I agree with Mencken, fundamentally.
Voting (as he put it) is basically an advance auction of stolen goods. Ideally – and I concede it may be impracticable given human nature – there would be no voting at all because there would be no government. Just rules stablished on the basis of individual self-ownership and the property rights which flow from that concept.
If we must have some government, then at the very least it must – somehow – be restrained from serving as a redistributor of property taken from those who who own it and handed over to those who voted to relieve them of it.
But how?
Ay, that’s the question!
One might attempt to restrict the power of government to a civil/criminal apparatus which adjudicates contract disputes and protects the individual and his property from aggression by holding accountable those who violate (cause harm to) either. This could funded by a voluntary subscription, which entitled the subscriber to these services.
Roads and such could be financed on the same basis.
No one is forced to fund anything. Pay as you go – and only for what you wish to pay for.
And then they would be services – in the proper meaning of that term. A true service is something you can say no to; that you can refuse, if you do not wish to use that service. When I call the guy who digs trenches to come dig a trench for me, that is a service.
We agree on a price; the service is performed satisfactory. I freely pay for the services I solicited.
No one else is forced to pay for them.
When I receive a letter from the county government claiming I “owe” $1,800 because I own a home in the county – a home I paid for 15 years ago – on the basis that the county is providing education for other people’s kids and so on, that is not a “service.”
It is extortion.
I am not using these services; I didn’t ask for them. But I will be thrown out of my own home – the one I paid for – if I fail to pay for these unwanted/unused “services.”
The problem is how to limit the natural (it seems) inclination of people to demand the kind of “services” government provides – by which they mean “services” they want but which they use government to make others pay for.
This gets us into moral rather than legal territory.
Laws forbidding the use of the ballot box as means of theft-by-proxy are probably not the solution, for the same reason that “reasonable” gun proscriptions are not the solution to the problem of violence committed with guns. Moral people do not use guns to commit acts of aggression irrespective of laws forbidding it.
But immoral people are not prevented by laws forbidding acts of aggression using a gun from committing them.
What’s needed, then, is recovery of the moral aversion to theft and the use of force to facilitate theft – rather than laws forbidding it.
Most people, of course, have been conditioned to euphemize theft as “taxes” – and thus blank-out their moral aversion to theft performed under that rubric. Language is critically important. Which is why language is used by immoral people to achieve their ends. They pervert language so as to make people who aren’t by nature bad people do bad things – or countenance bad things – by making those bad things seem (and sound) like not-bad things.
“It’s time to pay your taxes” sounds so much better than “give me your money – now.”
A “contribution” – that you’re obliged to pay and punished for not paying.
Your “fair share” – of other people’s property; which is to say, your fair share of those other people, since in order to obtain that “fair share,” those other people must be forcibly put to work as your servants, in order to produce that which you propose to relieve them of.
I think it was Franklin who wrote about a free republic being fit only for a moral people. He was right. The job, then, is not to advocate for new laws – or even for fewer laws – but rather for more morality.
To insist upon honest language – and to vigilantly call out euphemistic language.
This work must begin from the ground up, with children. They are already taught that it is wrong to steal. The task is to explain that stealing is always wrong as a matter of principle – and that it is wrong to call stealing something else.
That they own themselves, absolutely – but have not the slightest claim on anyone else. That they have the right, as owners of their own lives, to pursue happiness as they define . . . and a moral obligation to respect the right of others to pursue happiness as they define it.
To live – and let live.
That they are owed what they paid for – but that no one owes them anything who hasn’t incurred a debt to them or caused them harm in some way.
That rules based on property rights – which are based on the individual right of self-ownership – are morally valid; that laws which trample property rights affront the concept of individual self ownership and as such are indecencies and intolerable.
It’s all pretty simple, as most sound things usually are.
. . .
Got a question about cars, Libertarian politics – or anything else? Click on the “ask Eric” link and send ’em in!
If you like what you’ve found here please consider supporting EPautos.
We depend on you to keep the wheels turning!
Our donate button is here.
If you prefer not to use PayPal, our mailing address is:
EPautos
721 Hummingbird Lane SE
Copper Hill, VA 24079
PS: Get an EPautos magnet (pictured below) in return for a $20 or more one-time donation or a $10 or more monthly recurring donation. (Please be sure to tell us you want a sticker – and also, provide an address, so we know where to mail the thing!)
My latest eBook is also available for your favorite price – free! Click here. If that fails, email me and I will send you a copy directly!
Busybodies. Can’t abide anyone living their own way.
https://www.activistpost.com/2019/12/michigan-county-threatens-to-demolish-amish-homes-unless-they-give-up-religious-beliefs-and-upgrade.html
They still use wood and rope, right? A low tech solution.
