Gandhi on his famous salt march. Take note: no guns.

Adam Kokesh, an activist and former marine that I’ve written about before, is inviting fellow gun owners to march into Washington, DC on July 4th while openly carrying loaded rifles. Adam may or may not follow through on this. He and his fellow marchers may or may not get arrested. He may or may not be doing something constructive, depending on whom you ask. I won’t be joining him in the march, but I applaud his courage and his proactivity. Adam is a valuable member of the libertarian community. I like him, I respect him and he deserves our support.

Yet I must take issue with his latest statement in the Washington Post. When asked by a reporter what he will do if DC police block him and his companions from entering DC, he replied simply, “Satyagraha.”

This is where I facepalm.

Satyagraha is a strategy of active nonviolent resistance used by Mohandas Gandhi in the struggle to get the British government forces out of India in the middle of the 20th century. The word ‘satyagraha’ translates as ‘soul force,’ ‘truth force’ or ‘insistence on truth.’ Satyagraha is not a synonym for civil disobedience, although civil disobedience can be part of satyagaha. It is, in fact, a way of life. The term is intricately linked with Gandhi and his radical nonviolent approach to life. Martin Luther King, Jr. was also a conscious practitioner of satyagraha.

As you can see in the Gandhi movie, Gandhi never used satyagraha with firearms. In fact, if you study Gandhi at all, you will know that Gandhi was not a fan of firearms. He was against forcibly disarming people. But he refused to use violence or carry a gun. Interestingly, he viewed satyagraha as superior to force of arms.

In fact, Gandhi viewed violence, including the force of arms, as utterly incompatible with satyagraha. He demanded that people stop practicing satyagraha in the middle of fairly successful campaigns precisely because some individuals were taking advantage of them to use violence against British government troops.

It is simply impossible to talk about firearms as being a part of satyagraha. In satyagraha, you present your case to your oppressor. You stand firm, demanding that a mutually agreeable solution be worked out. You take any abuse the oppressor dishes out but you keep on coming back. You do not give up. But you do not use violence, defensive or aggressive, against the oppressor. The goal is to reach his conscience – because every individual has a limit as to how many times they can hurt another, directly, face to face.

You may or may not like satyagraha, you may disagree as to its effectiveness and you may have a thousand different opinions on Gandhi the man and the leader but there is no factual or historical basis for claiming that guns are compatible with satyagaha.

Satyagraha and guns are not just not compatible. They are diametrically opposed. The very success of satyagraha for Gandhi and his fellow Indians came when they abstained from all appearances or uses of violence in the face of the brutally violent British government response. This tactic made clear the moral superiority of Gandhi and his friends while revealing the utter moral depravity of the British government.

You cannot combine guns and satyagraha and expect anyone to take you seriously. Satyagraha is about the force of truth – an uncompromising adherence to the truth that does not permit fear or subservience! Firearms are about the force of gunpowder and lead. Satyagraha works when your cause is righteous and you come to your oppressor with only the force of your truth. For public relations purposes, the disparity in force of arms between you and the oppressor makes for a good David and Goliath story. It inspires media coverage – and respect. It makes for a good story, which everyone enjoys. Everyone loves those who have the courage to stare down a barrel of a gun armed only with the force of their truth.

Satyagraha can not be used where both sides are armed with the force of gunpowder and lead. There is no space here for sympathy. The individual oppressors can not relax and listen to you, because you represent an immediate and credible threat to their lives. Also, your force is, on a surface level, equal with theirs. Both sides are armed. Since the presumption of correctness falls on the government side among the great mass of the population, the state-regulated press will easily make you look like the bad guy. Now you are corrupting the term ‘satyagraha’ for all those who will come after you and actually engage in the real thing!

That is a perversion of the truth. It’s infuriating and disappointing.

Take the example of the 1981 Irish Republican Army (IRA) hunger-strikers. Members of the IRA in prison took on a hunger strike – a nonviolent tactic – to protest their imprisonment. But they were in there on charges of using armed force. Armed force and nonviolent tactics are incompatible. Ten of these IRA members died due to their hunger strike. Their cause did not inspire the requisite sympathy – whether you think it was just or not – because they were known for using violent tactics. Their nonviolence was not sincere.

On the other hand, the woman suffragists during World War I did not use violence. Their hunger strike, after being jailed for political reasons, did engender sympathy. Their cause was just and their means were nonviolent. They successfully got the government to give them the vote. Not that it did them much good, but they met with success.

But I don’t think we have to look into the past in order to understand why mixing violent and nonviolent tactics is a major fail. Look into your own heart. You can not threaten to strike someone and then expect them to be sympathetic to you. Nonviolence is an attempt to reach a mutual understanding using reason. Violence is an attempt to force your point-of-view on another person. Reason doesn’t play a part in it. Force cancels out reason, in fact.

But the rifles would never be used! Perhaps Adam or another participant will make this claim. Look at it from the point of view of the DC police. It’s like that Emerson quote: “Your actions speak so loudly, I can not hear what you are saying.” The act of carrying a loaded rifle by individuals who claim that you are using aggressive force against them and that they are justified in using defensive force against you is a credible threat. It doesn’t matter what you say in a political confrontation when you carry a tool that can be used to kill. In the shoes of the DC police, I wouldn’t be able to hear a thing any of the rifle-toting folks said because I’d be too busy watching for any sign of attack.

In fact, in the Washington Post article, the reporter asks Adam if his use of the word satyagraha means that violence is unacceptable at the march. Adam replied, “Only if absolutely necessary in defense of life or limb.” And this confirms, for anyone lagging behind, that Adam does not understand the meaning of satyagraha.

