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Te video of a break-dancing toddler reminded me of another report, that, in my eyes, clearly shows that there are past lives which we sometimes access if the stimulus is just right. This report tells about a little girl that remembers that it knows Thai-dance, and can actually perform it well beyond the abilities of a child her age.

Watching this toddler performing his break dance…

…it makes a lot more sense to me that he or his body remembers from last time around when he was a real good break dancer than to shoe-horn accepted reality into the observable facts and believe that this little guy who is called a ‘toddler’ for a reason has suddenly left all toddling behind just because I had observed some break dancers for a while. Even if the dad is an accomplished break dancer that would not explain his ability to control his body well beyond what other toddlers can do. I had seen and heard my dad sing opera all the time, but I could not do that! And I am sure that there are kids of accomplished pianists that see their parent practice for hours every day that don’t suddenly start ripping some Chopin.

Anybody else with clear proof that past lives exist?

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The following are some quotes of Stefan Molyneux’s videocast about fake and real heroism:

Heroism is never where you are.

It’s never anything that you can achieve in your own life to become a hero – all you have to do is sit around and whine until some old dude in an old blanket comes along and whisks you off to a life of adventure and combat.

…

All these mythologies which have remained essentially unchanged for thousands of years, are entirely about enslaving you, and turning you into useful cannon fodder for your masters.

Real heroism is something that you can achieve here, today.

Sounds interesting, yes?

Imagine that I consider myself a Star Wars and science fiction appreciater (no, I do not call  myself a fan of anything!) so, it was a bit of a bitter pill to swallow. But all real change starts with discomfort as – by definition – we have to move out of our comfort zone.

But, Stefan says it best, so you better grab a coffee, make yourself comfortable on the sofa and give Mr. Molyneux a chance to stir you up a bit to get off that sofa…

You are still on that sofa of yours – OK, here is part 2…

Are you still on your sofa? – - – - – Pity!

This might be a tad offending but let me tell you that I love Dean Kamen’s work and when I watched his talk at TEDMED I was moved and needed a few tissues to wipe away tears.

But, I could not help thinking about who causes these ‘kids’ to lose their limbs. Mr. Kamen touched this subject towards the end of his talk and I understand that he is not able to answer those questions in the forum he is talking.

So, here I am, jumping in and lending a helping hand. Over the last few month of study of politics, societies and history I have come to the understand what make state and government unique – they have a monopoly on initiating violence, with the stress on ‘initiate.’

For pretty much everybody the initiation of violence is at least immoral, but politicians have managed to wave a magic wand and now for them and their cronies suddenly killing, stealing and kidnapping is lawful and moral and for the ‘public good.’ These are the people (if you still want to call them that) that meddle with other countries affairs and start kill them if they suddenly have the galls to use force in a defensive way telling them to stop. Obviously these ‘people’ don’t do the killing themselves. That would be way too dangerous, they might come home with missing limbs! So, they use emotional arguments and their ‘free’ press to convince their ‘kids’ to do the killing for them.

Now you might think that they are not that bad if they hire Mr. Kamen to invent replacements for those lost limbs. But, sorry, I don’t believe that they do this out of the goodness of their hearts – it’s a publicity stunt!

And here, Mr. Kamen , I must say, I am disappointed that you are falling for that. In my eyes you are a genius in the technical arena (and I will get a Segway at one point) but I want you to apply this genius to the social arena as well. Because, right now, if you are giving support to the only group that made it legal for itself to initiate force, you are validating their actions.

And this, by the way, applies to everybody who works for ‘the man.’

ref: TED talk Dean Kamen – The Emotion Behind Invention.

If you have not read Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 please skip this post…

OK, so you know his frightening vision of the future, where firemen don’t put out fires but instead start them in order to burn books.

We are not there yet and we might never get there because who would let any fireman burn his or her Kindle, right? Book are on the way out anyways, so his vision might never come to pass, or in a different, much easier way by censoring the web.