Hi Anon,
It was inevitable that the Amish would lose their exemption. After why should they be free to live their lives as they see fit when no one else is free to do the same? The real question, then, isn’t one of religious discrimination.
It’s one of human freedom.
The government says the homes of the Amish “aren’t fit for human habitation.” According to whom? The legalized gang that styles itself “the government.” But the Amish consider their homes perfectly fit for their habitation. What gives this gang styled “the government” the moral right to forcibly countermand the decisions made by other people harming no one about how they wish to live?
The time is at hand to raise the Jolly Roger and explain it to these narcissistic control freaks who style themselves “the government.”
The libertarian ideal, would allow us to live with minimal interference from the government. Their job is protect our liberties defined in the constitution. To get close to this these days. You would have to be ‘off the grid’ completely, with enough land to grow your food, and provide energy for your homestead/household. If you decide to propogate, you better have a plan to raise the them independently too. Also, you need enough firepower and ammo to reasonably protect yourself, at least until your rightful demand for protection can be acted on. There is always some renegade bad-ass(es) that want your stuff.
If you want freedom of movement to go somewhere, you are going to have to use a public by-way of some sort. In that case you need to agree to a common set of rules to use that by-way, such that you don’t infringe on someone elses right to life and liberty. In order to limit your required skill set, the by-way is essential to exchange what you can easily provide for something you cannot. In order to remove the impracticalities of barter, a stable medium of exchange is also required that also serves as a store of value. We would require that medium of exchange to be limited in issue. This would also require common agreed governance. Let’s use gold!. You can see where I’m going here. 🙂
I live close to a source of oil I’ll pay 46 ozs of gold for a Hellcat, and ask my neighbour with the oil field to refine the stuff so I can run the said Hellcat. My neighbour with the oilfield (and refinery) needs to move their product to market. So the neighbour needs to put some heavy vehicles on the common by-way. Uh oh! not only is the by-way now got slow heavy obstacles on it, they are also wearing out the by-way at a rate of 100,000 Hellcats. Damn! My oily neighbour should pay 100,000 times the toll my Hellcat pays in order to fairly assess the maintainence cost. Gosh darn it, the price of my hellcat fuel went up. Also since my Oily neighbour also figured out they could run a power plant from their product They built a Diesel generating station on their property. This keeps the cost of the electricity low as the fuel does not have to be moved, thus no trucking overhead. My neighbours refinery and power plant need maintainence and they need to hire skilled workers to maintain it. Now our by-way has slow moving trucks and workers Hellcats on it. The oily neighbour decides to incentivize the workers by providing Hellcat fuel for free, which raises my fuel cost yet again. The oily neighbors Diesel engines need coolant because they’re only 30% efficient. I raise the concern of how the coolant is disposed of when it is changed. The neighbor tells me to mind my own business. So I do. As time passes, My homestead agriculture production drops, and my livestock seem unhappy. Also, my spouse died of cancer and doctor said they are seeing a lot more of that around the oily neighbors property. I decide to move.. Something isn’t right. I can’t use ‘coinicidence’ to bring any action against the oily neighbor. I percieve my rights have been infringed and ask the government to step in. The government tells me they’re not in the business of determining whether the oil refinery and power plant are harmful.. “take your case to court”. I also suspect the oily neighbor was taking oil from under my property. I take the oily neighbor to court and lose, as the defense ascertains that there is no scientific proof of the activities causing a problem. and no proof that their oil came from under my property. I sell my homestead for pennies on the dollar, as the neighbors have adjusted the ‘market’ according to the coincidental happenings.
Obviously my scenario is fictional, but illustrates how gradual creeping erosion of rights occur. Usually there is stronger entity with more clout, which needs to be tamed. When the stronger entity is the government itself the only way to change it is to remove it, before it is too late.
If you own the mineral rights (which you implied by asserting the neighbor was stealing it), your property might be worth far more than farmland. Especially since it is adjacent to your neighbor, who has the infrastructure in place to extract and process it. Sure, the burden of proof that he’s pulling out oil from under your land may be difficult, but not impossible. In fact, in proving he’s taking your oil the value of the land will increase, since it’s proven reserves at that point. You might not have the resources to fight him, but someone who can afford your property and its semi-proven reserves will. Sell out and find a new homestead.
You have no clue how the private property world works despite it continuing to work all around you. Government continues to insert itself into our lives very loudly and boldly but you should go around your house and see everything that has a UL mark on it or its components just for a start.
Government doesn’t control everything yet and everything it does control has become more expensive than it needs to be and with regards to the money, well we can see what rake off for the top operation that has become.