I’m not against firearms. I open carried for 6 months in the Philadelphia area in 2009 and 2010. I was arrested twice for it and forced to stop when the US marshals in Allentown confiscated my guns as a precondition of letting me out of federal prison. Every individual’s freedom to keep and bear arms must be respected. But, before you start talking about satyagraha to a national newspaper, you better know more than Adam obviously knows about it right now. Because when we finally have the courage and the conviction to actually use satyagraha, the corruption of the term will only make this challenging yet incredibly noble and ultimately effective strategy all the more onerous to implement.

There has been an enormous amount of criticism around Adam’s planned march, both against the march itself and Adam personally. This article has nothing to do with any of that. I must admit to being a little concerned for Adam. I wonder if he is biting off more than he can chew here. I support him personally and, while I won’t be participating in his event, I support his right to do what he proposes to do under the current political paradigm.

Why won’t I be participating? I am a dad and my son is still very young. My primary responsibility is to ensure that he grows up with me around as an active force in his life for his own personal right to self-determination. I can’t do that if I’m dead or caged. My primary strategy for achieving liberty is satyagraha. I’m not currently interested in using the force of arms to achieve anything other than the defense of myself and my loved ones in some very extreme scenarios. This event is not compatible with my own personal strategy but I simultaneously respect Adam’s chosen path.

How Adam Can Fix this

It’s not too late for Adam to evolve his event. Jettison the firearms. Make it a real example of satyagraha. We can train participants in satyagraha, which is much more than simply a synonym for civil disobedience. March not for the right to self-defense but for the right to self-determination, which is what we actually celebrate on July 4th anyway. Adam knows where to contact me if he’s interested in my proposal.

Further Reading

Wikipedia: Satyagraha

Washington Post: Activist Adam Kokesh has history of rabble-rousing and self-promotion

Facebook Event: Open Carry March on Washington #OpenCarry130704

Wikipedia: 1981 Irish Hunger Strike

Wikipedia: Women’s Suffrage in the US during WW I

The post Guns and Satyagraha: Never the ‘twain shall meet appeared first on George Donnelly Arm your Mind for Liberty.

I’m starting a new series, in addition to my written articles and the podcast I’m doing with John Tyner. This one is called Liberty Talking Points. Every week, I’ll address a libertarian topic in two minutes on video. So there’s no long-winded droning-on (the really dangerous kind!) for an hour or more about a certain topic. I just sum it up for you in a bite-sized chunk. I’ll be talking about issues that often come up when doing libertarian outreach, when dealing with statists and when planning libertarian strategy.

New episodes will come out first on YouTube, so please subscribe to me there or get my newsletter (the subscribe form is after this post) to hear about them extremely quickly via a brief weekly email.

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Trust your Kids

This week’s episode is about trusting our kids. As a parent, this can be hard. I personally was treated very poorly as a child and led to believe that this is how kids should be treated. I was taught that kids are incapable of rational thought, shouldn’t be taken seriously and were not deserving of liberty or self-determination. But through my 7 years of raising my son so far, I’ve experimented with taking him seriously, not using violence or even discipline, with negotiating instead of giving orders, with attachment and unconditional parenting and with unschooling. It’s gone incredibly well. Give your kids a chance, expect the best from them, build a bond of tight trust with them and I think they’re going to surprise you!

The post Liberty Talking Points 0001 – Trust your Kids appeared first on George Donnelly Arm your Mind for Liberty.

Listen Now

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Show Notes

• Adam Kokesh On CBS Discusses Open Carry March On Washington DC.

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About the Podcast

The Art of Liberty is a 30-minute weekly podcast about current events and politics by John Tyner and George Donnelly, two highly opinionated, yet eminently reasonable, libertarian activists from opposite coasts. We record every Monday morning and release a new episode every Tuesday morning.

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The post TAOL 0005 – Adam Kokesh’s Open Carry March appeared first on George Donnelly Arm your Mind for Liberty.

Listen Now

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Show Notes

• Here’s the original article about the peer-to-peer exchange.
• Here’s the site (apparently still in beta).
• Nash equilibrium.
• Here’s the article about bitcoin mining that originally caught my attention.
• Here’s the slashdot article about distributed mining.
• Here’s the original slashdot post about the company slipping the mining code in.
• And here’s the original article.
• Here’s the libertarian parenting video with Stephan Kinsella.
• And the one with David Friedman.

Ask us a Question!

Ask us a Question on Air! Call (641) 715-3900 ext. 255888 and leave us a voicemail with your question so we can play it on the air.

About the Podcast

The Art of Liberty is a 30-minute weekly podcast about current events and politics by John Tyner and George Donnelly, two highly opinionated, yet eminently reasonable, libertarian activists from opposite coasts. We record every Monday morning and release a new episode every Tuesday morning.

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The post TAOL 0004 – Libertarian Parenting appeared first on George Donnelly Arm your Mind for Liberty.

Listen Now

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Show Notes

• $2 Trillion Underground Economy May Be Recovery’s Savior: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100668336
• r/Economics thread on this: http://redd.it/1d3umk
• Small Business Confidence Retreats After Three Months of Gains: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100623684

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Ask us a Question on Air! Call (641) 715-3900 ext. 255888 and leave us a voicemail with your question so we can play it on the air.

About the Podcast

The Art of Liberty is a 30-minute weekly podcast about current events and politics by John Tyner and George Donnelly, two highly opinionated, yet eminently reasonable, libertarian activists from opposite coasts. We record every Monday morning and release a new episode every Tuesday morning.

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The post TAOL 0003 – The Underground Economy is Saving the Government appeared first on George Donnelly Arm your Mind for Liberty.

Here are the first two episodes. We hope you like it!

Episode 1 – Bitcoin

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Episode 2 – The Boston Lockdown

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We expect the podcast to be available on Stitcher, doubleTwist and the Blackberry Podcasting Directory soon. Please check the podcast homepage for updates or subscribe to my newsletter.

