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I have no idea if the following story is true but it is a good one and from all we know about government, it is at least credible. Here we go…

The following is an actual letter sent to a man named Ryan DeVries regarding a pond on his property. It was sent by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Quality, State of Pennsylvania.

SUBJECT: DEQ File No.97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; Lycoming County

Dear Mr. DeVries:

It has come to the attention of the Department of Environmental Quality that there has been recent unauthorized activity on the above referenced parcel of property.  You have been certified as the legal landowner and/or contractor who did the following unauthorized activity:

Construction and maintenance of two wood debris dams across the outlet stream of Spring Pond.

A permit must be issued prior to the start of this type of activity. A review of the Department’s files shows that no permits have been issued.  Therefore, the Department has determined that this activity is in violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Pennsylvania Compiled Laws, annotated.

The Department has been informed that one or both of the dams partially failed during a recent rain event, causing debris and flooding at downstream locations.  We find that dams of this nature are inherently hazardous and cannot be permitted. The Department therefore orders you to cease and desist all activities at this location, and to restore the stream to a free-flow condition by removing all wood and brush forming the dams from the stream channel.  All restoration work shall be completed no later than January 31, 2009.

David L. Price
District Representative and Water Management Division..

Jared Parks
Land Protection Specialist
Eastern Shore Land Conservancy
District Representative and Water Management Division.

Here the dam and pond in question:

The owner of the property, being a good citizen (subject to his rulers) was quick and eloquent answering the official letter to set the record straight…

Re: DEQ File No. 97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; Lycoming County

Dear Mr. Price,

Your certified letter dated 12/17/08 has been handed to me to respond to.  I am the legal landowner but not the Contractor at 2088 Dagget Lane , Trout Run, Pennsylvania .

A couple of beavers are in the (State unauthorized) process of constructing and maintaining two wood “debris” dams across the outlet stream of my Spring Pond.  While I did not pay for, authorize, nor supervise their dam project, I think they would be highly offended that you call their skillful use of natures building materials “debris.”

I would like to challenge your department to attempt to emulate their dam project any time and/or any place you choose. I believe I can safely state there is no way you could ever match their dam skills, their dam resourcefulness, their dam ingenuity, their dam persistence, their dam determination and/or their dam work ethic.

These are the beavers/contractors you are seeking.   As to your request, I do not think the beavers are aware that they must first fill out a dam permit prior to commencing construction.

In my humble opinion, the Spring Pond Beavers have a right to build their unauthorized dams as long as the sky is blue, the grass is green and water flows downstream.  They have more dam rights than I do to live and enjoy Spring Pond.  If the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection lives up to its name, it should protect the natural resources (Beavers) and the environment (Beavers’ Dams).

So, as far as the beavers and I are concerned, this dam case can be referred for more elevated enforcement action right now. Why wait until 1/31/2009? The Spring Pond Beavers may be under the dam ice then and there will be no way for you or your dam staff to contact/harass them.

In conclusion, I would like to bring to your attention to a real environmental quality, health, problem in the area. It is the bears! Bears are actually defecating in our woods. I definitely believe you should be persecuting the defecating bears and leave the beavers alone. If you are going to investigate the beaver dam, watch your step! The bears are not careful where they dump!

Being unable to comply with your dam request, and being unable to contact you on your dam answering machine, I am sending this response to your dam office.

THANK YOU,
RYAN DEVRIES & THE DAM BEAVERS

Just to round this out, some photos of the contractors…

When you are living within one specific group and have little or no information flowing into you from the outside, it is obvious that this closed system will make at least some sense. Often these systems are consistent within themselves.

Such a system could be your church that does not allow you to consider outside information (Scientology is a very clear example for that) or, if we go a bit bigger, you country. As countries go, one that has not many borders (compared to its size) is the best to accomplish that. Here the US of A is a prime example – pretty big land mass, no neighbors to the left and right and not very loud neighbors at the top and bottom. In a closed system like  this, especially if the flow of information is so tightly controlled, the members of this system will hardly get a chance to assume an external viewpoint.

Europe is in the process of becoming a more closed system now that the European Union is tying all the countries more and more together. In the old days of a weak EU and more nationalistic countries the variety of opinions was much bigger and these different opinions could traverse borders rather easily through radio waves that did not stop at borders and the exchange of foreign newspapers.

After moving into the US and being exposed to one-sided reporting within its closed system I soon noticed that reading a British or German news paper often shed a completely different light on a situation. But with Europe and the US becoming more friendly and ruled by the same kind of tyrants the difference in opinion has become smaller and it gets more difficult to find a differing opinion.

Where can we go now to find different views on a specific situation?

I just learned that it’s the unlikely candidate Australia! See here what we can learn from down under…

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!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

My recent quest of understanding what a stateless society could look like and while investigating ways on  how to obtain anarchy (no, not the chaos definition, the other other one: from ἀναρχία anarchía, “without ruler”) I also ran into a podcast called School Sucks.