As to the public way and trucking, well guess what? Everyone who uses the roads subsidizes commercial trucking, especially the long haul kind. The roads have to be engineered for the heavy trucks and that costs money then when engineered that way its the heavy trucks that cause the wear and tear. Yes they pay higher taxes but not proportionally to the cost.
As to neighbors causing you issues, again, if you think government is the only way to do dispute resolution or that without government violations of private property become acceptable you are mistaken. In fact, long ago it was the government that decided that property rights could be violated by polluters. It was the government that went against property rights. This was the prove harm concept. You’d have to prove that your oily neighbor’s pollution harmed you. Of course that meant we had to wait until the 60s and 70s before science allowed for that. Then of course instead of setting things the way they should have been in the first place Nixon created the EPA which then decides who can pollute how much. Thus government has even more power.
Brent, maybe we should just shut down trucking. Hell, I don’t need propane or electricity or food. We just suck microbes out of the air like whales eating plankton.
And BTW, Celadon just laid off 3,000 drivers last week shutting off their cards leaving them stranded. They declared bankruptcy. All those truckers making about $40,000 a year can now look for a decent job. Never mind there aren’t decent jobs to be had. The employment rate Trump trumps is complete bullshit.
Another bad and common argument. It’s the X is important so the government ought to do Y argument.
The reason long haul trucking has its market position has a lot to do with government compelling other motorists to subsidize it and its meddling in rail.
But even if trucking were the only way I hardly see how paying less in taxes but more to have stuff shipped is going to hurt. The idea of taxation is again to make someone else pay for something. So the people who buy a lot of stuff that is trucked in pay less and those who don’t pay more.
Is your argument like the fees on utility bills to subsidize people who live out in the sticks? But that’s still a government ought to argument.
Brent, just exactly how does govt. subsidize trucking? By having a DOT that collects insane amounts of revenue for the slightest infraction. You can check your lights, drive away and have one out instantly. So what’s the point of collecting $250 for that “infraction”?
I’ve been an owner operator. The IRS demands a Fuel Use Tax even though you pay all sorts of fuel tax every day. Insurance companies rip you off and so does everyone else who can think of a way to mulct money from trucking.
I really never got any subsidy from govt. I swear it. So what is the form of subsidy. The railroads are another issue. They get subsidy from the federal govt. every second and have long before I ever got behind the wheel.
You just say trucking is subsidized but never say how. I’d like to get in on it like the farmers do. Then I might could make a living.
That is a perfect example of the nefarious evil of government “nationalizing”(communizing) everything, and then having the right to tax us ALL 1800 different ways for the same thing.
The truckers have to pay 1000 different taxes, fees and trumped-up penalties; a good part of that cost is then also passed along to the industries and retailers to whom they deliver- who then pass that cost along to the consumer in the form of higher-priced goods…..on which we then have to pay the state a direct “sales tax” in addition; and then pay income and property taxes and capital gains taxes (etc.) in addition to excise taxes on fuel, and registrations, etc. etc.
And then we all fight among ourselves over who is getting reamed, when we ALL are!
Yep…keep waiting for that “resistance” everytime a new aspect of tyranny is enacted and another liberty is squashed….. (Aint gonna happen, ’cause the majority just blame someone else, whom they think “should be paying for it”)
Trucking companies have pretty good lobbying efforts and the big ones lobby for a lot of that to keep the small operators out of the game.
Big trucking companies just cut rates to kill independents. When the rates get too low, then you have 3,000 drivers stranded when the company declares bankruptcy like Celadon did last week.
Now if they got subsidized to the tune of billions like the railroads do they’d have no worries and neither would independents since they could compete. Hell, every dime Amtrack takes in is subsidy. Stop federal subsidy and they’d be stopped just as soon as the checks quit.
It’s in the basic engineering of the road system. Almost all wear and tear done to the roads is done by heavy trucks. Far in excess of the additional taxation.
They are the only vehicles capable of causing wear and tear of the roads. The reason is that once a road is designed for a loaded tractor trailer the loads from passenger vehicles is nothing. They impart no significant stress to the road.
Once the masses can no longer afford passenger vehicles as the government intends to make it the road funds will be in serious trouble.
You live in a world of your own if you don’t think big pickups and larger light trucks don’t wear hell out of a road. The new Chevy 3500 has a trailer GVW of 35,000 lbs. It could probably run over your foot and you wouldn’t even feel it.
Meanwhile, Monday’s lunchtime run around the Aspen Nordic center (AKA municipal golf course) was disturbed by the sound of Aspen High’s two seater sport plane they use to train students to be commercial pilots doing touch and goes over at Sardy Field.
