Community, Community, Community In A Stateless Society

Continue

Living Free: Sharing Ideas on Being More Independent

Continue

Help start a Voluntaryist community!!

Continue

Beginning a voluntary society: Where is your Freedom? pt 2

In one of my last articles I began to talk about separating ourselves from the system of control or the “status quo” and that to experience true freedom we must first become self-sufficient and end our dependency on this system. I want to expand on those thoughts with more detail on how to achieve this kind of freedom.

One of the first things that must be addressed is coming to the realization that in fact there is a problem with too much control in your life. I liken this to addressing a drinking problem with an alcoholic. The first step to resolving the problem is to admit that there is a problem. Once you come to realize that there is a problem then everyday your eyes will open more to see the truth all around you. You will quickly know that you are not a slave to the system and that the state has no assumed authority over you.

A quick example is just the other day my wife and I were talking about renewing the license for her vehicle. She began to get upset as she thought of all the taxes forced upon us just to drive our own vehicle. Driver’s license, vehicle license, vehicle inspection, sales tax, personal property tax, gas tax, etc. The more she talked about it the more upset she became. Instead of trying to calm her down I told her she was right to be mad, that it was good for her to feel that anger because of what they are taking from us by force. This is what needs to happen to everyone. Wake up and realize how enslaved you are and begin to get mad about it. Get mad enough to walk away from that system and not take it anymore.

Now I can assume that maybe you have already begun this journey of realizing the great lack of need for government in your life or you probably wouldn’t be reading this. You probably already realize we are being suffocated by this system of control. The solution can be very simple as I talked about in Where is your Freedom?, just live without the system. Secede from that control. Make it such an insignificant part of your life that you begin to forget it’s even there. This may sound crazy or too simplistic but it can work and the reality is that’s it the only option we have left. Building our own sub-culture or alternative society can in fact lead to a revolution and a new beginning. This is the mechanism needed to bring about our freedom and the dissolution of this system of control. Let me show you how this can work.

Moving to a voluntary society through cultural secession can work and has a history of working. We must become self-reliant and end our need for the system. To begin this process we must start creating alternative economies and building new voluntary communities whether they are geographically local or connected through networks many miles apart. This is the foundation for a peaceful revolution and the only viable way to bring about freedom and a society without rulers. This has been done before with various levels of success and although nothing is certain, with the advances in technology and communication along with a greater understanding of past mistakes, we have a chance to create something greater than has ever been known.

Steven W. Sowards, Ph.D., from Michigan State University has written extensively on the fall of communism in Russia and the eastern bloc countries. Not only has he written about how communism fell but what lead up to that fall and this is what is so important. In Dr. Sowards lecture, The failure of Balkan Communism and the causes of the Revolutions of 1989, he talks extensively on how the eastern bloc countries created alternative societies and private second economies. He points to one of the causes leading up to the revolutions and the eventual fall of the Soviet Union was “the rise in alternatives to communism”. The failing Soviet economy and increase in national debt from over spending on the Cold War were of course major factors in the fall but the independence of the states and the people fueled this fall most certainly. The revolutions in Eastern Europe of course lead to those states gaining their independence from Soviet control and a chance for each country to build something new and better. Now of course not all of the revolutions were peaceful, although some were, and not all lead to a better situation for everyone but what we can do is learn from this part of history. What we can learn is that in fact people do have great power and when we simply opt out of the system and peacefully transact with others it can bleed the state dry and lead to a revolution of liberty and a society of voluntaryism.

The current social structure in America and in most of the world has developed to be nothing more than a huge welfare dependent system. Whether you receive a check or not our society has become satisfied and even desires to be nothing more than a slave or a commodity to the system. Our greatest fears are living without it and not having the safety net it purposes to provide. We mock and shun the idea of living without this system and to be free to grow and create on our own. Government did not create this monster, we did. We wanted something for nothing and believed the lie that the state could provide that. Would you believe that if over that last 100 years we had continued to be a self-reliant people and looked to ourselves and each other to solve our problems that the state would have grown to the size it is now? Most certainly not. This devouring growth is from us accepting the idea that someone else knew what was best for us and could do it better and that to accomplish that it was acceptable to take from us by force for the greater good of the state. We have paid a very high price for that, loss of liberty, independence, ingenuity, community awareness and true charity.

Do you now agree we need a change? Do you see that seceding from the system is where we need to begin? The question now is how? Well there isn’t any one answer to that question. What it will take is each of us finding our own way to break the chains of bondage. This will not happen overnight and each will do so at his own speed. What is necessary though is a conscious daily effort to live freely and interact with other free people without the states involvement.