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The post 55,000 Reads on my Boston Article appeared first on George Donnelly Arm your Mind for Liberty.

That’s a great question. Anyone who criticizes must also propose alternative solutions that remedy their criticisms. Such a practice is simply good faith and integrity – not to mention in desperately short supply!

Lockdown Unprecedented

It’s important to recognize that even the FBI’s official historian admitted that the Boston Lockdown was unprecedented. It had never been done before. That leads us to the inevitable conclusion that the lockdown was a unique event. It’s not standard operating procedure to lock down a major metropolitan area when a fugitive is on the loose, no matter what he is accused of. Even the FBI, the highest civilian police organization in the United States, admits this.

So you can not argue that the Boston Lockdown was normal. You can not argue that it was expected. You can not tell me that it was business as usual. It is impossible to believe that no one was surprised by this. It had never been done before! So don’t try to tell me that the cops were just doing what they always do. Your own FBI says you’re wrong!

Libertarianism: Equality, Peace & Honesty

Very few critics of libertarianism are able to muster a decent critique of it. Most simply do not know a whole lot about libertarianism. It is, at root, the radically egalitarian idea that we are all equal and no one may control you using physical force or any kind of non-physical fraud. That’s it! That’s libertarianism in a nutshell: equality, peace, honesty.

But somewhere between those three gorgeous little words and your TV screen, it all goes horribly wrong. Libertarians are regularly demonized on all kinds of issues that I won’t go into here. My point is that libertarians are frequently misunderstood. In fact, eminent people regularly tell blatant lies about us. So try to set aside your preconceptions and other people’s judgments and make your own decisions about libertarianism for yourself.

Libertarianism is not a Panacea

Libertarianism as a political philosophy – as a guidebook for organizing society – does not pretend to be a panacea. In the final analysis, no system will solve our problems for us. No system will eliminate violence, inequality, poverty, rudeness or feelings of emptiness all by itself, just by the push of a button.

A system is only as effective as the individuals who operate it. In any system, organization, community or family, it is the individuals who make things happen, or not. It is the individuals who provide protection or cause harm. The individuals involved are responsible for what takes place. Results depend on personal characteristics such as conscientiousness, integrity, industriousness, intelligence, perseverance and the taking of initiative.

What libertarianism does really well, however, is recognize that each individual is a world unto herself and that no one can make decisions for the respective individual except for that individual himself. In other words, libertarianism is about liberating individuals and letting them follow their own heart. Each individual must of course also be responsible for the consequences of their decisions. Libertarianism is not just about doing whatever you want whenever you want. It’s also about bearing the responsibility for your actions. Complete liberty and complete responsibility – scary, isn’t it?

A Thousand Libertarian Societies

So how would a fugitive in a libertarian society be caught? It’s first important to understand that there is no one libertarian society. Freedom implies diversity. In the future, there could be millions of unique and different libertarian societies in existence. Liberty is not like the state (it’s the opposite in fact). Libertarian societies need not have borders with guard posts and barbed wire (though some might!). There may be no large countries (empires) like the USA or the European Union. We may see a return to the era of city-states, or even organization on a smaller scale. We might see city-block-level governance.

This does not however mean anarchy (in the sense of destructive chaos). Upon a foundation of individual agreements in the form of associations (think cooperatives), large syndicates (think cooperatives of cooperatives) could be formed with standardized sets of rules and dispute resolution procedures. Decentralized organization does not necessarily mean a tower of babel. It just means that governance is now accountable at the level on which it operates.

For example, today, if you want to legalize the production and consumption of a plant like cannabis, you must travel perhaps hundreds of miles to your state capital and convince hundreds, perhaps thousands or millions of people, to change the rule against it (a rule you never consented to in the first place). And even if you succeed, you may still have to travel thousands of miles to the seat of the federal government where you may have to convince tens or hundreds of millions of people. That’s insane.

In a libertarian society, you might only need to convince the 10 to 100 neighbors on your block or residential community. And if they don’t agree with you, you could move to another block where they do agree with you. And if there is no community that agrees with you, you can go live independently in a place where you can make the rules. You can even start your own residential community where the rules that make sense to you prevail.

Nobody for Mayor of Boston

This preamble is necessary for non-libertarian audiences because in a libertarian future, Boston would most likely be less of a political entity and more of a geographical region. There would be no mayor of Boston, no governor of Massachusetts, no president of the United States. There would be no political leaders per se whatsoever. There would likely be no one person who could demand, much less enforce, a lockdown of any large area.

There could be multiple competing confederations of citizen-controlled security organizations. These confederations could be cooperatives, mutuals, corporations, unions, sole proprietorships or even worker-owned federations of freelance individuals. Citizens and citizen organizations (think business associations, block governance, home-owner associations, civic groups, etc.) would hire these security organizations to provide security for their respective properties. Think ADT but now the home security system is just their entry-level product.

There would be no more police, as we know them today. The function of providing security is transferred to the equivalent of private security guards. There would be no police or government to limit the abilities of these security organizations. They would be limited by their customers, their competitors, their respective insurance companies and society-at-large. So they’re not mall cops. They’re real cops. They’re simply very accountable. There is no more de facto sovereign immunity for police officers who commit crimes on the job.

Since these security organizations now operate at the behest of individual property owners (business owners, high-rise building owners, street owners, home-owners, etc.), they can set up extremely tight security on the property they are responsible for – if that’s what the property owner wants. They can set up cameras (that actually work, unlike a lot of current government surveillance cameras). They can frisk people who wish to enter the property. They can use all types of security screening to ensure that your block, neighborhood, street, workplace, office-building, sporting complex, airport, etc is safe.

In a libertarian society, you can actually have better, tighter and more effective security than you had in Boston’s police state on Friday and without violating anyone’s rights. Did I blow your mind? Don’t believe me? Read on.

