quickly fail.

Marijuana Dreaming

Instead of building towards an enduring and powerful anti-war peace and liberal rights movement, the hedonistic days of the 60's hippy flower power culture was driven by a covertly managed culture of drug fuelled befuddlement and from which the 'new-age' movement continues to sap the resolve of an otherwise supposedly 'enlightened' majority.

I know I own the right to consume any substance I so desire.  Nothing has changed if I cross the imaginary line around a place some people call Washington State except to the imagined legitimacy of uniformed gangs with guns to steal from me or to kidnap me.

But as it happens I choose not to.  Not because of any rules or even conveniences but because I am concerned that the stuff enjoyed on sunny days with pals in the meadows of my youth is not the same material today as it was back then.  Today people are using marijuana of a type selectively created of a different, stronger, nature and I am concerned its lasting effects are not well understood.  And today's illegally cultivated plant is grown in conditions, fed with chemicals, far removed from the natural organic product it used to be.

So I am concerned by anything the state has to offer; even when it is legitimising that which should never had been made illegitimate from the outset.  I am concerned that if marijuana is used more prevalently it will be targeted at the, already too scant, 'open minded' minority who are the selfsame ones who we need to all have all their wits about them in these times of 'universal deceit'.

“The CIA and the “Magic” of Laurel Canyon – Covert Ops & the Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream”
http://www.gnosticmedia.com/interview-dave-mcgowan-cia-magic-laurel-canyon-186/

The Systemic Extortion Racket - Taxation

Let's face it, the word 'tax' is purely a euphemism. The real description of the process should correctly be termed 'taking money via the threat of violent force and coercion'. Remove the threat of violence and this quazi-Mafiosa revenue gathering mechanism's model fails immediately; totally and irrevocably.

So, regardless of the apparent merits of hospitalising sick kittens, fighting 'just wars' or whatever other emotive sob-story is dispensed to attempt to justify taxation, when funds are gathered in such a way 'Natural Law' is broken.

What is 'Natural Law'? It is simply those fundamental rules of human society and cooperation that do not need to be written by some imaginary power, church or state, to be logical, practical and true. Natural Law says do not hurt me, do not take my property, do not steal the fruits of my labour. Anything that breaks these fundamental natural laws is intrinsically erroneous. No body has the right to exceed Natural Law - no individual or group of individuals can grant to themselves or others powers they do no possess the right of themselves.

Beyond that of the simple family group I cannot think of any form of leadership, rule or governance that did not include the gathering of a tithe to subsidise a higher echelon.

To be most successful in this enterprise - certainly man's oldest business - there is a balance to be struck between violent force and willing consent. People who live in fear of imminent attack from wolves are happy to reward the leader of those warriors who successfully protect the settlement.

The less apparent the threat or benefit the less the immediate willingness is to pay. It is the task of the state to constantly encourage its subjects to consent to pay taxes with only the minimum visibility of the ultimate threat of force being the most desirable - so as not to 'frighten the horses'.

Roman Emperors and British Kings long understood that which Thomas Paine identified in his Rights of Man: “...taxes are not raised to carry on wars, but that wars are raised to carry on taxes”.

The authority of the state will always be usurped by the few at the expense of the many

The alternative is to do away with this dangerous failed deceitful system of democracy, but not to return to yet another government of appointed officials. (The authority of the state will always be usurped by the few at the expense of the many). Rather do away with the whole busted, dated legacy of primitive tribal order. End our belief and reliance in the false illusionary paradigm of the state and its government too.

"Laissez-nous faire"
1. The individual is primary in human society.
2. Freedom is a natural right.
3. Nature is a harmonious and self-regulating system. Human society as a part of nature will be harmonious if free to be a fully self-regulating system also.

Naked Capitalism and a more Natural World Order

The idea of 'privatisation of public services' rather infers that these services are still 'public services' just run on the behalf of the public by private enterprise.  There are anticipated merits in that approach, reducing waste, improving cost efficiency, cutting-out 'job entitlement', etc.  There are also disadvantages to privatisation such as excessive profit making and the need for continuous government supervision.  The real problem of state operated public services being privatised is not addressed just by privatising the operation but fundamentally still retaining the states monopoly over the service.  And that is not what is proposed by Rothbard.

What the "The Libertarian Manifesto" calls for is naked capitalism - unregulated by any form of state mechanism; because there is no state!  So any service the public generally wants to purchase is totally open to be offered by any business that wishes to tackle that market.  If the service provider provides a poor service/price equation people soon vote with their feet and that company goes out of business.  If a company offer a good package, insurance that includes a certain proportion of charitable contribution for example, people will buy their service if the offer is compatible with what they value.

Every example (I can think of) of capitalism taking unfair advantage of and manipulating the marketplace can be drilled-down to find eventually it is actually dependent on the existence of 'the state' and taking advantage of the authority and regulation of the state.

