We Have Forgotten What Liberty Means

[Published by the Front Range Voluntaryist, article by Mike Morris]

The editorial board at The Gazette has issued their thoughts on the meaning of Independence Day, July 4th, in print titled "Independence is our country's foundation." As usual, their politics are typical of the sentiments held at large by the people, pushing a narrative that what we already have is freedom, or independence, and that today is one to sit back and appreciate this reality, thanking “our” men and women who fight for freedom, and such other absurdities.

Even if they hint at something right, being a daily paper in an area of around half a million people their viewpoints are much tempered as to appeal to the masses. Much better for us that we have the niche of liberty.

Failing to see that something has changed since the Declaration, and indeed, that something, the Constitution, changed quite quickly after it, The Gazette repeats the untruth that

"governments...are established to secure these rights."

They espouse the typical fallacy that

"the government of free people derives power
only from the 'consent of the governed.'"

Does anyone really think the State, Donald Trump, Congress, or anyone else that makes it up, has the consent of the people it claims to represent? They don't. If this was ever true, they certainly do not today. This is how governments must make people believe that their cause is just and moral; that "taxation is voluntary" and their rule is consensual. Any thinking man can decipher through these falsehoods.

Then we're right on to the next statist talking point:

"Our government's military has successfully defended
against external foes who don't like our independence
or what we Americans have done with it."

No one is a threat to America. Not the Russians, who the deep American state wants war with, and who spends a fraction on their military as the U.S. does; not the Muslims, the terrorists they fund and use as pawns in the Middle East; not the Mexicans; not any other boogeyman the state creates to justify its own expansion, which is always the excuse to grow and deplete liberties at home. There is a striking resemblance in this line of the old George W. Bush excuse that "they [the terrorists] hate us for our freedom." What nonsense this is.

They also say that,

"Some cultures don't like the American women are
equal to men by law."

Of course, when statists speak of equality, they don't mean equality before the law. If they did, they'd have to oppose the government to, which is indeed that institution which claims a right to receive its income by expropriation whereas this is called "theft" for anyone else.

Then, onto another bogus and hypocritical point that only an American exceptionalist could believe, they say,

"...dictators fear our independence and all it has
done to facilitate a culture of liberty and astonishing
wealth."

So much for pretending to make war in the name of "democracy" as the U.S. does, even though this is not even a noble goal, as democracy is just the soft variant of communism, the U.S. has toppled democratically-elected governments around the world on many occasions and installed in their place dictators who were more favorable to U.S. foreign policy than their predecessors.

Not to mention, what culture of liberty? The whole entire culture is statist to the core. Only if one conflates liberty, which is precisely opposed to the idea of the state, with the state itself could one think there's a culture of freedom in the U.S.

And furthermore, it would be worthy to mention that our wealth has come, not because of the U.S. government, which plunders our property, but in spite of it. Americans would be many times wealthier today were it not for the endless wars, the central bank, and the countless programs the state has erected over the past century alone, deemed "progressive", were it not for this evil, corrupt institution that everyone finds so indispensable.

They must have some readers who are really kidding themselves:

"If we were not independent of all...internal
government excess, we would lose our most
fundamental freedoms."

How can anyone possibly think we're free from internal government excess? The government has practically abolished the market economy all together. One may not open a business without getting a license, travel in a vehicle without doing so, not pay taxes or comply with their endless legislative decrees without consequence, or hardly leave the house without the potential to be harassed by their street thugs, the police. The only thing that withers away with the State is freedom. It's not the State; that grows ever larger until the people who have kicked the can down the road for decades have to admit that their government is financially and economically unsustainable and morally unsound.

They go on to say that

"It [socialism] meant centralized control of the economy and the governed. It was the antithesis of independence.

But they simply assume that we don't have that now, with a central bank like the Federal Reserve that believes, or uses this rhetoric at least, that it must be the central planner of the economy. It must engage in "monetary policy" and manipulate the market to keep it functioning smoothly, or to provide "stable prices" in the economy, all of which aren't necessary and that it didn't do anyway!