What about my civil liberties and my privacy? In your home, on your property, you are the master and may maintain your privacy as you wish. But when you set foot into my home, you have to agree to my rules if you want to come in. It’s like the dad who says to his son, “My house, my rules.” I don’t mean that in a condescending way, but that is a pithy way of summarizing libertarianism.

No one is forcing you to enter my office building. If you want to come in, you have to abide by the rules. And the rules say that you must submit to a stringent security screening.

But that’s not fair! Good, I’m glad you think so. Since there are hundreds of office buildings in a large city like Boston, and now we have freedom, each building owner (doesn’t have to be an individual, the owner could be a cooperative of the individual office owners) can decide for herself what level of security she thinks is appropriate. The owner of the Sears Tower (taking examples from Chicago), for example, may insist on the strictest of security measures during a terrorism scare while the owner(s) of the Hancock Building may only instruct their security organization to use passive security measures when there is no terrorism scare.

What if all of the office building owners band together and they all use the same Orwellian security measures? I want to work in an office and now I can’t because I don’t like those kinds of security measures. Great observation. You could try another city, or, if there are enough others who agree with you, you can get financing to build your own, more libertarian, office building. If people like your security better, you may even force the other office building owners to change.

What if there is a lazy, obstinate, absentee property owner (of a building, sports complex, block, etc.) that doesn’t take appropriate security precautions? Great question. Since there are no governments now to bail property owners out of their losses, property owners will need to manage risk another way. In fact, they already manage risk in other ways. I’m thinking of insurance.

Insurance exists to mitigate risk. You get car insurance in case you hurt someone with your car, so you don’t have to pay to make the person whole again out of your own pocket. You get property insurance in case your house burns down, so you don’t have to rebuild out of your own pocket. You get life insurance in case you die, so that your surviving loved ones don’t have to struggle financially as they rebuild their lives. There is insurance to mitigate many of the risks we face in life.

In a libertarian society, each individual may have to carry insurance just to step out of their own home and onto the property of another person, be that the street, another home, a workplace, a sporting complex or an airport. Owners of property may have to carry insurance to make sure that if someone is hurt on their property, that the injured party is made whole. In a libertarian society, the complex web of free interactions will likely be protected against misconduct (force and fraud) at all levels with insurance policies.

But these policies don’t just pay out when something goes wrong. The insurance companies writing the policies have a strong financial incentive to make sure that nothing goes wrong in the first place! Returning to the lazy, obstinate, absentee property owner who refuses to take appropriate security measure at, let’s say, his sporting event (for example, the Boston Marathon), he will not be able to hold the event in the first place if he can’t get insurance coverage.

In order to get coverage, the insurance company will in all likelihood require him to have adequate security policies and personnel in place. Otherwise, they won’t cover him and he won’t be able to hold the event. If they don’t ensure that he carries out the event safely, it’s their skins on the line. If people are hurt or killed, they stand to pay out millions.

In fact, their reputation will suffer. People will call into question the security not just at the location of the successful terrorist attack, but at every single property that this lackadaisical insurance company covers. In a freed marketplace, this insurance company could be put out of business overnight as its customers restore confidence by changing to another insurance provider. In the end, it’s just a lot cheaper to ensure adequate security.

So, in a libertarian society, the pressures to do the right thing will most likely be many times stronger than they are right now in the statist society. Not to mention that people will be free of state restrictions (laws) that, in a surprising number of situations, currently prevent them from doing the right thing.

A Libertarian Manhunt

But even if terrorists are able to penetrate tight security, where will they run to? Everything is under surveillance. There are security guards on every block, either in person or via camera. There might be drones in the sky keeping an eye on things. Even the streets have owners now, and those owners are responsible for providing security. If they don’t, they can be sued – and not in super-slow government court! They will have surveillance measures in place, if only to ensure that the cars on their streets have the appropriate insurance stickers and have paid their fees for the use of the road.

In a modern, technological libertarian society, there is nowhere in an urban area to run to. There is nowhere to hide. Everyone has seen your photo and is on the lookout for you. What manhunt?

Even in today’s statist society, there are many libertarian aspects and enclaves. On the popular news and discussion site Reddit, motivated individuals created a subreddit to find and identify the Boston Marathon Bombers shortly after it happened. (Predictably, law enforcement and the media denounced it and Reddit shut it down after a short but fascinating existence.) Individuals on social networks, on their cell phones, on mass media and in real life shared photos of the suspects. It is a factual reality that bombing suspects can be rapidly identified and that their photos can be rapidly shared with tens of millions of people, each of whom serves as a lookout with direct cellular access to a security force that is capable of apprehending the suspects. That already exists!

Even in today’s statist society, it was not the 9,000 paramilitary troops in Boston that found the surviving Tsarnaev brother. It was a lone individual who came out of his house for a smoke once the government lifted its lockdown order.

Those of us who are paying attention to the rapid pace of technological and societal innovation taking place today will recognize that egalitarian systems are more powerful than top-down hierarchies. Crowdsourcing, open source software development, Wikipedia, peer-to-peer systems like bittorent, social media – these are examples of libertarian ideas in action. They have had a powerful and far-reaching impact on our daily lives already. Imagine what we can achieve if we experiment with these ideas in even more areas of our lives?

Sidenotes

Sure, there are lots of likelys, coulds, shoulds and mights in this article but you can clearly see that the incentives in a freed society are pointing us all towards common goals. Like a chain, a system is only as good as the individuals that make up its individual links. But a system based on freedom, equality and the utmost respect for individual sovereignty gives us the best chance to achieve our shared goals.

This is just a short (well, it got rather long) article so there are many aspects of a stateless society and polycentric law that I haven’t touched on. This doesn’t mean that libertarian solutions don’t exist in these areas! It just means that I’ll write about them in the future.