And then there’s the STEM and robotics program, the ski club and teams, swimming, and cocaine parties (oh wait…).
https://www.postindependent.com/news/aspen-parents-face-felony-for-giving-coke-to-high-schoolers-during-house-parties/
All for the low, low price of $25K+ per year in property taxes! Of course that raises the bar for every school district in the world. “It’s not fair!” is the cry. “Our kids are just as deserving of pilot training as those rich a**holes!” But you can’t get that kind of money out of us normal people (well, you could back in the day, but then the 1970s happened). And there’s that pesky problem of the rich folks keeping the poor slobs that make up the rest of the planet out of their neighborhood. So instead why not turn to Uncle for help! He’s got a printing press and automatic weapons! And when those kids get high paying jobs they’ll pay it forward in more income taxes! Until the pilot shortage becomes a pilot glut and wages plummet, or unemployed pilots outnumber employed, or just people decide they don’t need to fly. What will probably happen is the FAA will loosen the rules, airlines (owned by Berkshire Hathaway) will start lobbying for H1B visas for commercial pilots, and all these kids trained by the system will find themselves working alongside English lit and Art History majors at the McDonalds.
I’m lucky enough to have skills they want so I’m able to sneak in and hang out once in a while, but I still have to leave at 5:00. Skills that I learned on my own, along with my employer providing training. In fact a major cost of hiring a new employee is the 3-6 weeks of training necessary to teach them how to do the job. Much of which is what we might have called “common sense” in the past, but now seems to be all too uncommon as to require formal classroom instruction.
So what are we paying for again? Nice buildings and libraries full of worthless paper? Keeping the kids from roaming the neighborhood, breaking into our houses while we’re at work? Providing employment for people who make bad decisions?
Gang rape is democracy in action. I refuse to participate. Voting gives validation to the Sociopaths In Charge. What if the the next election day nobody shows up at the polls? From where would the sociopaths gain authority to do anything? Their subsequent action would clarify their position. Voting certainly solves nothing. The only difference between the two parties is the speed of the handcart to hell we’re riding on. I did vote for Trump because I didn’t want to see a mushroom cloud on my grandchildren’s horizon, and he claimed intent to reduce the belligerence of the military industrial complex Hillary so loves. He has done so to an extremely marginal degree. This dog and pony show is going to fold, sooner rather than later, and the only hope one has is to survive it. A hope largely dependent on luck, AKA the will of God.
Voter turnout is always dropping. That’s the reason for the polarization in Washington. Instead of trying to appeal to a broad base of voters, they’re just playing to their base and ignoring everything else. As much as the media likes to talk up independent voters, that’s really just to remind the parties to book their ad buys early. If 90% of voters (a guesstimate) already know who they’re voting for based on party lines or single issues, and they are pretty much 50%/50% of the likely voting population, there’s no reason to advertise at all. But because those “swing voters” are hyped up as able to break a tie, the highly concentrated media is able to get billions of dollars from elections. One wonders how much each “independent” voter is worth in election advertising.
For the first time since 1988, I voted for a non third party candidate who seemed more like a third party candidate than anyone else, including the third party candidates for president. If Orange man hadn’t gotten the nomination, I would have likely not voted. The only thing that would deter me from voting orange is if 1. He enacts gun control, 2. decides to become some sort of environmentalist, 3. Sells us out to China. There are other things, but his presidency gets a B- from me. Far better than the F-grade presidents we have had since FDR, Reagan and Kennedy excepted.
I did see the possibility of a mushroom cloud if Crazy had gotten in. I’m not happy with Trump’s Russia policies, but I think that they know that we are not really trying to neocon the entire world, despite the neocon cockroaches running around in Trump’s administration.
Swamprat
“The only thing that would deter me from voting orange is if 1. He enacts gun control, …”
You’re looking in the wrong direction. The States are doing that… So Far Florida, Georgia and Virginia (and likely others) are contemplating a complete Semi-Auto ban.
Well they cannot. The second amendment is the law- and it’s up to the citizens to enforce it. Tree of liberty and all that.
Until the day that every on who has legislated, enforced, prosecuted, and adjudicated any gun “law” not directly based on harm to an individual is removed, tried, convicted, and executed for high treason- until that day comes they will continue the lawfare- the police state tactics against the good guys. So far we’ve been tolerant.
Cars are the same way- mobility is a military need and calling travel on the public roadways a privilege is also an act of treason. So far we’ve been tolerant.
Oddly enough, the same folks who say we cannot round up and eject 30 or 40 million illegal alien trespassers, think they can somehow take a billion guns from 120 million Americans. Ain’t gonna happen like they want, but it will get messy.
Trump is enabling and paving the way for gun bans, on both a state-by-state basis- via the judges he has appointed- including Kavanaugh to the SCOTUS- who will not uphold the 2A, AND a gun-grabber as head of the BATF.; and on a national level, via the same, and by further militarizing the pigs and other government agencies to a degree never before seen in US history; so regardless of who is in office come 2020, the mechanism is already in place to force compliance.