To do this we must first create a counter economy. This is something many have been doing already. Samuel E Konkin III defined counter economics as “the study and/or practice of all peaceful human action which is forbidden by the State”. Some refer to this as a grey market or a market circumventing state control and influence which is the simplest type of economy. Major Corporations can be included in this also since most have become nothing more than divisions of the state, entangled so well together that there is no resemblance to a free market. Protesting with what you do in your daily life by simply taking yourself out of the system of control is by far the best way to a counter society. Konkin referred to this kind of a voluntary society as agorism, free people exchanging freely and peaceably. Of all the benefits of living this way the greatest I have found so far is the personal empowerment of knowing you control your life and directly make a difference with others in your community.

To become self- sufficient we need to, I believe, begin our focus on four areas; banking/financial, education, health/medical and food. There will also be other areas to focus on as we go which could include things like, media, communication, entertainment, transportation and personal and household needs.

Let’s look at some of those areas and see where to start on our path to independence.

Banking/Financial: This one seems to be an obvious one and probably the one area that has received a lot of scrutiny in recent years. I won’t go into the reasons why. That should be pretty obvious. Our protest to the Federal Reserve System and Wall St. has to go beyond the voting booth and occasional rallies, we must protest with our wallets. Beginning to remove your money from these institutions can be scary but is doable. Look for independent banks and credit unions or maybe not use them at all. I walked away from banks almost four years ago now and haven’t looked back. Sure it has been inconvenient, I have no plastic money in my wallet and there have been times it’s been difficult to do business but I always found a way and love everyday of knowing I am no slave to a bank. We need to work toward being debt free also and look to alternative ways to invest our money. Doing this also protects your assets from future market failure.

Looking for and supporting alternative currencies is another way to separate yourself from the system. There are more and more of these starting and of course there is the best way to transact, bartering. Ending our dependence on Federal Reserve Notes is a must and has been discussed in length by many others and I would encourage you to research them. Many forms of currency are simply returning to older methods of transacting business. Some could include gold, silver, other precious metals and even heirloom seeds or ammunition has been mentioned as possibilities.

This is going to be a difficult area to break free from and it won’t happen overnight but it is a process you need to begin. Banking and those that run them at the very top are ultimately some of whom are against what we want, free from the state and their control. Don’t let convenience turn you into a slave.

Remember freedom is not cheap nor is it the easy way. My grandfather always said “anything worth having is worth working for”. We will continue this discussion in my next article which I hope opens the doors to talking and more importantly acting upon this. I make no claims to be an expert in these areas. I am simply a person longing to experience a life free from aggression and control and an even greater desire for my children to experience that.

Continue

Obama is finally telling the truth!!

"..You didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen" the President let us know this past week and boy does it have the internet a buzz. Pundits from all sides are racing to be the first and loudest to put their two cents in on Mr. Obama's statement. The so called right is very quick to attack and expose the President for his "liberal" beliefs and counter him with the idea that American's have built what they have with their own two hands and not with the aide from big brother. But I think he's on to something.






Now before the hate mail starts rolling in let me quickly explain myself here.






In the July 13th speech Obama used phrases like "somebody along the line gave you some help", and "this unbelievable American system", could he be right? There are a lot of programs, aide and grants and he has a point that most education and our infrastructure is government funded and controlled. In fact nearly every aspect of our lives the government has their hand in one way or the other. So is the President correct and we just don't want to admit that or maybe, just maybe he is only partly correct. Let me explain.






Do Americans work hard and should they get credit for what they create? For the most part yes. In a very short amount of time America has been built to be a world leader and yes, that is mostly due to the ingenuity and strong work ethic America was founded on. But here is where Obama could be right. Over the last 30-60 years the state on every level has been in full growth mode. They have succeeded in poking their nose in and gaining a foot hold in every area of our lives. They tax and regulate nearly everything. They are looking over your shoulder everywhere you go and rarely can you make a transaction, build or invent something or start a business without Uncle Sam right there taking his piece of the pie.






I frequently use this as a way to help open people’s eyes to just how big government has become. Let me ask you, name me anything in your life that isn't in some way taxed, regulated, legislated, licensed or controlled in some way by government. I have yet to really find anything that isn't. Everything in your life in fact has had governments hand in it in some way. You can't even drink a glass of water without a tax or regulation on that water. I challenge you to look around and think of how much government is in your life and in everything that's in your life.