But I am digressing. What I wanted to report on is today and right here. Our current fire department is still in the business of putting out fires and also tasked by our masters to prevent them. One of the ways to do this is to publish rules about, for example, how far away from your house scrubs, trees and flowers have to be. To go and check every house is a big task and they are not quite equipped for that. So instead of charging us $13 to come out and make sure you comply, we have the option of studying the rules and then self-assess our property and send in an affidavit that we did indeed comply.

I did this to save the $13 and to keep them away from the house as they would probably find something that is not right. I needed to download something from the country assessor to describe the property (we are talking about LA County here) and get some photos of the property. Thanks to Google street view I actually did not have to crank out the camera but let Google take the photos for me (will see if this is accepted.)

I got my paperwork all done and got ready to write the address on the envelope when I noticed this…

Is this funny, or what!? Just curious if this is really a coincidence or if there is somebody in the fire department with a type of visionary humor.

In my inbox I found the following video, promoting to always wear your seat-belt…

This reminded me of my own experience with seat-belts and what effect the government had on my usage.

Up to the time of my first cars. back in the old days in Germany, there were no seat-belts. Surprisingly I am still alive despite the fact that I, even as a kid, mostly rode in the passenger seat next to dad while mom and little sis were in the back.

So I grew up without seat-belts but when seat-belts went on sale, during my second or third junk car, I thought they were so cool that I actually retro-fitted my old clunker with them – at very high expenses relativ to my meager money supply as a student. And believe me, I wore them all the time – no trip without strapping in. I would have preferred those race-car 4-point belts, but could not afford them. This was the time when those belts actually saved my life when I had a tire blow on the freeway at 140 kmh (about 90 mph for all you imperialists.)

Then the well-meaning government stepped in with the attempt to save us all and made use of seat-belts mandatory. And what happened? I, young and full of opposition to anything exerting authority, suddenly stopped to use them.

I know, it’s silly, they had saved my life before, but it’s not an uncommon behavior. Try it yourself when you get a chance: find somebody doing something he or she likes and order them to do it. Guess what will happen?

I finally got over that and now wear seat-belts whenever I believe it’s the right thing to do to protect me from harm. The biggest harm these days, I believe, would be suffering at the hand of a cop who catches me not using the belts and presenting me with an invitation to the local court house; but, hey, that’s a harm and so wearing the belt protects me from that harm.

But I also know that in a crash of only 30 miles I would not have the arm strength to keep me from flying through or at least into the wind shield, and that also effects my decision to click it.

This reminds me of this cute slogan you see on free and high ways

Click it or ticket!

Am I the only one being appalled by our masters to now package their threat to do violence against us in cuteness? You wonder – what violence? Just try to play it through:

1. you don’t click it
2. you get a ticket
3. you throw it away because you have harmed nobody
4. a warrant for your arrest is issued
5. you ignore that because you have not harmed anybody
6. cops try to arrest you
7. you resist because nobody has been harmed by your actions
8. you get shot

I know, you can avoid all that by just doing what the master tells you – and enjoy the cuteness of “click it or ticket” without thinking of the implied “and then I kill you if you don’t do as I tell you to…”

Back to the beginning – wouldn’t it be much better if companies would just offer the belts and make them so good and comfortable that you just want to wear them?

Do you sometimes have the urge to run around the house with some scissors in your hand? Are you sometimes so fed up with all the well-meaning advise to be safe?

Here is an article that gets to the crux of it all, and article that I found (again) in the deep crevices of my hard drive, and who’s author I do not know. Sorry, author, that I can not credit you, but these words need to get out, so here they are…

People over 35 should be dead. Here’s why:

According to today’s regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s, or even maybe the early ’70s probably shouldn’t have survived.

Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets, … and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. (Not to forget the risks we took hitchhiking.)

As children, we would ride in cars with no seatbelts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the  garden hose and not from  a bottle.

Horrors!

We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on.  No one was able to reach us all day.     NO CELL PHONES!

Unthinkable!

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, personal computers, or Internet chat rooms. We had friends! We went outside and found them.

We played dodge ball and sometimes the ball would really hurt! We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.  They were accidents. No one was to blame but us. Remember accidents?

We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms, and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s home and knocked on the door, or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Some students weren’t as smart as others, so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade.

Horrors!