These days there is no longer a “lesser evil”- just those who may sound less evil, but who do just as much evil as what the overetly evil ones do.
Nunz, the internet, which govt. is trying to censor and Google, Amazon and social media and MSM are doing their part. I believe it’s going to backfire. If heads have to roll……….
8, the overlords don’t have to worry- if it looks like we the peons are getting too uppity, they’ll just pull another 9/11. Nothing like a good false-flag to make everyone forget what they care about, and rally around “the leaders”. Worked wonders for GWB.
This time, maybe it’ll be little green men from space or something- now that we’ve got a “Space Weather agency” and all of that crap floating around out there……..
Hey, look how they pulled out this impeachment show to make people forget about all of our illustrious leaders who boned 12 year-olds on Pedo Island…..
The message seems to be:” There are some sick pricks running the world, and now you see how sick they are, and there won’t be any repercussions….so you’d better watch out, now that you know the character of these people, and that they’re still running the world.”
My aunt & uncle used to own a home in a retirement community in AZ that was exempt from school taxes. I’m surprised the gay rights groups haven’t taken up this issue yet.
FYI….
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/virginia-activates-official-militia-after-gun-confiscation-threats-lawmakers-want-make
Have the People f i n a l l y had enough?
Hi Eric,
Bluntly put, size matters…, a lot. There is no way to effectively limit an institution that rules over hundreds of millions of people. There will always be those who vote to get things from others, and politicians who encourage this. This, of course, would still be true if government was much smaller but, with fewer people to fleece, it would be much harder to achieve.
As you say, ideally “there would be no voting at all because there would be no government”, but that is unlikely to happen soon, or at all. You write, “what’s needed, then, is recovery of the moral aversion to theft and the use of force to facilitate theft…”. This does not seem right to me. Most people already believe this, they just don’t understand that all governments, necessarily, use theft and force to survive. Unless people see this, the moral nature of the people is as irrelevant to limiting government power as the constitution.
Still, it seems possible that people could, while falling short of realizing that all political authority is morally illegitimate, understand that size matters. I agree with Jeff Deist, who suggests that “we” libertarians should advocate radical decentralization as the most practical means of achieving a freer society. The abolition of the State is a hard sell, but it may be possible to get enough people to think critically about the inherent problem of all governments, and the particular problems of Democracy, that decentralization seems prudent.
So, what to do? These are some proposals that I posted awhile ago.
First, repeal the 17th amendment. This would restore the bicameral system and, perhaps, make the 10th amendment relevant again.
Second, eliminate the cap of 435 house members and restore the ratio of 30 to 35 thousand to one.
Third, require all representatives to reside, full time, in the district they “represent”.
Fourth, support secession movements and nullification, by both States and juries.
The 17th effectively destroyed even the possibility that States can be a check on Federal power. Senators are now just better paid representatives, they appeal directly to voters and cannot be fired by State legislatures. Making them, once again, agents of each State, could bring back some of the separation of powers that has been usurped by the the Federal government. The three branches of the Federal government do not serve as a check on its power, as logic and history have shown.
Today, there is no reason why “representatives” need to meet in a single building. Thus, the existence of 9 to 12 thousand representatives does not pose a logistical problem, as it did in the past. Also, requiring them to live among their constituents would make it almost certain that they would actually have to interact with them, which would impose some external check on their behavior. Counter intuitively, drastically increasing the size of the House is a form of radical decentralization, as it would dramatically increase the power of each individual relative to their “representative”. In addition, it would make rent seeking by corporations far more costly and inefficient because they would need to buy off hundreds of congressman instead of just a few.
Cheers,
Jeremy
I agree on the idea of a decentralized House, but how would that affect the “Electoral College” and the power of smaller states to determine election outcomes. If you vastly increased the size of the House based, then the Senate would be far less important in determining presidential elections. Larger states would again be able to impose their will on smaller ones at least as far as elections are concerned. Of course, getting rid of the 17th would increase the power of the states on a day to day legislative basis, I suppose.
Jeremy,
After the war between the States the federales decided to eliminate the problem of secession altogether. First by eliminating the State Militias then by the 17th which officially ended the “Republic” and began today’s “Democracy”. The 16th made us all tax donkeys. The Federal Reserve passed on Christmas Eve stole our money and made it possible for the US to become a hegemon via supposed “borrowing”. Both the 16th and 17th were not ratified. The Federales just decreed them ratified.