So maybe the President is right. You can't do anything without the government. Anything you create, build or invent has Uncle Sam’s hand in it. Instead of attacking him praise him for finally admitting that there is too much government! Let me tell you friends when we have a government that is regulating the amount of water I flush down the toilet when I use it, WE HAVE TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT! Open your eyes and see this. Realize that all these things around us could have been easily done without government and then you will soon see that the need for government is no longer there. Mr. Obama mentioned we thrive because of government and that is where he is off. Government is the one who thrives because of us. They need us to exist; we do not need them to exist. Don't fall for their lie any longer. We do not need them and the less we use them, the less we run to them the more insignificant they will become in our lives.

Continue

Where is your freedom?

Who owns you? Are you a slave? Are you truly free?

These are some of the questions I asked myself some years ago and I now find myself asking others.  Many times the immediate answers are, Me, NO and Yes! But are we really being truthful with ourselves? Are we truly free? Do you really have the freedom of choice to do as you please as long as you aren’t harming others? Well of course you don’t, there are laws and if you do as you please you might break a few laws. But that’s ok isn’t it? I mean we need those laws to have the things we do, right? If we don’t have laws we won’t have freedom right? Well that’s what we are told to believe anyway. But have you ever stopped to think for yourself and ask if that is really true? I mean how can laws enacted by someone else telling us what we can and cannot do make us free? Do you ever stop and question what we are told to think? The first step in making the government mad at you is doing just that, thinking for yourself.

Well let me answer some of those questions. NO, government and laws don’t make us free and NO, we don’t need them to be free. This is something that has been told to people by those wanting to control those people for about as long as there has been people wanting to control others. All one must do is stop believing what you are being fed and start thinking for yourself and questioning what you are told.

Do you understand that you are already free? Your freedom is intrinsic to your humanity. Yes, simply put because you are human you are free. You already have free will and free thought. So stop asking for freedom and start living a free life! Now I assume right about now there are a few reading this that are starting to wonder what kind of crap are you reading? Yes, I know it just sounds too simple. How could man have lived under oppression for thousands of years when all he had to do was just say “I am Free.” You do own yourself and no one has the right to control you or your thoughts but yet everyday someone does. We have been conditioned for many generations now to accept that authority over us and obey it. Why, because we live in fear of it. We are afraid to live as we choose because someone may come and take that life away or take us away. Freedom is not living your life to the extent that you are told to live. If you think you are so free then begin to live outside of those bounds and see just how free you are.

I have a 170lbs Great Dane and she has a large back yard to roam and live in. She is fed well and receives shelter and protection from outside danger but is she really free? No she isn’t. She is only as free as the fence allows her to be. She cannot roam freely where ever she chooses and even when she is outside of the fence she knows she should stay around the house because that is where her safety and security is found. Now this dog is the size of a full grown man and if she wanted to go against me I have no doubt she could overcome me but she doesn’t. Why, because she has been raised to know that she should stay on her property and obey me simply because I say so.

Are we like my dog Maggie? Do we do what we are told simply because we are told to or because of the fear of what punishment we could receive if we do not obey? Do we obey because if we do we can be safe and secure? If you find yourself answering yes to any of these then maybe you should ask yourself if you are really free. Are you truly living your life to the fullest and with the freest expression? I think most of us would have to be honest with ourselves and say that at least on some level we are not living free, that we are complying out of fear. If this is true then I ask you to begin to question your beliefs and loyalty to a system that only wishes to control you and offers you no freedom. Our system of government always continues to grow and control more and even though at times it may seem to slow down for a while in the end it is growing, however slow that may be.

So what do we do about it?  The classic answer is to elect someone fix it and restore liberty. But how can our freedom be restored if the government doesn’t own it in the first place? Well maybe this newly elected official can cut back on the infringement of our liberty, right? Yes, that’s possible but really highly unlikely. For even if we were to elect a person of true integrity that person would be fighting against hundreds of other elected officials focused on controlling more. So what if we elected all new officials that were moral and just and focused on restoring liberty? There are still those “men behind the curtain” to deal with. Yes, they exist and no, they will not give up control willingly or easily. So is the election process a waste? Possibly yes but I will acknowledge that some small victories still could be made through it. Overall though, I do not believe individual liberty can be found through electing someone, no matter how good that someone is.