They are right that the trend among younger people, who supported the explicit socialist, Bernie Sanders, though tagged in the front "democratic", is not a good future for Americans should they be successful. But mostly this is a rant on their part. All these older folks who denounce socialism in name only are largely socialists themselves, supporting Donald Trump, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the whole shebang of socialism that the government puts forth.

They conclude that,

"Our country fights for and defends independence as a
foundation for life, liberty and pursuits of happiness.
That's why Americans of all ages and backgrounds,
throughout 50 sovereign states, celebrate independence
and the culture of freedom it sustains."

So, what we have already, according to The Gazette, is a government that believes in self-ownership and state's rights and independence and a culture of freedom. Any reasonable human knows this isn't the reality.

A Declaration of Independence, unlike that characterized by our local daily, is about revolution, radicalism, rebellion, secession and withdrawn, resistance. what they call treason, and quite literally, killing those who claim that they own your life and resources. Anyone who tries to paint it as anything less as to soften it for an audience who is too susceptible to believing their rulers rule by divine right is watering down the history of America, which indeed was to violently oppose taxation and monopolies.

The traditions Americans celebrate today are far removed from what we should be radical for. Freedom isn't an eagle; it isn’t Mount Rushmore; it isn’t an American flag on a t-shirt; it isn’t a hot dog eating contest; it isn’t shooting off fireworks and eating barbecue; it isn’t a balloon at the grocery store that reads “proud to be an American." It means much more than that.

One concise introduction to liberty frames the concept as that of negative liberty. J.C. Simpson says,

“Negative liberty is what many in the libertarian
tradition would consider as liberty. It is the absence
of an oppressing force. Negative liberty has its
foundation in self-determination, or as we libertarians
call it, 'self-ownership.' It is the belief that we as the
individual are the arbiter of our actions to the extent
that these actions do not infringe upon another’s
negative liberty.”

Those who defend the idea of “limited government”, which is an empirically failed utopia, believed that documents such as the constitution, which have obviously failed to constrain its reach and scope, could tame the beast that is the State once erected. This “limited” government was supposed to do only a few things: protect life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Obviously, or maybe not so much, the U.S. has come a long way from its supposedly limited role. The law is not, as the Gazette assumes it remains, one of protecting life, liberty, and property. The law, or, legislative edicts by the government, is one of tyrannical rule over the people it claims fall under its jurisdiction.

Essentially, they want to absolve themselves of blame, too, being complicit themselves in consistently defending the status quo of statism in the Springs’ only daily. They just assume that things are good the way they are, but a generation of socialists, that are coming around, threaten to disrupt our libertarian way of life.

This is so far from the truth to not even be funny. Governments abolish capitalism and freedom; and governments, supposedly for the collectivist idea of the “common good”, are inherently socialist. America is nothing of a free market, and at least for the last one hundred years has eroded liberty from the people, beginning early in the century with the Federal Reserve and the income tax, into the Great War, then America's fascist experiment of the New Deal with FDR, into the World War, to the Great Society, removing the last connection of gold to money in the 1970's, and everything else, up to the post-9/11 surveillance state we live in today where they still speak of what enemy, North Korea or Russia, we should prepare to obliterate next.

They keep the useful collectivist rhetoric that “we’re all in this together”, and such, as to make up for the fact that there's a difference between us, the people, and those who make up the government. Hence their use of "our government" when referring to the things the U.S. military has done with our money, that we aren't responsible for, having been robbed.

The Gazette is right that everyone is becoming more socialist, but it's the government that implants such socialist ideas into people to justify its own growth. The state is nothing without the ideological support it has obtained over the many years of indoctrination, primarily through its control of the public school system, an essential monopoly of any government that is ostensibly for equality and accessibility but in fact for them to control our thought.

States must use propaganda to succeed, in the name of "patriotism", "saving the economy", or "national security", to advance in their encroachment of liberty. Their existence depends on swaying public opinion. This is why they hope that July 4th is nothing but another flag-waving, statist holiday rather than one where Americans reflect on their anti-state roots.

Real liberty, and not this artificial one where members of the state, like “law enforcement” agents fly the banner of, is when people are free to disassociate with political unions they find do not benefit them. Liberty is the idea of self-determination, contrary to the man on The Gazette's front page yesterday at "Freedom Fest" who dressed as Abraham Lincoln, the man who violently forced people to remain in the Union.