I’m not so sure the States would want the 17th repealed. They are doing just fine being defacto Federal. Much of their funding is money stolen by the national government then block granted to the States. Also the States are becoming much more tyrannical. They have completely ignored the fact they too are required to pass law pursuant to the Federal Constitution and many folks also think they are not required,,, that they can pass any law they want without constitutional concern. This is the result of the ongoing school indoctrination in which today over 60pct of the Millennials think the Constitution should be eliminated and will vote for communist pols.
Lastly,,, since all governments (Fed, State, local) have eviscerated 8.5 of the 10 Bill of Government Limitations even if they did eliminate the 17th what makes anyone think they will follow it any more than the rest of the amendments they have usurped? Lately they’re actually talking about eliminating the Electoral College. They’ll ratify it like they ratified the 14th, 16th, and 17th or just do their little Executive Order dance. We are talking total 100pct corruption.
I believe Eric is speaking mostly of property and school taxes. These are in reality “Protection Rackets”. The only difference is if you don’t pay they won’t break your knees,,, they will simply auction your paid off property to someone else and believe me,,, many, many good Americans will line up to steal your property at a cheap price which is why the local governments get away with it.
In closing,,, the problem is not just governments, it is the sorry attitude of most Americans that believe they deserve,,, no require a “fair” share of your earnings. (All if possible) These problems will NOT be overcome by voting. In my seventy years I have not witnessed one election stopping or even slowing the tyranny.
Eric- Perhaps vote with your feet? It’s not noble to fight a battle you are 100% assured of loosing and suffering many consequences for that loss. Our forefathers did so to escape the religious tyranny of the “church” (not the same as the real Church, and not a body governed by The Moral Law Giver, but rather by the corrupt Crown). I voted with my feet to flee Detroit in 1980, and again to flee Charlotte NC in 2005. Both cities went libtard and my freedoms were being trampled under foot my the super majority. I new reside in a quaint and beautiful seaside town north of Charleston where there are no helmet laws, where the local Sheriff gives his supporters his cell phone # (in case I’m getting Hut ! Hut! Hutted!). I can smoke a cigar in the outside eateries and bars, women still dress up to look pretty and strangers wave at one another as they pass on the non-highways. I don’t lock my house or my car and there is almost no crime. We also respect a man who beats the hell out of someone for threatening his home or family. If the offender helps himself to the inside of your house you are free to shoot his ass dead- and the law is on the homeowner’s side.
Do I feel cowardly for leaving Detroit or the gay/tranny bathroom capital of the South? Nope- not one bit. Especially when I consider how much nicer my life is outside the libtard run areas.
Same here, Auric! As an escapee of People’s Republik Of Neuva York, I’ve essentially bought myself 18 years of the kind of life I thought I would never see again, by moving to rural KY. Freakin’ night and day difference! Anjd in the near future I will be leaving this country entirely, God willing.
Is any place perfect? Nope. But the quality of life and liberties one can restore by carefully choosing a different venue, is amazing.
Fighting is not a realistic option. The fight is over. We lost. We now pay the salaries of those whom we would fight.
Nunz: Do you have anywhere in mind? I have been tackling that conundrum for some time.
EH,
Short-term, I am thinking the hills of Belize- just as a stop-gap to get me out of here, and as a place from which to explore. A lot of our Amish are going there….so can’t be too bad.
Ultimately though, I’m hoping to be able to look around the island nations of the Pacific- lots of places there with hundreds of outer islands with essentially no government to bother you- long as you don’t mind living a simple back-to-nature lifestyle (which I’m not far from now, and have always considered to be ideal).
The first-world is done.
I’ve known quite a few people who moved to Central and South America 10-15 yewars ago, and are quite happy….but even there, unless you’re deep in Patagonia or some place similar, things seem to be degrading quickly- and the superpowers seem to be renewing their interests there.
Some of the Pacific islands have resisted joining the UN….I’d like to do some research on them as possible candidates.
I’m getting to old to go bopping around the world…but I’m gonna do it anyway! Be damned if I’ll stay here and be a slave or give up my life for absolutely nothing.
Even if I had to settle for a remote place in Central or South America…..it’s still buying time, and still freer than here- and even that is a huge thing- just as has been moving from NY to KY.
We’re not gonna find perfection…just improvement- like those who had the sense to flee Nazi Germany before it was too late.
I see no chance of “fixing” anything until after the collapse. It’s way to far gone. The Fed is printing up a trillion for the Banks and Wall Street just to kick the can a few more months. And even then, as history tells, we would probably do the same all over again.
Eric,
Think of all the private industries that exist because someone uses them or has a need for their product. They exist because of demand. I don’t know about you but I always hear about Government services and products. But to be honest, I do not know anyone that uses these. There are 2.1 million federal employees “serving” this country. But what do they do all day besides look at porn and eaves drop? I mean seriously, do you know anyone that uses these services? Like public health services, do you know anyone that uses that? Maybe I’m being too bourgeois and I’m not poor enough to understand but I never use or even know what service our government provides.
