One of the claims of many a government, those (local, state, and federal) within the land mass erroneously labeled as the United States of America specifically, is that it is a government "of the people." This idea is imparted upon many a mind through the grueling indoctrination process euphemistically referred to as "public education." Unfortunately, it is simply not true. It can be disproven in a number of ways but perhaps one of the easiest is to take a look at the American "Just-Us" System. They don't even try to hide the inconsistencies; most people are just too accepting of the tyranny to notice.
The first issue rests with the "laws" themselves, and how said "laws" are enforced. Most "laws" involve activity that does not create a victim (more on this later). Without a victim, a crime cannot have been committed. That you can still be accused of a crime, without this crucial piece of the puzzle, means that the "law" is nothing but an arbitrary edict passed down by some would-be tyrant (euphemistically referred to as "politicians" or "bureaucrats"). These edicts automatically put the public-at-large at a disadvantage, since no one (including the tyrants and enforcers) can possibly know anywhere close to every edict but are often told that this fact is irrelevant because "Ignorance of the law is no excuse!" Interestingly, the same standard is most often not applied equally to the aforementioned tyrants and enforcers...
The second issue arises with the participants inside of a courtroom, once one has been "legally" kidnapped by one of the enforcers for violating one of the litany of arbitrary edicts. The judge, bailiffs, stenographer, prosecutor, clerks, and even the defense lawyer (if, like so many victims of the "Just-Us" System, one cannot afford a private attorney) are all on the same payroll. They may have different titles, and claim to serve different functions, but at the end of the day they all feed from the same trough. That gives every one of them the incentive to make sure that the status quo is maintained. Rocking the boat and challenging the accepted "law" from the inside can be, and often is, career suicide. Much like the "thin blue line" that the cops hide behind, there's a reason that you don't hear about too many "legal system" whistle blowers: their livelihood depends on continuing the lie.
The third and possibly most glaring example of the kangaroo nature of the "Just-Us" System is when someone is indicted for one of the many victimless crimes. These non-crimes, as referenced earlier, cannot constitute a legitimate crime due to the lack of a victim. In an attempt to circumvent this obvious fact, governments have made themselves the victim (see the astronomically large number of court cases with titles like "So and so v. Pick a State or Locality") in these cases. But how can this be? As outlined earlier, the alleged perpetrator in these cases is also told that they "are the government." If this individual is the government, then how could they possibly bring charges against themselves? If you are both the perpetrator and the victim in the same instance, then that means that you have caused harm to no one but yourself. Even if the charge has something to do with a claim of the destruction of "public property", then, as a member of the public, that individual would necessarily have to be destroying their own property. And since this individual would have been only harming themselves and/or their property, then how could they be punished for such an action? The only way an external punishment could be meted out is if the entity distributing the punishment had created some alternate reality where it was possible for one to both be the government and not be the government, and own property but not own the same property, all at the same time. In other words, this would necessitate the existence of Schrödinger's individual and/or property...
If you dig deeper, then you can find even more inconsistencies. The ones listed above, however, should be more than enough to make any rational individual question the ability of such a system to provide any actual justice. Unfortunately most people remain blissfully unaware, or they will vehemently deny these facts without actually examining them, until they (or someone close to them) become(s) a victim of this system. And at that point, more often than not, it's too late to escape the wrath of the State.
Good post. Makes sense to me. So what do we do?
I'd argue that secession is the best way forward. Breaking down larger political units into smaller political units forces them to become more competitive in how they lord over the citizenry, and, once secession happens, there's no logically defensible way to argue against further secession.
Colorado tried to secede and nothing ever came of it. Every voting cycle i see states wanting to do this, but they never really pull the trigger. Perhaps all of us like minded people move to the same state and start there by forcing secession.
The Free State Project tried that already.
From a theoretical and even philosophical standpoint, I agree with Andrei. If, say, a state were to successfully secede, then there would be no logical barrier for the individual to do the same. Unfortunately, this has not played out well historically. Even what is supposed to be the shining example of such an act, the original secession that would lead to what was supposed to be known as these united States (as opposed to The United States), was quickly tarnished by those who simply wanted to control the power and not remove it. I'd argue that this occurred well before Lincoln convinced enough dupes that "the Union" could not be destroyed, but that's matter for a different time.
The historical problems with secession are that even if one is managed successfully, it usually requires a lot of unnecessary bloodshed. When that occurs, resolve is often weakened. That tends to lead people into agreeing to accept whatever no "rule" is put in place, simply because they are too war weary and tired of what "used to be" to critically question what is now being erected in front of them. Kind of along the lines of "well ANYTHING has to be better than what we were just dealing with!"
Having said this, I am not necessarily opposed to secession as pathway to freedom. I just don't see how the odds are historically in favor of that being successful. I could be wrong, though. The goings on in Rojava for the past year or so are interesting, and worth keeping an eye on. Not exactly a secession, but working somewhat within that framework.
Ok so then what? If we cant simply take back freedom by standing together or through succession then how?
Then we figure something else out. Beautiful thing about freedom is that it allows for infinite variety.
The local tyrannies are worse.
I disagree, precisely because they're local. It's easy to avoid or duck a tyranny that only encompasses a dozen square miles.
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