Where the anarchists’ play

Just a little thought in my head that needed brought forward by a running conversation amongst peers in one of the dreaded social media apps.

Further aggression against the Bill of Rights. It may not need said among those I am conversing with, but for clarity, I will say it here. Our Bill of Rights is in peril. Has been for years, since at least the Thirties of the last Century, when the Second Amendment started getting assaulted with infringements, in direct violation of the Amendment itself (Shall not be infringed!!!!) SO, I am going to cover my stance on things as I see them, hopefully clarifying some things for others, and maybe, just maybe sending a memo to the remainder of the country that there are those of us with a like mind, and you really don’t want to piss us off. (Don’t Tread On Me, isn’t a threat, its merely a warning, just like the rattlesnake in the picture gives a warning first, before striking. FYI, a rattlesnake will rattle only after it can’t move away anymore. The people of this country that only want to make their way in life, can’t move away anymore, and this is our rattling that warning.)

There are only three rights¹ and three rules that need to be addressed here, everything else is details.

Right #1: The right of Individual pursuit of Life, Freedom, and Prosperity². Everyone of us gained that right by simply being born. How we address those three items is entirely up to us as individuals with certain precepts that guide us. Some of those are cultural, some religious, and some are inherent in the governments we happen to be burdened with, but there is always a choice: the difference between the truly free and the oppressed is how much are they willing to bear, or shrug off, and what sacrifices are they willing to make to be free. Freedom (liberty³) is NEVER Free. You must fight for it, either at the ballot box, on the soap box, or with the bullet box, but you will fight for it. Knowing a former Soviet Escapee, one that happened to get out from under that nightmare before it fell apart for the better, she sees what is going on in this country and warns others as best she can what is coming. She is fighting for freedom in her life yet again. The first time she sacrificed her entire family (they actually sacrificed themselves so she could escape, ) now she has only herself to give for the freedom, and is willing to give it for others to be free. Freedom is accepting responsibility; being accountable for your choices, decisions, and actions. In our current society, there are few that understand just how uplifting and burdensome freedom can be. We bury our responsibilities by accepting assurances we will be taken care of, at the promise of others. By accepting that promise, we surrender another slice of our freedom.

Right #2: The right to self-defense. This is not the second amendment cry. I don’t give a rats ass about whether a gun or rock or club is legal or not when it comes to self defense. The powers that wanna be can outlaw everything under the sun, and if I have the need to defend my life, I will use whatever is at hand to do so. Be it rock, limb of a tree, butchers knife from my kitchen counter, or that AR that just happens to still exist even though there aren’t any numbers on it and no paper-trail describing its existence. The right to self-defense is inherent just by drawing breath, and to deny that fact is to deny living. There is no creature under God’s Eye that isn’t interested in maintaining its existence. Even the damned virus’ that are running rampant across the world are interested in living, breeding, a continued existence past the here and now. Even a cornered rat will stand its ground and fight back. Not because it can win, but because it has to at least try! And sometimes that attempt is enough to make the aggressor back off and the rat gets to live another day. They can outlaw all the guns, but they can never get all the guns out of circulation. They can tax or outlaw the ammunition, but they will never be able to get rid of whats out here, nor stop people from making their own. Even if they did somehow manage to do both, and there were no more guns in the world (a self defeating attempt because you will need guns to enforce the decree), someone, somewhere, will find a way to eliminate another person’s life, if that is what their intentions are from the start. You can’t stop that, no matter how many laws you enact. Proof positive of concept: its already illegal to kill another person by any means, yet it still happens. Taking the tools away doesn’t stop the deed, it only makes the aggressor more creative in the deed. That’s all a gun is, a tool; its the person and their intent that make the tool deadly. In other words: I am the weapon!