Monopolistic business practices in themselves are not actually a problem, a company that offers an unbeatable price/service in a free market deserves to, and will by default, gain a monopoly.  The problem comes when the monopoly is gained by means other than just an unbeatable price/service mix within a free market.  For example Standard Oil 'took' the market because it found a way to circumnavigate legislation designed to prevent such monopolistic practices.  Had the legislation not existed they would have been exposed to a market where every one of their competitors were also able to compete on a level field - including all attempting to work towards capturing a monopoly of the oil market.  By having prohibitive legislation the state effectively caused the unfair advantage.

That the state, or elements within the state, deliberately causes disarray so to force change or to make the change they provided appear successful (a strategy Common Purpose is accused of) is not an argument for keeping services within the state.  It is an illustration of why the state is not a suitable mechanism for operating such activities because the authority of the state can be, and often is, abused.

The state needs to justify its existence and does so by means of appearing to meet and by manipulating public perception.  Clearly a government that just taxes and builds fabulous palaces for an aristocratic class will not be well supported for long.  A government that is considered to provide 'law and order, economy and welfare, education and health, defence and diplomacy' may conversely look like they are providing not only a useful range of services in an optimal way but services imposable to fulfil without the involvement of a state.  Bernays was years behind the curve.

A relatively small proportion of taxes gathered is actually spent on providing this succor to the masses but it is an investment, of the people's money, well spent on behalf of the state; for it provides the state's government with a 'democratic majority' and therefore apparent legitimacy.  Democracy is a gift to those who would control the people since their willing compliance, in ignorance of the true situation, is a less costly and more productive form of enslavement than old-fashioned brutality and force.  All that needs to be done is to control the political parties, their candidates and have influence over of the bulk of the media.

Belief in the legitimacy and necessity of the state is the most prevalent delusion suffered by humanity.  The state is no more than a system of manipulation and control, quasi-religious in nature.   The world has a wealth of resources to provide an abundance for human society but distribution of wealth has always been hampered by our innate competitiveness.

The primary method for diverting wealth to the few has been social power, power of pack leader, tribal leader, priest, monarch, the state.  It is the oldest form of establishment - older than humanity itself.  This power establishment has been evolving into ever deepening consolidation and is reaching a point where nations are being melded into continental unions and those unions responding to a single central global governance. 

This is a dangerous time for human society - the risk is the nature and motives of the money-power that has sponsored the drive towards single world governance and the vulnerability of such a single system for tyrannical authoritarianism (multiplicity provides multiple fail-safes).  We stand at a crossroad where the choice is simply between accepting the drive towards this greater global state as essential and inevitable or smashing the paradigm and allowing humanity to operate in a more natural order without centralised control of any sort.

SOVEREIGNTY

SOVEREIGNTY is all about ownership.  A human has sovereignty over their own body, mind and life. Self.   A human also has sovereignty over the the fruit of their own labour.  That is natural law.

People believe this 'sovereignty of self' can be submitted to various other entities and they certainly are entitled to act as though they can.

More dangerously people believe they can arbitrarily insist other people submit their sovereignty to these entities.  This is the fundamental flaw in the false belief in the state.

The state is a system of belief where people must submit their self-sovereignty to the state and the state becomes the sovereign entity on behalf of the totality of the people.

The state then supposedly makes decisions on behalf of all the people, for the good of the whole.

It is presented rather like a parent child relationship.  Clearly you cannot allow a two year old complete self-sovereignty when there is an open fireplace in the room.  But you cannot decide eat the child either.  It is a limited submission of sovereignty.  There is an element of trust and reasonableness.

For one's nation (into which one's sovereignty has been caused to be usurped) to be dissolve and that sovereignty then to be assumed by a completely different administrative primacy is a very fundamental change. 

I say such a change is outside of the remit of the nation.  I say we humans are not a herd of beasts whose ownership can be swapped.

I say the rise of EU sovereign supremacy over the nation state is being brought about by Fabian DECEPTION.  I do not like attempts to fool me being perpetrated and will 'not do business' with such people - especially allow them to steal my sovereignty.  Not a f***ing chance.

And I refuse.  I don't need some 'democratic vote' and have to go along with it whatever the majority outcome happens to be.

My sovereignty is for me to do with as I wish.  I refuse because I can see clearly through the whole false and ridiculous paradigm, I do not believe in the concept of the state and I am therefore no longer a part of it (to the extent that is possible without going to live in the woods).

Platitude

It's not what you know, it's not even who you know. It is what you know about who you know.

A Law of Statelessness

There is always law, natural law. We do not need a 'state' to make a law that allows 'gravity to pull stuff down'. A state can make that law if it wishes but stuff is pulled down regardless. Where there is logic and facts that can be rationally argued, found and agreed there is law. This then forms common law - legal history that sets precedence.

How can law be enacted without the state. Have you no imagination? The are infinite ways and the good useful ways will swiftly so be found too.