It seems that every time I approach this subject it causes friction, but perhaps more friction is needed in this regard. Today I want to discuss why being a citizen of a government is not some great gift from some benevolent authority that has our best interests in mind. It requires a willingness to actually consider things critically, but usually I end up preaching to the choir on this subject or just having people that are fond of the state tell me things like "You're free to leave." I want to address these topics and hopefully create more thought and discussion about the concepts I am about to present.
Let's first address the most common negative response that I get. You are free to leave. Am I? If I am free to leave then why must I pay a tax to do so? All of the red tape and government paperwork required to travel certainly makes me think I am not free to leave. The government has to charge me money and then give me permission to leave. On that same note, why do I answer to this authority in the first place? When I was born they claimed me, I did not claim them. I got given a serial number just like the rest of you by my respective overlord and I feel the word citizen is a synonym for property and represents ownership rather than membership. Did any of you ask your government if you could be a member of their glorious organization or did they just ship you off for a state regulated education to groom you into being something that provides value to their economy?
This brings me to the next big issue I have with any government claiming we are "free citizens." Let's discuss what money actually is all about. We are all groomed by our respective governments through mandatory education programs to make us "valuable members of society." Of course that sounds like a great thing, who doesn't want to be valuable? If we're valuable we need something to tell us how valuable we are, let's print out funny little pieces of paper to tell people what their time and efforts are worth. If the country or organization, however you prefer to think of it, is lacking in a specific field or one field requires greater specialization, then it's rewarded with a higher value to encourage more of its' "free citizens" to pursue that field.
It's all sort of subjective to me which is more important, the farmer feeding the doctor or the doctor caring for the farmers health. The reason that these tokens are useful is because of the simple fact that the doctor needs to eat, but perhaps his patient is a book keeper and doesn't grow food. He treats the book keeper for a value of exchange to buy his food and the book keeper manages the accounting for the farmer so the cycle works. The problem with having a government involved in this "agreed value of exchange" is that it's first and foremost taking a cut, but it also takes a cut of all parties income before they even make the exchange. So the value of exchange isn't even worth what it's supposed to be worth in the first place and ultimately the house always wins as it does nothing but mediate the value by allegedly controlling how many pieces of the paper exist.
We have now arrived at the fundamental breakdown of the core issues of the government and economic problems it creates. People are led to pursue careers doing things for these exchanges of value because of the illusion that it provides some insurance of a quality of life. We can now see that the government grooms its' citizens according to what it views our needs to be. The question then becomes how to distract us from the fact that we're being led to pursue things that we don't want to do in the first place and the answer is through consumerism and greed. The government keeps the illusion of providing us some great service and protection, while taxing our work, exchanges of value, and consumption. It's a grand racket honestly and it's easy to overlook if we want to let ourselves believe that this mega-corporation disguised as a government is actually here to protect us.
I'll draw some comparisons for everyone now to hopefully allow more consideration into the points I am trying to get across. A farmer waters their crops and spaces them out to help them grow and flourish, but the end goal is still to feed off of them. A Shepard keeps its' flock safe from predators and keeps them fed, but its' goal is still to harvest their wool or feed off of the flock itself. What good is cattle that has no value? You can't feed off of a herd with no meat or drink the milk from an unhealthy cow. The point is that in all of these situations, the person in charge is only caring for its' dependents to get something of value out of them in the end. If one of the cows causes too much of an issue or some of the fruit rots or gets infested, it will be removed to keep the rest of the herd or harvest producing.
Our governments use us as their livestock and feed off of our dependence on their tokens of exchange. That's why we are never asked to become a citizen, you don't ask a baby cow that you just bred and ripped from its' parents to be your calf do you? You don't ask that calf what it wants to do when it grows up, you guide it to serve your own means. It seems evident if we take a step back that the governments we all "belong to" are doing the same to us. The funniest thing about all of it from my perspective is that we can all simply stop playing the game if we so choose, but to be really free we all must make that decision or at least the grand majority of us. The problem I see is that too many of us have become domesticated and dependent on a system of being used and abused by these benevolent rulers that we trust to keep our cages clean and functional. Personally I think I do a better job of looking after my own cage than the government does. Namaste.
I like where I am, but the US could definitely do better. We have way too much government, way way too many citzens who do not acknowledge this simple fact, and we are going downhill fast. You are not "free to leave" either. You can try to move to some place with less government, but our government will keep the taxes they stole from you....
I think there's no exception. almost all countries in the world are the same. It's the system and the winning one are the one who wrote the whole history and feed us to believe it when we are still young. In school and on any media. Sometime we are almost lost.. Dunno about the real truth
Even if I move to a more favorable country I have to live their 5 years to even apply for citizenship in most of them. It's a shitty system when you never agree to be a part of it and have no way out of it.
I think you are making a small though important mistake here: You're not paying taxes and fees to leave a nation/society/governmental areal. You pay to enter/join another one. At least that's the case in most nations, obviously in countries like North Korea the situation is a bit different.
From what I know of US citizens, they actually have to pay a fee to revoke their US citizenship when they change nationality, otherwise the US still claims they owe taxes on their earnings. Some nations have agreements with the US in place to persue US expats for these taxes.
Ok, I didn't know that. - Anyway, it doesn't weaken my main argument that normally you are free to leave a nation but wouldn't have a place to go after that. - It's like terminating your rental contract. You can always do that, but as long as you don't have a new one (or at least a plan what to do after) you should probably just keep paying your landlord. :)
Yes, I agree, but from an anarchist perspective, this is basically coercion. One of the two things anarchists oppose.
I think we should invoke something like global citizenship.
Now that we have global currencies, global citizenship's are the obvious next step.
Screw current war mongering governments!
We can now simply take the power away from government by playing the crypto.
I tend to agree but also see a "one world government" as the same problem ultimately. We'd all still be subject to the rule and authority of that one government. I favor anarchy and decentralization of government to a much greater extent than it is now. Hopefully the future looks different.
but it wouldn't be a one world government.
each individual is his/her own government/banker, 7 billion governments.
It would be a global citizenship based on the distributed network.
Local government could be supported by smaller local applications which would be accountable via the distributed network.
I get it, we're of the same mindset for sure then. Decentralize government to the point that each person is their own government and can participate in any groups willingly.
Tell me about it, I am Venezuelan and I suppose you know about the totalitarian government we have over here.
Do you like libertarianism and have you heard or read Ayn Rand?
Ya, I used to consider myself libertarian... I'm truly more anarchistic in the end though.
I learn blockchain will give us freedom. We are tired of selfish desires of the so called government institution.
The Governments are failing in its bid to tackle modern slavery. Modern slavery is a heinous crime and tackling it should be a top priority for every welfare state.
This modern slavery won't stop, if the government don't stop being greedy. You work this people to death and give them peanuts, out if the peanuts you will still tax them, light bill, electricity bill, fees etc. Come on and when they ask for a raise they are being fired... Thanks for sharing