Tests were not adjusted for any reason. Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law.

Imagine that!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

And if you’re one of them, congratulations!

Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good!

People under 30 are WIMPS!

In some blatantly slick advertisement the Sandorian Grove tells us about the Brazilian Prisidente, a man of the people, and how he is attacked by the ruling elite and how the latest attempt badly back fired.

I could not help teasing my good friend Max there with my remark about his blatant advertisement and started to write a comment pitching in my ideas about rulers in general. Half through that I realized that this subject would make a good post all by itself and so I copied all that here and just left a link at the Grove.

Here is what I had to say…

… I get an opportunity to spread the word of anarchy (not in the meaning of chaos but in the simple definition of stateless society): In our last election here in the US I actually did something very out-of-character – I campaigned. For Ron Paul, obviously. It was only later that I understood than there might well be a rule of the few over the many that is less burdensome or more just than another, but it is still the rule of the few over the many. All these will eventually end up being tyranny.

So, yes, I can see that it seems encouraging if an outsider beats the current ruling class, but eventually we will end up with the same whoever the ruler is initially. Here in the US we are the example standing it right in front of our eyes. Some 200+ years ago a group of renegades threw out the ruling class and established a new rule based on personal freedom. Yeah right! Now we know, at least those who can still look, that we just replaced the royal family with the wannabes that call themselves sometimes Esquire (doesn’t that sound like nobility?)

It is just amazing how the new ruling class modeled it’s system after the old – in scientology terms a dramatization.

• King v. Supreme Court Justice (they even kept the word ‘court’!)
• Barons v. Appeal’s Court Justices
  and all the way down the the
• Lords v. Small Claims Court Judges

And fear stayed the same as well – have you ever been served with a complaint by a member of the current ruling class? The same as being summoned by your Lord.

I don’t want to bitch about kings and justices, lawyers and Lords, though. I just want to turn your attention to the fact that any rule over the many by the few is the wrong path. What needs to be taught is that only voluntary interaction can lead to a free society – if you still want to call it that way. Know that you own yourself and don’t make any compromises in that department. Anybody who wants to tell you how to live your life is a suspect.

For many years I have lived in the Los Angeles basin and I had to learn that the song with the line “it never rains in California” is not quite true. I have been drenched, in fact, rather solidly.

So done with that myth. But at least I don’t have to deal with snow and scraping windows and shoveling the driveway.

Let’s dispense with those myth as well.

First, there is no snow in (Southern) California…

Yes, that’s icicles in the foreground – nice, huh? But “no snow”-  that’s debunked.

Next one is scraping windows. I did when that above happened, but I have to admit that it was not really necessary, as there was no way to get out of that drive way even with a 4×4 and I had still enough food and water so there was no need to get out.

No scraping windows – kind-of debunked.

Then shoveling your drive way. See, there California is different. I did not shovel my drive way when I had to get out eventually – I called somebody to do that for me. That myth is not debunked but confirmed.

That snow, and here Southern California is different, did not stay very long. Initially it was just too deep to do anything useful with it, except maybe sit inside next to the roaring fireplace and enjoy the view. But when it got a bit more slippery and wet it became great to exercise the sledge and practice some death defying jumps…

If you have anything to do with SEO, or web site optimization you must have head of Stompernet and Andy Jenkins (even though Andy is not with Stompernet any longer – really wonder what happened there.)

By the way, in my eyes stompernet was Andy Jenkins – I still read what Andy has to say, but more and more skip over the emails from stompernet. This is how it happened that I read Andy’s blog on the clarification of the new FTC rules. This blog was more or less a pointer to an interview of an FTC agent by Jim Edwards (an internet marketer.)

You might be aware of the fact that my political tendencies are towards the complete abolishion of the rule by the few (aka government.) This made listening to this interview very taxing for me, as the interviewer acted as if the interviewee was an equal or even higher-up to be bestow his wisdom upon us. For god’s sake, he was talking to a bureaucrat!

I did not think that a comment on Jim Edwards blog would have made any effect, so I did not comment there, but with Andy I had the idea a comment, I would post, would stay there, especially after the great broomstick metaphor in a comment by Dan Thies, another great man in the internet marketing arena.