So now that I have probably made a lot of people mad I will offer a solution to the remaining readers of this article. After 17 years of activism and reading countless books and articles and studying philosophers of the past I have finally come up with a solution, a way we can attain and experience true individual liberty. Ready? Here it is: Just ignore the government! That’s right, live your life without them, act as if they don’t exist. Ok, no I didn’t come up with that on my own. It is something many people before me have been saying for eons. But the question is can it work? I say yes and for several reasons. First and the most obvious is the personal satisfaction of living truly free is possibly one of the greatest benefits. You will come to know that only you own yourself and only you will make the decisions on what you may do. Second, if you do this and if more and more follow then, over time we can see true change. There is evidence all around us of this being successful.  Once the government realizes you’ve called their bluff and refuse to comply and decide to live your life without them they know that they’ve lost power and many times will move on to other things or dry up completely. Now this isn’t to say that they might choose to fight back and try to hold onto what power they believe they have over you but this is where we show them we do not need them any longer and we are living our lives without them.

I like to call it cultural secession, where we turn away from the “American and World Culture” and form our own culture and new societies. We must cut that umbilical we have allowed to keep us tethered to the government teat for far too long. With freedom comes responsibility and work so this is not easy or cheap but in the end we can work to build a new future for ourselves and our future generations. I know at first many will say it can’t work but I say it is our only hope left.  Let me give you a couple of examples of how this has worked in the past to help bring freedom from government to some people. Now I know there will be critics because there are other reasons the following examples won their freedom but these people making a choice to live a life without the government did play a big role.

Example 1. Home schooling: I was homes schooled back in the 80’s; in fact I have never attended a government indoctrination center. Back then home schooling was still a pretty knew idea for most people, there was nothing popular about it. We had to hide to do it. We feared at any moment being hauled off to school or jail for not complying with the “rules”. We made excuses and were careful where we went and who we told like many others during that time. Even people you would think would be accepting thought what we were doing was horrible, so called freedom loving patriotic people and the church crowd were some of the harshest critics of what my parents were doing and yet we pressed on like many others. Yes, along the way laws were changed and court cases were won that alleviated some of the fears. But the biggest reason homeschooling has grown and now viewed as the smart thing to do for your children is because people wouldn’t stop homeschooling. Even though there were dangers for those in the beginning and they faced ridicule they kept doing it and more joined them and I believe that when the system realized they could not win this battle they began to give up and turn their focus to other things. 

Example 2. Gay and Lesbian rights: The year is now 2012 and only the most extreme haters feels a gay person should be locked up in prison for being gay but did you know that just 9 years ago some states still has laws on the books criminalizing living an open life as a gay person. Before 1962 it was a felony in every state to be gay and have a relationship with a same sex partner. What changed? Of course several things, court cases were won over throwing previous laws, legislative actions were taken to change laws, public opinions changed and society became more opened minded but the biggest reason why things changed? Many, many people began to make the decision to live their lives out in the open the way they were meant to. There was danger in this and many we persecuted because of this but they did not give up and when those in power realized they could not win this fight they began backing down and focusing elsewhere.

There are many other examples I could give and I do realize both of the above examples still fight for the freedoms they desire to express but both have won tremendously and are definitely ahead in the battle simply because people never gave up and made the choice to live freely whether they were allowed to or not.

So how do we use this as an example to live our own lives freely? First and foremost we must break away from this system of comfort, safety and security. We must accept the responsibility for our own lives and understand no one is responsible for ourselves and the decisions we make. We must understand that this is not an easy road ahead but in the end the benefits of freedom cannot be compared to any kind of comfort or security. We must come to realize government isn’t a necessary evil in your life and that you can go on and even prosper without it. Know this that you and only you own yourself and you are no slave and will not submit yourself as a slave to anyone. Once you realize and accept these facts you will be well on your way to enjoying the complete freedom of self-ownership.

To get there, there will be few things along the way we must do to separate ourselves from this system of control. You see it’s not just the state that is part of this system but banking, corporate farming, international and large corporate merchandisers, the compulsory education system, most modern health care, media and most of the entertainment industry as well as most churches are part of this system of control.  I will not go into details on these things in this article because they in themselves are lengthy to discuss so I will save that for a later article but the point is to begin now to look to ways to end your dependency on this system. This is a growing movement so there are more and more ways to do this and even create new societies with other like-minded people in your area and around the world.

I too am personal working on this along with my family. This is not an overnight change and no one should expect it to be. We are daily looking for ways to be more independent and realize the easiest isn’t always the best. My wife and I are currently working on a website that we hope will help others wanting to live the same and help bring people together not based on political affiliation or religion but on how they chose to live their lives.

I truly believe we are all on the brink of something great. Maybe that something is to pave the way so that someday future generations can live free from control, advancing beyond the archaic idea of this need of government and knowing through truth and fact that our humanity establishes that we are free and that none have the right to take that from us.  

