Hope and Change, Conclusion

Continued from here.

Begins here.

I’m an extreme case; I’m a beardo who lives alone in the desert. Nobody cares what I do. I was able to do this because I’m old enough that those who legitimately depended on me are all grown and gone on their own. So it’s easy for me to talk, even though I really do walk my talk. What I am suggesting is not without peril. The direct taxation system this government relies upon for much of its revenue is called “voluntary compliance.” What this really means is that as long as you voluntarily comply, they won’t come and hurt you. But just get caught ceasing to do so and see how interesting your life can become. I am all too aware of the dangers and practical difficulties of what I am suggesting.

But how long do you want to keep propping up a lying, evil monster? There are steps you could take. They’re not timid steps, but most don’t carry a huge amount of immediate risk. First, (what you should have been doing all along,) can you be preparing yourself and your family so that you have some chance of living well through the bad times that may very well be at the door? Do you have stocks of food for months? Do you know what you’ll trade with if dollars lose their putative value? Do you live in a place, or do you have sure title and at least plausible access to a place, where you can live without benefit of the power grid and the conventional food distribution system? Can you defend yourself in a time when 911 becomes not even the grim joke it is now? These are things you should have been working on for years, and if you haven’t been it’s not too late but the clock is very definitely ticking. What used to be the province of survivalist nutcases has long since been proven simple common sense. The whackos were right; live with it.

But of course that’s just dancing around what I’ve been talking about. Can you reduce your needs, and your income, to the point where you’re no longer paying an enormous proportion of your rightful income to the IRS? That can actually be a lot of fun, family demands permitting (and once you get used to it), and is by no means illegal. If your employment contracts to, receives benefits from, or in any way props up this vile government, can you find other employment? I certainly know how inconvenient that is, but inconvenience is not impossibility. Can you? You should. These are simple things you could be doing to kick your own tiny share of the props out from under Leviathan, and they’re not even illegal. There are other things you could be doing; you know what some of them are and can learn about the rest. Those do carry risk; be sure to weigh those risks carefully before taking any action, and don’t say I didn’t warn you. Someday we’ll get together over a jar of home-brew and compare scars.

Scars are the mark of the warrior who lived; sometimes living is as much a matter of luck as of canniness. A monster thrashes horribly in its death throes. If you get caught in that, and some of us will, it won’t be pretty. There’ll be no practical defense. But understand that the alternative really isn’t any better; those who depend on and support this government in all good faith are going to find themselves suffering in ways that those of us who have stepped away from the economic and political system have some cushion from, as long as we don’t become victims of its retribution. I daresay a lot of those people will never even understand why they’re suffering.

We at least have that going for us; we understand. But the question remains for each one of us to answer – what are we prepared to do about it?