But there are plenty of resources out there on these topics. Please google them if you want to learn more. I surely didn’t invent them. I am still learning about them, in fact. And there are better individuals than I who have written better pieces than mine on these topics. The Center for a Stateless Society is one noteworthy organization that is putting out serious work on these issues on a daily basis and has been doing so for years. I recommend them. Their content is free and they like it when you repost it.

But this is not an issue of just idle speculation about one possible future. A lot of libertarians are convinced that the most pressing ills of our society – war, violence, poverty, the high cost of healthcare, excessive imprisonment, inequality, unemployment, terrorism and more – are precisely caused by the statist form of societal organization. And we also have good reason to believe that, by tweaking our form of societal organization towards radical liberty, we can enable individuals to significantly alleviate, if not outright eliminate, these ills.

What’s at stake here is not just our own respective individual futures and the futures of our kids, but also our future as a species. And that’s serious business for any human being. These ideas merit your consideration.

The post What does a Libertarian Terrorist Manhunt Look Like? appeared first on George Donnelly Arm your Mind for Liberty.

Yesterday in Boston.

How would I have handled a terrorist manhunt? My reply to critics is here.

Yesterday a major US city – perhaps as many as 1 million people – was put under martial law. Business and universities were closed. Public transit and Amtrak were padlocked. Paramilitary cops from multiple states rolled down Boston’s residential neighborhoods in humvees with manned machine gun turrets on top. In full battle gear, these guys – they looked like soldiers – called people out of their homes. They then searched the homes. Boston became a ghost town and a police state for a day. And Bostonians cheered them for it. Some even called for a parade to honor the men who treated them like prisoners in their own homes.

This grand show of force, which even the FBI admits is unprecedented, was carried out for the purpose of catching a suspected terrorist – a 19-year-old honor student – who stands accused of deploying pressure cooker bombs at the Boston Marathon. These bombs reportedly killed 3 people and injured 170.

Think about that. Boston was turned into a giant prison for a day to catch a teenager with pressure cooker bombs.

What does this mean?

1. Terrorism “Works”

For a maximum investment of perhaps $1 or $2 thousand dollars, ideologically-motivated individuals can cost the economy perhaps as much as $1 billion dollars in economic output. Nobody yet knows how much it costs to shut down down Boston for a day but $1 billion is about how much the city produces on a daily basis. The return on investment for an enterprising terrorist could be as much as 500,000%.

The brothers Tsarnaev succeeded in gaining a lot of attention for themselves. Chechnya will benefit from this attention. People will want to travel there. People will want to understand what has been going on in Chechnya. We all want to understand why people do these kinds of things and people now want to understand these brothers.

In short, the boys in blue created a tantalizing incentive for others to copy the Tsarnaevs. The Tsarnaevs’ terrorism “worked” but only because the Boston government helped them make it work. This is not a conspiracy theory. By overreacting, the governments at work here magnified the Tsarnaevs’ effectiveness. The Tsarnaevs didn’t shut down Boston. They didn’t put paramilitary troops on the streets of a major US city. The governments at work here did that.

2. The Demand for Tyranny is too Damned High

People will put up with a lot – really a lot – in the name of safety.

• Turn the city into a war zone with soldiers and humvees? Sure.
• Lock down my proud city as if it were a prison? No problem.
• House to house searches without legal basis? It’s ok.
• Snipers aiming at me and my family while I wait on the sidewalk for my house to be searched? Yep, it’s legit.
• Cheer the guys doing all this, let them high-five my kid, suggest throwing a parade for them? Yep, it all happened.

It was like the TSA came out to your house for the day – and you were thrilled about it.

The ability of the US population to cheerfully accept tyranny is nothing short of amazing. If this doesn’t rouse people from their slumber, then anything that will rouse them is going to be too late.

3. The US is Shockingly Weak

It was just a 19-year-old kid with pressure cookers and guns. He didn’t even have fully automatic weapons. Yet everyone was so scared that they willingly cowered in their homes and complied with every request made of them.

Imagine if this kid actually knew what he was doing. Imagine if there were a dozen of these guys in multiple parts of the city or multiple parts of the country operating simultaneously. They could have brought the whole country to a standstill.

I thought America was a great country – a powerful country. I thought it was the best country in the world. That’s what they tell me at least. Is this the country that defeated Hitler in World War 2? Is this the country that put a man on the moon? If these events are meaningful to you, then you need to question what the hell happened. You can defeat Hitler and Tojo, you can hang Saddam and assassinate bin Laden, but you cower in fear of a 19-year-old kid?

Yesterday’s show of force actually made everyone more vulnerable by showing just how weak, frightened and cowardly people in the US are. Not only are the government cops a threat to freedom but they actually make you less safe!

The Proper Reaction

The proper reaction to a criminal (and let’s remember that the surviving Tsarnaev brother hasn’t been convicted yet) is to boldly (but tactically) proceed forward against him until he is neutralized.

Human life is precious. All life is precious, in fact. It demands protection. But there is something more important to me than my life – my self-respect. My self-respect demands that I not allow another person to control me through fear. It demands that I have courage. It demands that I resist evil.

We all feel fear. When there is a gun to your head, you have no choice but to comply. But we must not allow the fear to control us. We must not allow the gun, or the pressure cooker in this case, to become internalized and control us even when it is physically absent. Otherwise, any old boogieman can – and will – come along and enslave us.

If you allow an angsty teenager with a pressure cooker to frighten you into abandoning your daily routine and cowering in your home as if it were a prison, then you desperately need to re-evaluate your posture towards life. Reclaim your self-respect, Boston.

Bostonians could have sent a powerful message of courage to the world yesterday by continuing with their lives as usual. Now that would have served as a great deterrent to future terrorism. And the suspect would have been caught more quickly.