In order to ensure the survival of this comment I also want to post it here. You might have to go to Andy’s blog and from there to Jim’s interview to get the whole story, but anyway, here is what I had to rant:

Oh man, this got my blood boiling! What’s really frustrating are these comments like “good info, thanks!” The only light in the tunnel was Dan Thies broomstick metaphor, which shows a bit what all ‘agencies’ are about – initiating violence.
Reasonable men, if they have a disagreement, sit together and work it out and come to a mutually acceptable agreement. Not agencies! They work like bullies: “We tell you how it is, and if you don’t do was we say – - – you know where the broomstick is, and how long it is!”
Still, we can learn from them: they came up with the idea that we don’t negotiate with terrorists. That is a good policy particularly if applied to them, because they are, in fact, the terrorists, a they initiate force. You don’t think what they do is initiating force? Think again: they issue a fine (or sue you, which is the same because the courts belong to them and are paid by them), and you don’t pay. Then you see that it IS force – just play it through in your mind.
The only reason I write this is to plant this little seed in your mind, that you all see that ‘agencies’ are agencies not for us but only for themselves, that they are not our friends that will protect consumers. That’s just double talk to hide the fact that they are taking more control by threat of stealing and imprisonment.
Yes, follow the rules (for now) but keep in mind, that the tyrants are not here to help you.
A slave master can only stay what he is as long as the slave behaves as a slave – stop being a  slave. Resist with every fiber, without the need to put yourself in danger, but resists, don’t see them as the benefactor.
And above all, see them as different from you. They are not one of us, where we all work together to make the world a better place. See that anybody who has the idea to know better than you, how to live your life, is to be met with at least suspicion.

Larken Rose, my favorite anarchist, gave a talk on this July 4th in Philadelphia and what he had to say was so much in line with what strikes me when I see the flag waving and BBQing patriots of this day, that I just had to share it here, in the hope that – maybe – at least one or two of you put the little red-white-and-blue away and smell the roses (pun accidentally but then intended);

You’re not the Boss of Me!

Two hundred and thirty-three years ago, in Philadelphia, a bunch of guys got together and wrote a letter to their king. The letter was very eloquent, and well thought out, but it basically boiled down to this:

“Dear King George,
You’re not the boss of us!
Sincerely,
A Bunch of Troublemakers”

That’s essentially what the Declaration of Independence was: a bunch of radicals declaring that they would no longer recognize the right of their king to rule them, at all, ever again. They went on to create a new boss, which turned into a new oppressor, but we’ll get to that in a moment. First, let’s consider the essence of that attitude: “You’re not the boss of me!”

This July 4th, like every year, millions of Americans are celebrating Independence Day with various parades, picnics, fireworks, and so on. But how many of those people celebrating have ever actually considered what the Declaration was actually about, and what the colonists actually did? The colonists did not merely beg the king to change his ways. In fact, the Declaration explains how they had tried that, to no avail. Instead, the colonists were doing something far more drastic.

In short, they committed treason. They broke the law. They disobeyed their government. They were traitors, criminals and tax cheats. The Boston Tea Party was not merely a tax protest, but open lawlessness. Furthermore, truth be told, some of the colonists were even cop-killers. At Lexington, when King George’s “law enforcers” told the colonists to lay down their guns, the colonists responded with, “No, you’re not the boss of us!” (Well, that was the meaning, if not the exact verbiage.) And so we had “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World,” widely regarded as the beginning of the American Revolution.

Looking back now, we know the outcome. We know who eventually won, and we don’t mind cheering for the rebels. But make no mistake: when you cheer for the founders of this country, you are cheering for law-breakers and traitors. As well you should. But, for all the flag-waving and celebrating that goes on every July 4th, do Americans actually believe in what the colonists did? Do they really believe in the attitude expressed in the Declaration of Independence? Are they really still capable of supporting a mantra of “You’re not the boss of me!”?

