Rant
I originally intended to do the following rant on my internet radio show Thinking Liberty, but it might have grown too large. Maybe I’ll find another use for it, like make a video of me preaching it in the streets.
Government is a gang. Or at least it’s made up of gangsters. Obama’s a gangster, Bush is a gangster, Bloomberg’s a gangster, the CIA – they’re the biggest gangsters in the business. And it’s gangsters all the way down.
It’s not all about the money – they can’t be bought off with cool stuff – money just buys them more influence. They get more power, more status, they control more things. It’s a big power game, and they want you to play by their rules. The rules are there to keep the structure of authority in place so there’s something to win after they step on the people who get in their way and cut deals with those who can put them in office.
And there’s not really a debate, not really a discourse. There are just degrees to which different people identify with different power structures that would chew them up and shit them out when it was useful. Some people’s identities are so invested in the state that they take personal pleasure when the state’s enemies suffer, and take personal offence when the state’s authority is challenged.
If you want to play the game to take authority out – if you want to win for freedom, you gotta make up your own rules. You gotta find the weak points and dismember the system. Wherever you can sever individual identity from authority’s desires, wherever you can encourage people to self-organize, wherever you can put power in the hands of the people – the power of knowledge, entrepreneurship, and solidarity not the power of authority and rank, wherever you can go forward without standing on someone’s back, go for it.
But don’t think you can just wash your hands of it. While you’re standing on the sidelines, they’re using their piles of loot to pull more unwilling participants into the game. It might not be you. But don’t think the rules don’t affect you. Don’t think you can just get a few people to leave the stadium with you and be fine. As long as that authoritarian power structure is held firm by it’s foundation of bad ideas, they’ll fucking get you if you try to take power from them.
They assault people with potentially lethal high-voltage torture devices. They throw people in cages and hold them incommunicado for crossing their turf without permission. They think it’s worth killing a half million children if it hurts the prestige of a thug who challenged them. Just a matter of public policy for the greater good of those who want authority over our lives!
If you want liberty, you have to arm yourself with knowledge and go on the offensive. Don’t think they’ll give in without a fight, but fight them smart-like. Their rules are for them – you can’t win with massive firepower, you can win with smart subversion. And protect the liberty you claim by knowing when to be rigid and when to be flexible. You can flourish when you throw the tyrants off your back and don’t try to get on another person’s back. Go and make freedom!