Should People have Cooperated?

When a dozen paramilitary cops with fully automatic battle rifles backed by a guy on a humvee turret and snipers come to my house, the words ‘voluntary’ and ‘cooperation’ have no place. I would be a fool to resist. They have guns to my head and the heads of anyone with me. It’s now too late to resist. I don’t blame anyone for cooperating. I blame them for cheering their oppressors.

Would an AR-15 have Helped?

Would having an AR-15 battle rifle and a high-capacity magazine have helped anyone (other than the paramilitary forces) survive the Boston lockdown (as one politician suggested)? No. It would be suicide for you and yours to fire on the paramilitary forces (not to mention not being constructive) and in the tight spaces of an urban area, I would rather have a handgun to defend myself from a home intruder.

The Police State for a Day Experiment Failed

It’s absolutely fascinating to me that only when they lifted the lockdown did they find the surviving Tsarnaev brother. That’s when the owner of the boat Tsarnaev was hiding in came out of his house and noticed something amiss.

Boston was turned into a police state for a day. It was an experiment. It failed miserably. The governments in operation there rallied all of the military might at their disposal with a near-complete suspension of liberty and they failed to find the man they were looking for – until they lifted their siege.

The bottom line is that the man on the street, the civilian, the regular joe, is a more effective agent for public safety than any hopped-up government employee with body armor, night vision, full-auto rifles and flash-bangs. Just like with Flight 93, the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber, it was the regular folks who played the key role in neutralizing a suspected terrorist – not the cops or the TSA. That should be a sobering fact for any law enforcement cheerleader.

What do we do now?

The Boston Lockdown confirmed what many of us already suspected. The climate for personal liberty in North America is going to get a lot worse before it gets any better.

• Those who favor arms will surely get more arms and better training. And they should.
• The lawyers will sue. And they should. It keeps them busy.
• Those who like protesting and running for office will do more of it. And they’re annoying so they should definitely stick to that.
• Those who are getting themselves put in jail for liberty should stop. Governments have an unlimited ability to incarcerate. And taxpayers have little sympathy for people who “break the law.”
• If you really want to do something useful, I think the best way forward is to practice what we preach. Become more resilient. Build more prosperity, for yourself and others. Build those personal bonds that constitute the emergent order of a free, decentralized society.
• And become stronger, both physically and spiritually. Because the road ahead is a long one. While there are no easy solutions, I foresee a lot of fun working them out.

Bonus: Here’s how the troops handled an individual video-recording them from his own home.

Bonus #2: Here’s what a house search under martial law in Boston looks like.

Bonus #3: As requested by the critics, here is how I would have handled a terrorist manhunt.

The post Boston Tried a Police State and it Failed appeared first on George Donnelly Arm your Mind for Liberty.

Cart before horse?

I caught sight of an odd national flag today. All national flags are odd but this one was odd in the sense that I don’t usually see them. My first instinct was to imagine ripping it down. But then, I thought, no one would understand.

My intention is to end the oppression that is caused by governments. However, so many people have their self-identities wrapped up in government flags that likely no one would receive anything like the point I was trying to communicate.

In other words, as an activism op in furtherance of peaceful evolution, it would be a complete FAIL. People would take it as an attack on them instead of an act of solidarity and mutual defense.

It’s too early for acts of destruction. First we need to build the new societies, the new consciousness, the new identities and the new culture. Only then does it make sense to destroy the old – and perhaps we should simply recycle it instead.

Until we have these new things in place, until we can show in real life that these things are better, more peaceful, more prosperous, more convenient and more congruent with life, destruction just confuses people. It scares them. It plays to the government’s strengths, instead of its weaknesses. It’s just not smart.

How can we build the keystones of a new world? Here are some ideas:

• Start counter-economic businesses.
• Patronize existing counter-economic business.
• Build (and help others build) identities that don’t depend on governments. One can do this with martial arts, vocations, organizations, professions, hobbies, belief systems and much more.
• Construct a culture that is outside the realm of the state. Write, paint, animate, draw, make films, tell stories, create (or adopt) myths and religions. Base it on our libertarian, anarchist and other compatible voluntary society values.
• Focus on the voluntaryist precept of constant self-improvement. Learn new knowledge, wisdom and skills. Work on integrating mind, body and spirit with such tools as aikido, zen (or other) meditation, yoga, etc. Become an expert at this and teach others.

We’re in the building phase, not the destruction phase. Let us stop destroying and start building. How are you building the new societies? Please share with the other readers in the comments below.

The post The Destruction Phase Comes Last appeared first on George Donnelly Arm your Mind for Liberty.

Shield Mutual is insurance for activists and others at risk for political crimes.

We’re all at risk for political crime prosecution all day long, every day, whether we’re filming US marshals or just relaxing in the comfort of our homes. The police and courts tend towards the arbitrary and capricious end of the spectrum. Their power is growing. Their impunity is all but unchallenged.

But we at Shield Mutual (and allied mutual aid organizations) are challenging them. I’ve already distinguished myself as an advocate for people in trouble. I helped an activist get home after the TSA wouldn’t let her fly. I got her cause 1,000,000 YouTube views. I helped get a newborn baby returned to her parents after social workers kidnapped her. I won’t bore you with the rest of the list. Suffice to say, I’m qualified to do this.

I don’t claim that we’re going to fund your civil rights lawsuit to the supreme court or make you whole after the cops ruined your life. Not the whole liberty community together has enough funds to plug the gaping hole created by the state’s awesome power to destroy. But we can afford eternal publicity – which is, after all, the price of justice.

My promise is that we will mount a media and activism campaign to get you what you need, release from jail, charges dropped, bureaucrat backing off, you name it. We will use websites, carefully constructed press releases, social media campaigns, op-eds, call floods and whatever other ideas we can come up with to let the powers that be know that, if they don’t back off, we’re going to make their lives very, very difficult.

