PERMISSION TO BE FREE

(Spanish Civil War poster from Refugi 307)

After writing for most of the weekend, my hands hurt, I had no thoughts left, and some local weatherman with a flair for the dramatic he probably gleaned from watching Inside The Actor’s Studio, was telling me that another unmitigated heatwave was on the way. On Thursday I’m doing my first live show in god knows how long and everyone will stay home and hug the AC. But then this diatribe turned up from Frank-in-the-Bunker via Doug the Bass and I figured it was wildly radical enough to pass along instead of a resume of my late summer August neurosis. The gun control argument may get some of you going. It is, however, almost identical to the Black Panthers position on firearms. (And probably what got a whole lot of them massacred by cops and FBI.)

"Slave: "Master, will you please stop whipping me?"

Master: "No."

Slave: "Ow. Pretty please?"

Master: "No."

Slave: "Ow. Darn."

There you have the entire political process, in this country and every other. Instead of asking nicely, should the slave be allowed to forcibly stop the master from whipping him? Surely we can't have that! That would be against the "law"! No single sentence better sums up the belief that we are the PROPERTY of the politicians, than this one: "You have to work within the system."In other words, we have no right to do what we want, until we first get the politicians, via "legislation," to SAY we have the right (which means it isn't a "right" at all). "Mom, can I please go out and play?" "Congress, can I please keep more of what I earn?" The asking itself implies that THEY have the right to decide, which in turn implies that they OWN all of us.The Declaration of Independence speaks of unalienable individual rights--which we didn't get from "government," and which no "government" has the right to deprive us of. Why, then, when the politicians do violate those rights (as they do on a daily basis), do we ask THEM to please stop it? It's because the general public does NOT believe in unalienable rights at all.If someone is trying to steal my car, do I need the THIEF'S permission before I have the right to try to stop him? No. So if tyrants are stomping on my rights, why would I need to ask them for "legal" permission to resist their oppressions? The very idea is idiotic. When it comes to "lobbying" politicians, I find the example of "gun control" particularly amusing. Lots of Americans believe, as the Founders of the country did, that an armed populace is the best guard against oppressive government. In other words, the common folk should be armed so that, if the government becomes overly abusive and oppressive, the people can violently overthrow it. So how silly is it to "lobby" politicians to please "legalize" private gun ownership? Consider the absurd message it sends: "We have the right to forcibly resist you if we decide you're being oppressive! So, um, can we please keep our guns? Pretty please?"The Founders said these things a lot more politely, and in a more respectable, civilized manner. I'll say it so anyone can understand: If someone tries to disarm you, when you haven't committed force or fraud against anyone, you have the absolute right--"law" or no "law"--to kill the person who tries it. Oddly, even most "gun rights" advocates don't like putting it that way, though their stated reasons for "gun rights" is to protect against tyranny. Well, duh: if you need the tyrant's PERMISSION (via "law") before you'll resist tyranny, what's the point?A consistent message from people who believe in gun rights—which admittedly would make most people very uneasy (because of their underlying "government"-worship)--would be this: "Dear Congressman, I understand you are considering voting for so-called 'legislation' that would disarm me. Be advised, if you do that, I have the right to kill any thugs you send to disarm me, and the right to kill you for sending them to do it. Have a nice day."I know a LOT of you cringed when you read that. No offense, but the only reason you would cringe is if, deep down inside, you believe that we are all OBLIGATED to obey whatever commands politicians decide to dish out. And in order to believe that, you must believe that each of us BELONGS to them. If some private individual threatened to come into your house to disarm you, most of you would, without hesitation, condone a response such as: "Try it, and I'll blow your damn head off!" And if ten people, or a hundred people, threatened to disarm you, you'd have the right to violently resist ALL of them.So why would you have any less of a right to do it--and why does the idea of forcibly resisting make most people uneasy--when people wearing the label of "authority" try it? Aren't they just people, too? In most peoples' eyes, NO, they aren't just people; they are representatives of our collective master, our OWNERS: "government." And as long as the people hold that view, the ONLY power they will ever have is the power to pitifully beg their masters to please be nice. In other words, they will have no power at all. A lot of people have said that they want something somewhere between what I speak of and what we currently have. They want a lot less government, but not none at all. But once again, when it comes right down to it, there are only TWO options: either we each own ourselves, or we are all owned by "government." There is no in between, and there can be no compromise between the two. EVERY so-called "moderate" solution concedes that we are slaves, but asks our owners to be nice. If we own ourselves, we don't NEED their permission to be free, their "laws" carry no obligation to obey, and we have every right to forcibly resist their infringements just as we would have if our neighbor decided on his own to start "taxing" and "regulating" us. If you ask me, being a slave who can only beg his master to be nice isn't good enough. If that makes me an "extremist," so be it. If I were a slave, I'd prefer a nice master. I'd be oppressed so rarely, and to such a small degree, that even I would rarely bother to complain about it. Nonetheless, there is still a fundamental, crucial difference between being the property of a wise, benign, permissive and kind master, and owning yourself. The former should never be accepted as being good enough. – Larken Rose

The secret word is Right!