Right #3: The right to self-segregate. This is one that has been getting skipped over way too often in our Civil Rights Era. It’s not a racist thing, in any way shape or form, its a personal choice, and one that I see others ‘guilty of’ more often than not⁴. You don’t see wolf packs integrating with wildcat prides, and you never hear about some zoologist crying about how racist the wolves are. I choose who I want to integrate with, on terms of my choosing, just as those I do or do not integrate with do the same in reverse. If I choose to mingle with people of color, or different cultural backgrounds, I do so on terms I decide upon, that are mutually (verbally or physically by actions) agreed upon by the people I am mingling with. If I choose to retreat to some mountain hide-away where all of my neighbors are the same color or breed, or cultural whatever, that then is self-segregation and there is nothing at all wrong with that. Even now, in a world where being a white male is the ultimate form of racial segregation and negative bias, the right to self-segregate is inherent even in the same breath of those screaming for racial equality. And yet those same screamers can’t see the dichotomy of their words. You see predominantly White neighborhoods, predominantly Black neighborhoods, Asian neighborhoods, etc. There may be the ‘odd’ duck in any of the above, and they may or may not be an asset to the community, but for the most part, the community is a homogeneous unit. This isn’t racial bigotry, it just how people do things. I believe strongly that it is a genetic impulse as well. (side note into another discussion, but won’t delve into deeply here: We may be “civilized” but we are only one or two generations away from that beast in the cave. Some individuals may be closer still.)

And that leads way into the rules that IN MY OPINION, should guide everyone, and is much shorter than the Ten Commandments,

Rule 1: Don’t hurt people and don’t take their stuff. Simple as pie, harder to live by when others don’t want to follow suit.

Rule 2: If it hurts none, Do as you will.. This is much harder and is NOT the ‘if it feels good, do it” attitude of the late Sixties hippie commune era. The concept of hurting none, applies to yourself as well. A corollary of this is “Live and let live.”

Rule 3: No matter how inconvenient, speak the truth. Obviously, there are times where this one may violate the second one, and at those times, omission is the côte du jure; just shut your trap. And there are many a time where keeping your jaws wired shut is the only option to keeping the peace and liberty we so wish for in life.

Some may say that those three rules will be violated if I exercise my second right of self defense. No. My right to self-defense is inherent to maintaining my right to life and liberty, and if some other decides to break the rule of leaving me in peace, then what actions I take to maintain, are justified so long as they are not unreasonable. If someone were to try and shout me down in a crowded room, obviously I do not have the right to kill them(even if doing so would unburden the rest of the species of a cancer. My opinion aside, that would be unjustified and unreasonable). But I DO have the right to try and shout them down as well: “In Kind” is a term that was used often in courts of old, when justice tended to be swifter and much more intimidating to violators.

Now, with my right to self-defense, if someone were to attack me, whether it be for theft, rapine, or whatnot: any physical attack on my person, or family, or property; I would be justified in use of deadly force to protect the above. My personal opinion of this is that if someone is making the decision to hurt me, either by damaging/killing my person, or my people, or stealing my property, they have chosen to take the risk of dying to do so. There have been too many silly word games played in recent years in the courts systems that twist that simple premise into a labyrinth of illogical and emotional trauma for the damaged parties. (and this falls under a piece of advice as given my family at one point in history, by a member of the Law Enforcement Community; If you have to, kill them, don’t wound them, or maim them. KILL THEM. Dead men can’t counter-argue. This is also supported by the Gun-cultures meme of “I’d rather be judged by twelve, than carried by six.”)

A slight digression here. Heinlein is often quoted as saying “An armed society is a polite society,” I think a civilized or polite society has to have a certain amount of Barbarism held in check, ready to be unleashed as may be required, to maintain that civil decorum. If law breakers knew that they would be held liable with their very lives, not just a short term in jail, a slap on the wrist and maybe some new restrictions (that they will ignore the same way they ignored the original set of restrictions), they would be more apt to keep an even keel with the rest of society. The ones that did ‘go over the rainbow’ would be dealt with, and there it would end. In short order, crime would become much less a problem in our world. That is not to say it would go away completely, human nature being what it is, there will always be someone that wants more, and tries to figure a way to gain it without earning it. People are inherently lazy: they will try to find the easiest route first, and some will have little issue with doing so at some others loss.

I have seen others vision of a more perfect world⁵, where people are the catalyst to growth and Government is stymied by sacrifice, not encouraged by allowed force. Where the individual is the building block, and to achieve a status in government means proving yourself in as many fronts as possible, achieving success, then sacrificing it all for the privilege of serving the community. That privilege supported by the sacrifices made, basic taxation in the form of Fees assessed in disputes of business departures, and resident fees (voluntarily made by residents, but enforced by needing the services of said citizens that make the sacrifices for leadership.) No one is “entitled” to anything, especially not someone else’s profits. An individual has to make their way, and the whole society is self-regulating. If someone is producing a faulty product, public response would drive that person out of the business. If someone were to be hurt by that product, baring self-inflicted wounding through mis-use, The producer would be liable for damages, to be determined by a Citizens Court where the defendant could counter sue to determine operator negligence, etc. Actual cases of damage through theft, vandalism, assault, rape, etc, would be handled at the societal level, either through arrest by others in the area (not law enforcement, as that should be a responsibility of all able bodied persons in a truly free society) or action by the intended victim at that time. In the case of assault or rape, if the criminal were killed, the victim would only need to show reasonable cause. (again, held by the citizens court if need be: usually in the case of a family filing wrongful death charges)