In short, no. Imagine the equivalent of what the colonists did so many years ago, being done today. Imagine a group of people writing a letter to the United States government, sending a letter to Congress and to the President, saying that they would no longer pay federal taxes, they would no longer obey federal laws, and that they would resist–by force, if necessary–any attempt by federal agents to enforce those laws. How would a group which did such things be viewed today, by most Americans?

They would be viewed as nut-cases, scofflaws and terrorists, despicable criminals and malcontents. They would be scorned as the scum of the earth, despised by just about everyone who today celebrates Independence Day.

How ironic.

So why the double standard? Why would the American public today condemn the exact same attitudes and behaviors which they glorify and praise in the context of the American Revolution? Quite simply, it’s because, for all the proud talk of “land of the free and home of the brave,” the spirit of resistance–the courage to say “You’re not the boss of us!”–has been trained out of the American people.

We have become a nation of wimps.

For years and years, in the churches and schools, on the news, in the media, and from everywhere around us, we have been taught one thing above all else: that obedience to authority is the highest virtue, and that disobedience is the worst sin. As a result, even most of those who now claim to be zealous advocates for individual rights and personal liberty will almost always couch their “demands” with disclaimers that, of course, their efforts for justice will be done “within the system,” and that they would never advocate anything “illegal.” They claim to be devout proponents of freedom, and yet all they ever do is seek a political solution, whether through lobbying of politicians, elections, or other government-approved means.

Of course, government never approves of anything which might actually endanger government power. As the bumper-sticker says, “If voting made a difference, it would be illegal.” And why should civilized people assume that change must be done “legally” and “within the system”? That is obviously NOT what the Declaration of Independence was about. In fact, the Declaration states quite plainly that when a government ceases to be a protector of individual liberty, it is not only the right, but the DUTY of the people to ALTER or ABOLISH that form of government. In other words, when the government becomes an oppressor, instead of a protector– as is obviously the case today–the people are morally obligated to adopt an attitude of, “You’re not the boss of us!”

So how many Americans are doing that? Almost none. Instead, even the most vocal critics of corruption and injustice usually do little more than banging their heads against a brick wall, begging, in half a dozen different ways, for the tyrants to please be nicer to us. (Meanwhile, they go to great lengths to distance themselves from people like me, for fear of what the general public might think of them. As a result, I believe the general public, and those in government, view them pretty much as I view them: as harmless and irrelevant conformists, destined to forever beg for freedom, and never achieve it.)

Make no mistake, begging and whining is not what the Declaration of Independence was about. It was about breaking the law, when the law is unjust. It was about committing treason, when the rulers became oppressive. It was about disobedience–civil disobedience, when effective, and not-so-civil disobedience when necessary. It was about open resistance, including violent resistance when called for.

So where is that attitude today? Where is the candidate advocating such a thing? Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, Samuel Adams–where are the modern equivalents? For all the whining about extremists, where are those willing to openly resist injustice? Not only don’t most Americans believe in resisting tyranny, they feel extremely uncomfortable just hearing others talk about it, even in abstract terms (like this).

Maybe it’s just that we’re not quite at the level of oppression to justify resistance. Is that it? Hardly. If two or three percent taxation justified rebellion in 1776, why doesn’t fifty percent taxation justify it now? If a few puny excise taxes on tea and pieces of paper justified it then, why don’t the myriad of unavoidable, crushing taxes at all levels, and the hordes of callous, vindictive tax collectors justify it now? If the relatively unusual cases of Redcoats abusing colonists justified it then, why doesn’t it justify it when American police see no problem with randomly stopping, detaining, interrogating and searching anyone they want, whenever they want, for any reason or no reason at all?

Does anyone think Thomas Jefferson, if he were alive today, would quietly allow himself to be strip-searched, and allow his belongings to be rummaged through, by some brain-dead TSA thug? Read the Fourth Amendment. They had a revolution over that sort of thing. Does anyone think that Patrick Henry would take kindly to being robbed blind to pay for whatever war-mongering the politicians wanted to engage in this week? Read what the Founders said about standing armies. They had a revolution over that sort of thing. Think James Madison would go along with being disarmed, by the various state and federal control freaks? Read the Second Amendment. They had a revolution over that sort of thing. Think George Washington would be happy to have both his earnings and savings constantly looted by a parasite class, to pay for all manner of wealth redistribution, political handouts and other socialist garbage? Think Thomas Paine would gladly be extorted to give all his money to some giant, failed corporation or some huge international bank? Think the founders would have quietly gone along with what this country has become today? Think they would have done nothing more than vote, or whine?