Hi Brazos,
Amen. I can think of no government “services” I use – and so resent being forced to pay for them. Speaking of that. I am sitting at my desk waiting for a government parasite to appear. The tax assessor, who I’m wrangling with over how much he’ll claim I “owe.” He and his fellow parasites jacked up what I “owe” in real estate taxes – i.e., theft based on their assessment of the value of my home which they didn’t pay for – by almost 9 percent. In a morally sane world, instead of feigning politeness and dealing with this cretin, I’d kick his ass off my land and warn him that I will defend myself and my place if he attempts to steal from me again.
And would be supported by the legal system.
Instead, I will be Hut! Hut! Hutted! if I am anything other than civil – and fail to “stand and deliver.”
Eric,
From he sound of things everyone in the state of Virginia is going to be Hut! Hut! Hutted! for owning the wrong types of weapons. Watch your six in the upcoming year.
Hi Woosloafer,
Yeah, I know… and it saddens me. But if I have to fight, I will. So say we all – or a whole of us down here.
You shouldn’t be saddened, Eric, you should be optimistic right now. My son and his family live in Fauquier County, and I have a summer condo just outside of Winchester, so I’ve been following this pretty closely. It seems the government has gone a little too far, and Virginians are finally figuring out where that line in the sand is. I believe there are thousands, probably tens, maybe hundreds of thousands who have decided enough is enough and it’s time to push or even fight back. And there are a lot of law enforcement, Sheriffs, and local/county elected officials who are with the people this time. The MSM might be ignoring it for the moment, but what’s going on in VA right now is a huge deal, and one way or another, will have a major impact on the future of our country. There’s a big rally planned in Richmond on January 20. I plan to be there, and I plan to be armed. You should join us, and hopefully a large number of your EP autos friends will show up too. We finally have a real opportunity to make a difference.
Better make sure you have your AR and a dozen 30-rd mags, then, because if you don’t you probably won’t be able to get them next month.
A couple thousand rounds in the cellar would be a good investment, too, because notwithstanding whatever happens in your locale, the gun shop shelves will be bare prior to November 2020…
X, is that what it takes? How much ammo is enough? I don’t know. I’ve had cases piled up but never had too much.
Hi X,
Guns? What guns?
eric, I worry probably more than I should about Virginny. I simply don’t see evil Northam’s plans going anywhere except down the tubes.
There are approximately 8,000 Nation Guard there and from hearing conversations with the head honchos, I don’t see them doing anything but keeping their oath to the Constitution. It’s obvious nobody is going to enforce an unConstitutional law. There are millions of gun owners in the state. Every place they’ve had a meeting, most of them, hundreds or thousands, can’t get into the venue. There is that much grassroots opposition.
8, talk is cheap. Saw an interview on BearingArms.com of the good ol’ Buckingham County VA. sheriff last night- who is strenuously opposed to the commie nonsense- but he outright admitted that even the “2A sanctuary” stuff is really just symbolic, and that the local governments were powerless to resist state law [No mention was made of course, that no official is obliged to uphold any unconstitutional law, just as no citizen is obliged to obey it].
He initially tried to sound encouraging…but when presented with the right questions, left one feeling that there would ultimately be no real resistance.
And of course, just as with the unconstitutional “checkpoints” and many other such laws, all those who are paid by and ultimately serve the state, will continue to do so- as will their constituency, most of whom have sons or fathers or trannies or brothers who are pigs, or in the military, or work for some gov’t agency or get a farm subsidy….just as they dutifully narc on their own financial dealings to the IRS.
If they haven’t resisted yet, why would they start now? They’re more likely to be the ones on the juries who throw us in jail if we stay.
Well, you’re right over the border in KY so you can go help them out.
No, right over the border are all the zombie meth-heads in the dead former mining towns…. Scary place! (VA. will probably bus them in and deputize them, and pay them with Sudafed, cigarettes and Lice killer!)
Nunz, I have never been able to understand why people born in a place where there’s not a job to be had wouldn’t move somewhere they could get a job.
I realize there really aren’t jobs out there for everyone but when you’re young you can work some damned hard stuff and be free of the welfare state.
Or for that matter 8, why people who live in hellishly expensive places, like NY or SF, will stay and live on the street- or live like a perpetual college student, sharing a small apartment with 5 other strangers, don’t simply move to where they can rent a place for $350 a month.