We can make life very uncomfortable for cops and judges who attack, kidnap and cage our members. We can train the bureaucrats into recognizing that the person they are dealing with is covered by Shield Mutual – so you better pick on someone else. And, eventually, when enough people join Shield Mutual (and allied organizations) we will nullify political crimes in the United States.

Then we will have a clear road forward for the construction of the new societies we seek to build.

Here’s an excellent Bad Quaker podcast I did with Ben Stone yesterday on Shield Mutual (the first 15 minutes). Check it out!

Philosophy

When I first founded Shield Mutual last year, the concept was more mutualistic in nature. But almost no one signed up. So I decided to tweak the concept into a pay service where I was personally responsible for providing a service. Lo and behold, this works better.

Does this vindicate capitalism and disprove mutualism? I don’t think so. I just think that perhaps mutualism requires a higher frame of mind and we’re not there yet. But that’s cool. I get to do what I love to do (help people in need – always a righteous cause) and get paid for it.

Sign Up Today!

Shield Mutual coverage is just $50 FRNs or 7.6 bitcoins per year. Sign up today! Get the peace of mind you need and support the counter-economy for just pennies per day. Shield Mutual has an amazing vision for how we can actually progress towards the new libertarian societies we wish to create and live in. Every new customer is another step towards realizing our vision.

By the way, we also have a referral program. Earn $5 for every new customer you refer to us.

The post Shield Mutual: Agorist Insurance against the State appeared first on George Donnelly Arm your Mind for Liberty.

I was blissfully unaware of this until a friend mentioned it. You should be too. Stop watching mainstream media news. Just go cold turkey for 6 months. What they say doesn’t matter anyway. We already know that there is a fascist onslaught against our lives and liberty. We already know that it’s gaining steam. Why torture yourself listening to all the inane airheads sing its praises?

It’s not rational to hurt yourself like that.

Instead, let’s focus on what we already knew we should be focusing on anyway – the construction of new liberty-compatible societies that will render the current fascist ones obsolete.

No, don’t sign off and get drunk. You don’t have the luxury of being depressed. There is a great big future out there and it’s time you join the battle for it. I’m not talking about signing a petition or chanting a revolutionary slogan.

Here’s an idea. (Thanks to fellow (r)evolutionary Mariana Evica for the inspiration.) We know that ObamaCare is going to crash the healthcare system even beyond the unworkable morass it is today. So let’s build a dual power alternative. I’m talking about something that can

• patch the gaping holes in the current system;
• help those most vulnerable to this fascist power grab;
• serve as killer public relations for libertarians, anarchists and other (r)evolutionaries;
• grow the power base for libertarian solutions;
• be an example of agorist counter-economic decentralized entepreneurialism; and
• grow the wealth profiles of our allies and ourselves.

I’d like to see some healthcare professionals set up a model mobile, pirate clinic. Qualified individuals of all skill levels can provide medical services on demand to those who need it. Pricing is determined Ron-Paul-style by what the patient can pay. Sponsorship is accepted from local counter-economic enterprises to subsidize patients. Doctors donate their time or take a reduced fee in return for prestige and that warm, fuzzy feeling.

Once a solid model has been identified, and is working, the founders offer free franchises to anyone anywhere. Free training is given online using live-streaming, Skype, chat, file sharing, etc. Microloans are available to those in need of startup capital. The loans are disbursed and repaid via Bitcoin.

Taking inspiration from the feed-the-world anarchist collective example of franchise activism Food not Bombs, we can call this Bandages not Bullets.

Who’s starting the first one?

P.S. Even if you think this is unworkable, let’s be constructive and identify the obstacles.

P.P.S. Don’t assume that I am a heartless social-Darwinian psychopath who enjoys the idea of people suffering due to substandard or insufficient healthcare services.

I love the idea of health care services being available universally at the highest level of quality. I just don’t agree that the best way of achieving that is a state-corporate conspiracy to threaten people into corporate cost-cut factory settings where the last thing you get is decent care. I prefer voluntary and non-exploitive means of achieving this admirable goal.

The post The Supreme Court and ObamaCare are Irrelevant appeared first on George Donnelly Arm your Mind for Liberty.

Well, if you can believe Discovery that is. Many viewers are convinced it’s fake because, get this, the lead moonshiner, Tim Smith, is also the local fire chief. Stay tuned for how fascinating that detail gets.

Smith says it’s all real. The show was recorded 5 years ago, he’s stopped making moonshine and due to legal technicalities, he can’t be convicted of moonshining today. The state of Virginia is understandably a little upset about this. The show could encourage more people to exercise their liberty openly. The state’s enforcement resources could be exhausted. Oh and they’re losing tax revenues. What’s not to love?

But it might also get Smith’s volunteer fire department a new ambulance. Imagine providing a product people want, at a price lower than the state-controlled market does and it funds a volunteer fire department. This can’t possibly be an outcome of libertarian ideas!

Comments surprisingly run both ways.

Tim Smith of Moonshiners

DId you see tim stop what they were doing in the middle of the night when they were setting up?? he risked another trip away from the still site,possibly exposeing it to run a fire call. He has guts, and is a man

As a former law enforcement officer, I am highly offended that there is even a perception of Chief Tim Smith operating outside the boundaries of the law. Even if it is a hobby!

The validation that bootleggers and moonshiners help found and sustain the government and is part of our heritage is later debunked with their evasion of reported income for taxes, violating the property of others, destroying the environment for personal gain, and constantly placing their community in a position of risk rather than health.

This show is trash! Anyone in a position of leadership and entrusted with the responsibility of the safety of others should not be allowed to demonstrate the poor judgment Mr. Tim Smith has shown. Firefighters very often work hand in hand with law enforcement. Officers should not have to worry if the poor judgment of Mr. Tim Smith and his subordinates are victimizing those in need of assistance (i.e. stealing from a home during a fire).