Those who might rebut with the common reflex of “leave if you don’t like it” fail to see that there is not political anarchy, but a consolidation and concentration of state power lead by the central, federal government. They don't actually let you leave, as in secede. Only dupes and slaves buy into this one.

Sadly, no longer at this stage must the government defend itself, but those it subjugates do it for them. No longer is there a clear divide between the ruling-class and the ruled, which nonetheless exists, but people have come to believe that “we” are the government. The government, using its “we the people” slogans, make everyone believe the State is “us.”

But we have forgotten what liberty is. Freedom to these people, like those who attended Fort Carson's "Freedom Fest" is eagles and flags and statues and other symbolism that replaces freedom as an idea. If plundering our property on war toys is liberty, then I suppose those at Freedom Fest, who gave an ode to those who were deployed to Europe in a proud showing of force against the Russian threat (oh my!), do have something to celebrate.

Unfortunately, the people today who would be most likely to fight for liberty, say, the gun-owning conservatives, have totally lost sight of its true meaning too, flying in a contradictory manner the blood-soaked American flag next to a "don't tread on me flag." They're the ones who give unquestionable allegiance to the authoritarian state, who, being "thin blue line" supporters, would have no problem handing over their guns to the state's police officers who exist to protect the tax-slavery.

The U.S. military is not "fighting for freedom." If you believe that, you're delusional; and you should seriously consider sitting back and getting over yourself and asking why it is that you have accepted this simply because they pushed it on you, or your brother "serves" in the military. A service is when people freely and voluntarily provide consumers with their utmost and urgent demands. The military, receiving their funding via taxation, is far from being the service of the people, the consumers. This why the statists have to make up terms such as "freedom isn't free", when it's precisely that it is, to justify their hypocritical actions; to make good with their internal biases. The military, as is all taxation, is a disutility to the people. It makes us worse off; it makes us poorer.

The military does not "safeguard the country", but fulfills the wishes of the ruling elite. Many of them know it. Others are more comfortable to deny it and say it's "just a job." Whatever happened to an opposition to standing armies? To reject the idea of collectivist defense that needs an enormous, ever-growing budget.

So what is it that Americans celebrate today? The growing militarization of the police? The trillion dollar wars in the Middle East that perpetuate the military-industrial complex? The crony banking system they've bailed out? The corporations they protect? The business cartels they've created? The hundreds of thousands of Americans locked in cages for the trillion-dollar Drug War? If America is about individualism and self-determination, then there’s little to celebrate today. Indeed, there’s a lot to fight about. We cannot declare our liberties once every two-hundred years and call it good; the idea of liberty has to be alive in the people forever, and they must continually assert their rights unless they wish to be overcome by massive, exploitative statism.

Despite being the superpower the American state has become today, we could once again throw off the biggest, most powerful government in the world, as Americans did before, were we determined to be free, and were everyone's conception of liberty to once again be based in the classical liberal idea of negative rights rather than the need for government as a property redistributor. It doesn't matter if they have a monopoly on force and have all the guns if everyone quit believing they had any moral right to rule us. The people who extort us and exploit us depend highly on the ability to portray themselves as essential or having the "consent of the governed." Papers like The Gazette help them support this silly notion.

But it is first a battle of ideas. We must convince a sizable portion of the population that human liberty is the most noble cause of all, and that government is not its provider, but the oppressor; that states are always anti-liberty.

The American Revolution was libertarian; and with libertarianism—based around self-ownership, self-determination, and private property rights—on the rise again, the prospects for a Second American Revolution grow ever more likely. Not that we wish for violence, but not that the state will peacefully back down, either. Being radical and principled is fine. What we would fight for is liberty, not the made up "right" to other people's property as all to many millions view the need for government as.