The problem with that more perfect world becoming reality is in our current mental state as a society. No one wants the responsibilities that such a society would force on the individual, even though it would be far easier and safer to live in such a world. So few are willing to accept that their personal choices have led them to where they are in life, and would rather blame everyone around them for their misery. “If they would just promote me,,,” “I didn’t choose to be born this way,,,]”, “If I had a better education,,,”, etc. It’s always easier to shift the blame, then to turn and look in the mirror and try see that person behind the mask we all wear. So many have been wearing the same mask for so much of their life, they aren’t even aware that they are hiding their reality from themselves. The responsibilities those three little ‘rights’ and three little ‘rules’ would force on people are too heavy a burden for a vast majority of people in this world. The choices they would have to make are too ‘hard’, and the road to that ‘easy’ life of true freedom and personal potential would require ‘too much work’. That state of mind leads society into Entropy, a steady decline of rewarding incompetence, and eventual failure dragging across decades.

Sadly, it appears we are at that cusp.

Without going into details that most everyone would know from our recent history, current trends in the world show we are on the cusp of something much much bigger than just a Pandemic. Observing how society is reacting to the events of the day, I think that understanding is much deeper than just a simple fear of a disease, and a temporary shutdown of society as a whole. I think the current actions of our present Government are a cover for something much more serious in the background, and while signs of that larger event are obvious, I feel that that what we are seeing has been coming for a long while yet, and is still being held back by the simple tactic of slapping another bandage on the bleeding wound. Time will tell how all of this pans out, and it will be up to the historians in the future to piece it together and make sense of it all. Unfortunately, no one will learn from our mistakes, the same way we haven’t learned from the mistakes of our ancestors, and all of this will be repeated again, in some fashion similar to this and other events.

1Freedom of speech is one of the most misinterpreted and misunderstood rights in our current world. Every one has an opinion, and everyone has a right to state it, but no one has a right to be free of being offended by the words of another. In the words of a friend, “I don’t have to agree with, or even like, what you say, but I will defend your right to say it with my life.” There are many now in the world that do not want to reciprocate that sentiment.

2This differentiates from the Declaration of Independence in something more inline with what Jefferson had originally written but was voted down on. His words were for Life Liberty and Property, which the Abolitionists argued encouraged slavery, and the Federalists felt undermined the Government as a whole. The compromise settled for ‘happiness’. Happiness is a personal perception, Property is a tangible. I am writing ‘Prosperity’ as it fits in the middle of the two, being able to be measured in scale with society.

3Freedom and Liberty are not interchangeable terms in my opinion. Doing so illuminates a certain amount of ignorance on the part of the speaker. Liberty is an agreed upon state by a group, and can be rescinded by said group at the expense of an individual, without the individuals consent. Freedom is self-enforced and carries weights and responsibilities that are not necessarily carried by the society as a whole. The differences are quite profound for two terms thrown around with such abandon.

4I find the whole ‘discussion’ of racism to be unstable. I see people stating ‘facts’ that are really just statistics, ignoring scientific facts as hyperbole, and twisting the entire discussion with circular logic from a previously determined goal, never seeing the contradictions, nor mental contortions they have to go through to achieve ‘the dream’. I have found it much easier the last few years when such a conversation comes into my world to just say “I’m Racist.” and stop the whole thing cold. I am not Racist though. I base my decisions on whom I congregate in Meritocracy. If you can , do: if you can’t, learn or go away. It’s that simple for me. Race is never a factor.

5Micheal Z Williamson. Freehold Series of Science Fiction/libertarian novels. He explores such a world through protagonist/antagonism using the Freehold as protagonist, and “UN” as antagonist; each novel covers aspects to the premise, and analyzes through ‘war gaming’, potential conflict of existing thoughts with those that would be needed to bring that world into reality.

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