I had already understood the value of public education (the value is not for me or the kid) so I had avoided public education for my child from the very start and tried private schools with a varying degree of success. For the last year I am on my second attempt of home schooling. I chose a middle way of actually enrolling him in a charter school that pays money for material and extra-curricular activities out of the state’s coffer. My excuse for accepting something from the state is that in fact I just get a part of that money back that was taken from me under threat of violence (called property tax.)

But this school recently gave me a good chuckle when I got the following email:

Money Smart Curriculum – FREE!

Money Smart for Young Adults

The FDIC’s Money Smart for Young Adults curriculum helps youth ages 12-20 learn the basics of handling their money and finances, including how to create positive relationships with financial institutions. Equipping young people in their formative years with the basics of financial education can give them the knowledge, skills, and confidence they need to manage their finances once they enter the real world. Money Smart for Young Adults consists of eight instructor-led modules. Each module includes a fully scripted instructor guide, participant guide, and overhead slides. The materials also include an optional computer-based scenario that allows students to complete realistic exercises based on each module.

Computer-Based Instruction

The Money Smart Computer-Based Instruction (CBI) is a friendly and easy to use learning tool that teaches the 10 modules of the Money Smart curriculum through a computer. The CBI can complement formal classes or enable people to study independently at their own pace.

Each module generally takes between 20-30 minutes to complete. Students receive ongoing feedback and, upon successful completion of each module, can print out a personalized certificate of completion.

Order Money Smart – FREE – Here:
http://www.fdic.gov/consumers/consumer/moneysmart/young.html

The government teaching kids how to handle money?? Don’t you also think this is the joke of the century? And they say that with a straight face, and probably even believe that. The only part that is more scary than funny is that the poor kids in all the schools out there will learn that stuff as truth without a parental regulating element like me.

Just imagine if that would really work – all the young entrepreneurs with business models of offering some service – anything will do – and forcing people at gun point to buy it. But maybe the government is actually shooting itself in the foot because as Ron Paul points out: “Don’t steal – the government hates competition” -  and isn’t it actually training competition here?

The following video starts with a quote from George Orwell, you know the guy who predicted 1984, which reads…

Political language is designed to make
lies sound truthful, and murder respectable,
and give the appearance of solidity to pure wind.

Please also go to the Collateral Murder website to enjoy the full length video. It’s well worth it to educate yourself what you will be financing in just a few days,on April 15, when you make your confession and write the check to the hitman.

What comes to mind is the nice slogan you often see on bill boards and public construction sites:

Your Tax Dollar at Work

PS: To handle problems like this, by the way, is not to tell the governments “Don’t Do That!” – don’t tell them anything, just get rid of them. We do not need them to build our streets – and we certainly don ‘t need them to educate our kids. Anything government can do, the free market can do better, as Wes Bertrand explains in Complete Liberty.

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.

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.

Miles O’Brian reports on the likely cancellation of the constellation program after the Prez’s state of the union address.

Space buffs might be disappointed because now we will not go to Moon and Mars, but to put it into perspective let’s watch what Burt Rutan, the designer of Space Ship One, the first privately funded vehicle to reach space, had to say at his TED talk…

So, with this in mind, here is my comment I just had to leave at the above referenced article/vblog by Mr. O’Brian…

I have been lucky enough to witness the making of the first non-governmental astronaut. I reported about it a few years back in the post ‘From Mohave to Aldebaran‘. With this experience I can not say that I am too sad about the probable cancellation of the constellation program.

Yes, it was cool to get to the moon and have that ISS up there right now, but let’s be a bit more realistic when we look at things only a government can do – looking – looking – hmm, nothing really! The only thing governments really do is extract money from the population (by force, I may add) and give it to the real people who actually do the job. Not to forget to first skim off a bigger portion to feed a bunch of in efficient bureaucrats.

I wonder why, on the one hand, we make fun of all these bureaucrats, and then suddenly turn around and believe that they are the only ones who can handle things – like building roads and keeping order after Catrina.

The only thing worth considering is really how to get them out of our lives altogether, not allowing them to regulate things they have no knowledge and competence in. I am nearly sure that we would have colonies at least on the moon if the government would have stayed out of the space business. Yes, we might have had some more accidents because private enterprises tend to take more risks than governments (as they don’t have to be re-elected,) but isn’t that the price we pay for fast progress?

I have to admit that I had been deeply disappointed by this constellation program which was a step back from a real space ship, and a design that one day might reach Aldebaran. Back to a capsule that splashes into the ocean after we had the orbiter that could land on a runway? Give me a break!

I am actually sure that Bush, with his vision of going to the moon and beyond, was just trying to get into the league of real visionaries like Kennedy with this “Before this decade is up.”

I had heard of Lord Monckton only in passing and that Al Gore had chickened out of a debate with him the last minute, but after watching the following video, I have to say I want to know more about him.

Usually you consider a title of nobility with the ruling class, so I have to shed this preconception now and have to admit that you can find friends in the most unlikely places – and obviously enemies in places where you would not expect them, like in the people you vote in to represent you. Ok, ok, you got me there – I have given up the idea a long time ago that somebody who bums my vote does not do it for my benefit.

But now, without further ado, pure logic taking apart Greenpeace-faith…

So, where can I find out more about Lord Monckton?

A good place to start is his Wikipedia entry, and then – there is Google…

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.

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