Well, the founders are dead. And, unfortunately, so is their spirit of resistance. In short, just about all of the flag-waving and celebrating that happens every July 4th is nothing but empty hypocrisy. How many Americans today can say, loudly and proudly, like they mean it, “Give me liberty or give me death!”? Or, at least, in the modern vernacular, “You’re not the boss of me!”? Anyone? In this nation that imagines itself to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, where are those who dare to resist, or even dare to talk about it? And I don’t mean voting, or whining to your congressman, or begging your masters to not whip you so hard. I’m talking about resisting, refusing to obey.

America, where is your Independence Day pride now? Exactly what are you proud of? I have a message for you, from a guy named Sam. Samuel Adams, that is. Yeah, the beer guy. But he did a little more for this country than make beer. Here is his message:

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”

When’s the last time you heard a modern so-called “statesman” say something like that?

So what happened? When did Americans lose their ability to say, “You’re not the boss of me,” and why? Yes, most people are scared, and for good reason. With the capacity for violence of the current police state, and the willingness of the politicians and their thugs to crush anyone who threatens their power, everyone has to choose his battles carefully, and decide for himself what he’s willing to risk, what is worth fighting for and what isn’t.

That makes sense, but there is more to it than just fear. Because not only won’t most Americans resist, but they will condemn anyone who does. If you do what the founders did, most people in this country would call you a tax cheat, a malcontent, a criminal, a traitor, even a terrorist. Why? Why do Americans now vehemently condemn those who say and do exactly what the Founders did a couple hundred years ago? When did our priorities and view of the world change so drastically, and why?

I’ll tell you why. Gradually, and very systematically, we have been trained to measure our own worth, not by what we produce, not by how we treat other people, but by how well we obey authority. Consider the term, “law abiding taxpayer.” How many people wear that label as a badge of honor? “I am a law-abiding taxpayer!” When they say that, they mean, “I’m a good person.” But is that what it really means?

Well, “law-abiding” just means that you do whatever the politicians tell you to do. We speak with great reverence of this thing called “the law,” as if it is the decree of the gods, which no decent human being would dare to disobey. But what is it really? It’s whatever the politicians decide to command you to do. Why on earth would anyone think that obedience to a bunch of liars and crooks is some profound moral obligation? Is there any reason for us to treat with reverence such commands and demands? No rational reason, no. The only reason we do it is because we have been trained to do it.

Some might point out that obeying the laws against theft and murder is a good thing to do. Well, yes and no. It is good to refrain from committing theft and murder, but it is NOT because “the law” says so. It is because theft and murder are inherently wrong, as they infringe upon the rights of others. And that was true before any politician passed a “law” about it, and will be true even if they “legalize” theft and murder (as every government has done, in the name of “taxation” and “war”). What is right and wrong does not at all depend upon what is “legal” or “illegal.” And if you need POLITICIANS to tell you what is right and what is wrong, you need your head examined. Instead, you should judge the validity of so- called “laws” by whether they match what is inherently right and wrong. Thomas Jefferson put it this way:

“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law,’ because the law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”

So why should anyone be proud of being “law-abiding,” when all it means is blindly obeying whatever arbitrary commands the parasite class spews out this week? And pride in being a “taxpayer” is no better, since all that phrase means is that you give the politicians lots of money. When, exactly, did obeying politicians and giving them money become the measure of whether you’re a good person?

Consider Nazi Germany. Were the law-abiding taxpayers in Nazi Germany the good guys? No. By obeying the so-called “laws” of that time, the majority allowed, or even assisted in, a nearly incomprehensible level of evil. And by being “taxpayers,” they provided the funding for it. No, the good people in Germany were the criminals and tax cheats, who refused to assist, even passively, in the oppressions done in the name of “government.”