Living in one’s own apartment while working at McDonalds with the prospect of doing better and even being able to afford a $65K house is realistic, as opposed to being homeless or sharing a room while working at McDonalds,(or even a better job) and never even having the prospect of being able to afford a $1M+ home or even rent a $3K/mo, apartment.
People are idiots. And then we’re told that idiocy = poverty, and that it’s practitioners are worthy of charity for choosing to stay in the most expensive places to live in the world.
There are housing projects in Manhattan…. We get to pay so that some people can live for free or very cheaply in one of the most expensive real estate markets in the world; some of their residents even make what would be very good money in other places…..but it’s considered “poverty” in NYC, so they get subsidized- as if they can’t be moved. Probably the most blatant example of the government manipulating the market…and meanwhile the poor Injuns whose land “we” stole, get to live on the poorest most worthless land- our scraps.
It’s all so sick. But the idjits who claim to be about “social justice” think that this is just great…and want more of it.
All mine went to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico in a tragic boating accident 😉
Eric,,, They (tax assessor & gang) probably have knowledge of your blog and figure you need a little more “education”.
It all boils down to “who’s your daddy”.
Won’t stop until they’re finally removed.
ken, like speaking with my neighbor one day about his garden(really nice, huge tractor garden) and how he’d been fucked getting oversprayed by Roundup and got a whopping $3,000 in compensation, a tiny amount of what it was worth.
I said I didn’t vote for the judge(another neighbor) and mostly just didn’t vote since I identified more along the lines of libertarianism.
He said ‘Well, I have a problem with that”. I replied “Oh, who do you want to rob?”. He looked like I had spit on him. I hope he thought about it……long and hard as Mencken would say.
I use roads, that’s about it. Schools? No way. I don’t know how the road thing would work but I would be willing to give it a try. I think to fund state roads, the gasoline tax works fine. There doesn’t need to be a national tax on gas. New highway funding can be done through user fees or tolls. States can decide what they want to do with it. Frankly, with the way the roads are so overcrowded these days, I am surprised that there hasn’t been some kind of Yellow Vest protest here. I guess too much HFCS and fluoride has placated the masses.
swamp, the thing about roads and govt. Who would build the roads? Well, lots of people and companies build roads. I know it for a fact since I’ve been the guy working to build them. I have worked on exactly ONE road that was a govt. road and it didn’t pay shit.
How much did you charge to build a mile of road?
Surely you are using the roads? and you have electricity? and water? Never used a library? Ever had a fixed rate mortgage? All those come with some sort of government involvement. Granted you probably don’t get the value from these ‘services’ in proportion to your contribution. Nor does any net contributor to the tax system. That’s because half of the population is drawing from the government teet to some extent.
Hi electron,
Roads are (in principle) funded by voluntary user fees; I’m ok with this. I have a well on my land. I paid for it. No one else “helped” me.
Some of these other “services” you enumerate I do use – but only because there’s no realistic option not to. It doesn’t make me a hypocrite.
The point stands: No one is obliged – morally – to hand over money for “services” he didn’t solicit – much less those he doesn’t use.
Isn’t it wonderful that the government takes a monopoly on something or uses its monopoly on legal violence to intrude upon something so then that means we must consent to all its “services”?
I really tire of that argument.
Let’s say the federal reserve didn’t exist as it does today and mortgage loans were as they were before the fed. Guess what? Prices would be a lot lower, like they were, before the fed.
For the prudent person the government doesn’t offer us very much and is a net burden. Sure the government through the fed made that fixed rate mortgage a thing, but the price was at least three fold higher than it would have been because of all the new bidders. And if the price wasn’t three fold higher then I wouldn’t have needed the mortgage.
As the Harry Browne quote goes, government breaks your leg and hands you a crutch and tells you that you wouldn’t be able to walk if it wasn’t for government.
As to roads, well, if we can reduce government to simply managing roads I think that would be a vast improvement. That said, government is increasingly not liking the anonymous user-fee fuel tax system but wanting to use a tax by mile tracking system.
Hi Brent,
“As the Harry Browne quote goes, government breaks your leg and hands you a crutch and tells you that you wouldn’t be able to walk if it wasn’t for government”.
As Nock pointed out in “Our Enemy the State”, State power is hostile to social power. The State actively seeks to undermine social power by arrogating to itself services previously provided through voluntary, private cooperation. Roads, lighthouses, education, charity, etc… were all provided before GovCo took over. The process is pernicious and often involves providing a “free” alternative which crowds out the private one. Then, they subsidize an army of economists and court intellectuals to manufacture ideas like “public goods” cannot be provided by the market, therefore the State is necessary. Eventually, most people cannot believe that these services could be provided without the State and proclaim that idiocies like “what about the roads” are a slam dunk refutation of freedom.
Cheers,
Jeremy