Thus, being radical action without principles, i.e., without the goal of individual liberty and the idea that people own themselves, as is seen to a great extent among the political-left, which is radicalizing against arbitrary enemies such as when "antifascists" deem anyone and everyone they don’t like a “fascist” in belief it helps their cause, is a dangerous idea. Their idea of revolution is not liberation, or at least their idea of liberation isn't liberty as defined in negative rights, but it is one where everyone obeys them and become obedient to a new set of people who have an equally tyrannical mindset of how people should live, i.e., under socialism or some other sort of collectivism rather than individualism.

While there is a way out of this mess non-violently, as Chris Leroux notes, we have a right to fight the State. This is the true spirit of July Fourth, whether or not this is too much for some to digest today. Nearly no one anymore, however, is radically anti-state. While the liberty movement grows in the Western world, particularly in the United States, nevertheless we are a small minority who uphold these principles. That's the "American way", if anything is. Not crying at soldiers passing by or saluting uniformed agents of the state.

In fact, the notion of liberty has become so radical itself to so many that even minarchism, much less a libertarian statelessness, is considered to be akin to fascism by many. How they reason that a philosophy poles apart from statism is "fascist" just shows that they too were students of the public school system, who believe that government is progress.

While the Colorado Springs Socialists, however weak or dangerous they really are, wish to “Make 2017 1917”, in reference to the Russian Revolution which established the Soviet Union, what we need today in America is a repeat of 1776: a Declaration of Independence that declares ourselves free from the U.S. government which has become the biggest, baddest imperialist Empire that remains in the world today which of course does not, and could not, exempt its domestic citizens at home from meeting the brunt of their evil.

To state the obvious, as J.C. Simpson does, that

“to enact policies that are congruent with positive
liberty, many negative liberties must be infringed”,

shows that such ideas which are taking over the minds of the people is a dangerous trend. This is the road to total socialism and tyranny which is statism’s inevitable course. We need a libertarian revolution, not a socialist one. The only way to roll this thinking backward is to remind those and teach that true liberty, i.e., freedom from all government, is the cause that people’s everywhere must uptake if to avoid the repeated collapse of societies and empires throughout history which all worked in the same way.

We can, and should, seek liberty. We should not think of it as an unattainable goal, where our principles might be correct but are impossible to achieve, which the American Revolution once showed was possible. But we should uphold consistently the principles of liberty every day in an unashamed defense of them.

America has come a long way from being a small, relatively limited government where men smoked cigars and did little while they were in office to being the hegemonic national security state that it is today where its faces come into power by making a bigger, more unachievable promises than the other demagogue.

There is much to be angry about today, not satisfied. We cannot content ourselves to the scraps they have left for us should what liberties do remain survive.

The State must condition us over time. No way, of course, could they have put up the taxation-regulatory state at one time. It must be sold to us, slowly but surely, over the decades so that it can be normalized among the people who might otherwise reject such logic outright as patently absurd.

I personally don't think we should respect cops, the military, or any other government employees simply because "they are just people too." They are, after all, the state. They are the people who call themselves the government. Admittedly, many are do-gooders. This is perhaps worse, though. I believe we should hold these people, who receive their income not by providing a service in the economy, but by stealing from others, in outright contempt.

People seem to forget the most significant sentiment of those radical, revolutionary times:

“That whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People
to alter or to abolish it…” ~Declaration of Independence
(July 4, 1776)

How much longer do we wait, until we're all locked in jail or shot by the police? The Constitution, as Lysander Spooner always emphasized, is an illegitimate and invalid contract that binds no one.

The Gazette's editorial board is completely useless when it comes to historical interpretation, economics, politics, presidents, or basically anything which steps outside the standard, acceptable status quo of things to talk about. Don't expect anything radically liberal (in the true sense of the word) from them.

I didn't see them mention Brexit, CalExit, Texit, or any such thing, when if we should be doing anything today it would be cheering secessionist movements anywhere and everywhere they can be found; calling for the state to nullify federal laws and declare their withdraw; saying how Colorado should refuse to be told what to do by Washington anymore; etc.

We must teach the people, through logic, philosophy, and economics, that taxation is theft on a grand scale which has diminished the liberty and prosperity many believe will last forever, and that we don't get to keep our illusion of liberty if only we shoot off fireworks once a year and hollers of "'Merica" echo through the woods everywhere. It takes more than that.