The same is true under the regimes of Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro–you can go right down the list (and it’s a very long list). Under every nasty regime in history, the obedient subjects, who quietly did as they were told, the law-abiding taxpayers, were not the good guys. The law-breakers and rebels, the so-called traitors and terrorists, those were the good guys. How about in this country, when slavery was legal? The cowards were the ones obeying the law, while the good guys broke it.

How about here, today? Is it good to fund what the government is doing? Do you have some moral obligation to give your “fair share” of however many thousands of dollars, so Obama can give it to his banker buddies? Is it noble to fund whatever war the politicians decide to engage in this week? Do you like paying for the detention and torture of people who haven’t been convicted, or even charged with any crime? (By the way, instead of doing away with that, Obama just gave it a new name: preventative detention.) Is it some great virtue to have helped to finance the police state growing up all around you, on both the federal and state levels? In short, is being a “law-abiding taxpayer” really something you should be proud of, or is it something you should be ashamed of?

Over time we have forgotten a very important secret–a secret the control freaks don’t want you to know; a secret some of the Founders hinted at, though even most of them didn’t seem to fully grasp it. Ready for it?

You own yourself.

You are not the property of the politicians, or anyone else. I own me, and you own you. Each of you owns himself.  Sounds simple enough, right? And most people respond with, “Well duh, of course. That’s no secret. We knew that.” But in reality most people don’t know that.

If you own yourself, would anyone have the right to take, without your consent, the fruits of your labor? What you earn, with your time and effort, does anyone have the right to take that from you by force? Of course not, most will answer. Really? And what if they call it “taxation”? “Oh, well, that’s different.” No, it isn’t.

If you own yourself, would anyone have the right to force you to pay rent for a house you already paid for, under threat of taking your house away? Of course not. What if they call it “property taxes”? Oh, that’s different. No, it isn’t. And you can go right down the list: if you truly own yourself, the vast majority of so- called “laws,” at all levels, are absolutely illegitimate. As Jefferson put it, ANY so-called “law” that infringes upon individual liberty–which is dang near all of them–is inherently bogus.

But let’s take it one step further. If you own yourself–your life, liberty and property–doesn’t that imply that you have the right to defend those things from any and all aggressors? Yes. What if the aggressors call themselves “government” and call their attacks and robberies “law” and “taxes”? You still have the right. Changing the name of an act cannot make something bad into something good. And if you have the right to defend your life, liberty and property from all aggressors, it stands to reason that you have the right to equip yourself to do so. In other words, you have the right to be armed–the right to possess the equipment to exert whatever force is necessary to repel any attempts to infringe upon your rights to life, liberty and property.

I know it makes people uncomfortable (especially people who work for the government) when I say the following: I want every sane, adult American to have the ability to use force, including deadly force, against government agents. I don’t want people randomly gunning down cops, but I do want the people to retain the ability to forcibly resist their own government. The very concept bothers a lot of people, but what is the alternative? The alternative is something a lot scarier: that the people should NOT have the means to resist their own government.

But, once again, even most people who claim to be vehemently pro-freedom, don’t like to talk about what that really means. Many “gun rights” organizations, for example, go to great lengths to beg the politicians to LET them remain armed. Why? At Lexington, when the British troops told the colonists to lay down their weapons, what was the response? Did the colonists say, “Awe, can’t we keep them, pretty please?”? No, they had a very different attitude, something alone the lines of, “You’re not the boss of us!”

If you own yourself–and this is a big one–it is not only your right, but your most profound obligation as a human being, to judge for yourself what is right and wrong, and to act accordingly. But what if people claiming to be “authority” want to force you to do something contrary to what you deem to be right? Do you have an obligation to obey them, and ignore your own conscience? No. What if their threats are called “legislation”? It makes no difference.

You are always, at all times, in every situation, obligated to do what you deem right, no matter what so-called “government” and “authority” and “law” have to say about it. And when the tyrants and control freaks, authoritarian thugs and megalomaniacs, try to tell you that you are an evil, nasty, despicable criminal and traitor for daring to think for yourself, you have a right and duty to stand firm, and say, with confidence, “You are not the boss of me!”

Larken Rose

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