Continue

My Experience with Homeland Security

The following is an article that I first published in the fall of 2009. The original blog I used to post this was hacked and deleted so I have decided to repost this here.

Greetings my dear friends of Liberty.

I have a story to tell of my first hand experience with Homeland Security and FEMA. I have told several friends and have tried to get the word out over the past few years of my experience with them. I feel I must now tell this publicly with the hope of awakening more to the dangers that may lie ahead in the very near future. What I will tell is the complete truth and although many of you may not know me that well I hope the ones that do can vouch for my character in being honest.

From 1999 through 2008 I worked in the law enforcement field. I am a 2000 graduate of the Drury University Peace Officers Certification Academy and in 2005 I was working as a Hospital Security Officer for a local hospital in Springfield, MO. While working there I was told of a new emergency response team being formed in my area and was asked to volunteer to be on the team. Along with being on the team came additional training that I felt could help my career. I soon found out that this team was part of Homeland Security and the training would be through them. Being that I had already been very aware of the damage to our liberties that the HSD was doing I wanted to see first hand what this training was about so I volunteered.

This training was to be for Chemical, Nuclear and Biological terrorism. It would be three days of training. The team consisted of Law Enforcement, Medical and First Responder personnel. The training was put on by a private company contracted by the US Army out of Ft Leonard Wood Missouri. Ft. Leonard Wood is the headquarters for the Army’s training in chemical, nuclear and biological warfare. The first day of training was typical book learning about the affects of these agents in or on the human body and how to decontaminate if in contact with them. After the first day we broke up into groups of our respective fields of work and that is when it became interesting.
Being in the law enforcement group my training dealt very little with the medical side of things other than how the personally protect ourselves if we were to come into contact with said foreign chemicals. My training dealt mostly with how to deal with the population in a time of crisis. We trained on forced evacuations, containment, quarantine, removal from homes, forcing citizens into the quarantine areas to be decontaminated and to receive their forced vaccination. Yes, I did say forced vaccination.

We were told that through our governments experience in our own country and in other nations that they have discovered that even in a time of crisis the people still do not trust the government and will most likely not want to be moved to a government holding facility. They encouraged us to build relationships with local churches so that we may use their facilities because the people would be more likely to go to a church than to a government holding facility. We trained to use public transportation and school buses to go into the communities and go door to door to remove people from their homes to take them to the quarantine area. We were told that some will not want to go and that even though it may be our neighbors, friends or even family that for the safety of the community we needed to be prepared to use force, even deadly force to remove them.

Once to the containment area the people would be ordered to fall in line to be decontaminated. Prior to the arrival of the people a decontamination area would be set up at the entrance to the facility and all other exits would be locked with chains to prevent anyone from leaving the facility and possibly recontaminating themselves. The decontaminating area outside the facility would most likely be tents set up and run by the first responder and medical staff. We were told that one of the most difficult things we had to do was at the entrance to the decontamination area, to force the person to strip naked so that they could be properly decontaminated. As they went through the process they would be scrubbed, washed and scrubbed again being forced to go down an assembly line of sorts before they could enter the quarantine area. At the end of the line they would receive a vaccination and a pair of hospital or jail style scrubs or jumpsuit to wear. Once they entered the holding facility they would not be allowed to leave until released by government officials.

Through out this training we were told many times that this is something we may not want to do but we must do it for the greater good and safety of the community. We were told how we needed to begin now to prepare ourselves mentally for the possibility of using force on our fellow citizens. We were told that this type of training could be also used in the case of a pandemic out break of a disease. I felt very strongly that they were making an attempt to in effect brainwash us in how it would be so necessary to get full compliance from the people. Of course as the training went on there were jokes and laughs made about having to strip people naked and washing them down. I specifically remember one comment from an instructor as to how some parts of the body are affected when they are naked, cold and wet.

After this training I was asked to be the Security Coordinator for the team, I declined and resigned from the team. I was told that there are teams just like this being formed all over the nation, in every county and that they are being funded and coordinated by the Homeland Security department.
My story may not be much but if it can help to awaken a few more to what is going on in our country and how we are so rapidly loosing what little liberty we have left then I will have done some good. This training was four years ago so I am sure the training is more advanced and intense now. I see the signs all around that one day, maybe very soon these type of tactics might be used right here in my own neighborhood. When that day comes I hope I am not the only one resisting the state.

I hope you will spread this message around for I have not been able to get any media to be interested in it. I swear to you that every word I have typed is the truth.

For Liberty,
Travis Maddox

To see my interview featured in the movie Enemy of the State: Camp FEMA 2 please watch the full film below.

Continue