Mr. Tim Smith is a poor example to all firefighters out there and Discovery should be ashamed of their contribution to this criminal enterprise!

9/11 did a lot to show the sacrifice our first responders like myself make day in and day out. Mr. Tim Smith does not deserve to be among those charged with these duties.

(It takes a lot of skill to sneak September 11th into a totally unrelated issue.)

Agorist Lessons

Here are some lessons I’ve drawn from watching a couple shows and reading some reactions.

• Nicknames are very cool and a good security practice.
• Consider videotaping all but the illegal parts of your counter-economic activities as a way to gain public acceptance for agorism.
• If you have the balls for it, you can do anything.
• Rational argument won’t change a thing. Getting out there and living your principles in a consistent and honorable way while showing that you value other human beings just might.
• Agorists who fund the government are digging their own graves. In one of the episodes, “Tickle” says that folks like him funded the first US governments. And now the moonshiners are almost extinct because of those same governments.

There are a lot more lessons to be learned from this. Here’s a playlist of all the episodes I can find. Check it out and let me know what you think in the comments.

The post Fire Chief Moonlights as an Agorist Moonshiner appeared first on George Donnelly Arm your Mind for Liberty.

Freedom is the foundation of all values.

Libertarians value liberty above all other values – to the exclusion of all other values! Libertarian don’t care about a darned thing other than their own liberty. Screw brotherhood, forget about mutual aid, never mind this nonsense talk of caring for fellow human beings. It’s liberty, rock and roll and free drugs, dude. That’s libertarianism in a nutshell.

No, I haven’t been brainwashed by the CIA. I read Jeffrey Sachs’ column called Libertarian Illusions at the Huffington Post. Sachs is a university professor and he has this column at HuffPo, so he must be right … right?!

In fact, libertarians value our liberty so dearly precisely so that we may exercise the freedom to value all these other things Sachs mentions, namely: “compassion, justice, civic responsibility, honesty, decency, humility, respect, and even survival of the poor, weak, and vulnerable.”

Without the freedom to choose, I am not allowed to have values. If my life is disposed of by someone else, what do I have to donate to the Red Cross? Where do I find the time to distribute fully informed jury pamphlets in pursuit of greater justice? Without my liberty, I am responsible for nothing as they are simply two sides of the same coin. Honesty has no relevance to a slave, who rightfully deceives his oppressors to regain the birthright that is his freedom. How can I care for the “poor, weak and vulnerable” if I am one of them?

Here are some hard, concrete examples:

• Compassion. Libertarian friends of mine in at least Philadelphia (see video at right) and New Hampshire distributed food for free for Thanksgiving to families who needed it.
• Justice. Julian Heicklen and many other libertarians I know (including myself) risk jail to inform jurors about their right to judge not just the facts of a case, but also the law in question – and to acquit people accused of unjust laws. Cop Block is a libertarian group that documents police misdeeds and encourages activists to keep cops in check. Libertarians are actually leading the way on seeking greater justice in the US.
• Civic responsibility. Libertarians are huge on responsibility. We encourage people to serve on juries. We do open carry park cleanups. We support people who are caged by the state with advocacy, visits and gifts.
• Honesty. Libertarians are so brutally honest that it gets us in trouble. But we continue to be brutally honest anyway. Consider Ron Paul who stands up in congress on a regular basis to tell one inconvenient truth after another. From the Federal Reserve, to the TSA, to militarism and the police state.
• Decency. Consider these Philadelphia libertarians who set up a warming station at Occupy Philadelphia in winter. They distributed 7,000 pounds of organic food in 7 weeks as well as 700 cups of hot tea to occupiers (see video below at right). Also consider the Fr33 Aid group who provide free medical care at certain events. With funding, I don’t doubt that they could expand their very valuable work.
• Humility. Consider entertainer Penn Jillette. He’s a libertarian, too. He doesn’t claim to have all the answers. He doesn’t pretend to know what is best for everyone. How should society fix poverty? He doesn’t know. He only does his share. He is too humble to propose one-size-fits-all solutions. He thinks everyone should be free to define their own path through life. This attitude is central to libertarianism and I can’t imagine a humbler one in the political arena.
• Respect. Respect is where libertarians are strongest! The foundation of our philosophy is respect for each and every individual. We absolutely and unconditionally demand that each and every individual’s choices and integrity be respected. We put ourselves on the line for causes like respecting people’s dignity in airports and respecting the sanctity of individuals’ homes.
• Survival of the poor, weak, and vulnerable. But we’re repeating ourselves now. See above.

Libertarians don’t just drone on about these values from comfortable podiums in well-funded Ivy League universities. We go out and do it. We put our freedom on the line for it. We risk poverty and oppression for our beliefs. We often suffer for it. But we keep on going. Even when people with HuffPo columns can’t be bothered to actually have a conversation before strawmanning us. I personally expect a higher level of scholarship from an academic.

A big thanks to Nathan Goodman of Dissenting Leftist and Fernando Salguero of Truth, Freedom & Prosperity for helping me research this article.

The post Liberty is the Foundation of all other Values appeared first on George Donnelly Arm your Mind for Liberty.

Last week we celebrated the 23rd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square uprising. Freedom-loving Chinese people rose up in Beijing to peacefully end the Chinese state. Gotta love … What’s that? They wanted democracy instead? Wow, they risked all that just for democracy?!

Well, I respect them anyway. But the one I really admire is Tank Man. You know, the thin guy with the shopping bags who stood down a column of Red Army tanks. You can see he was fully prepared to be run over. He risked a good and honorable death to stand up nonviolently for what is right.

Who is he? We don’t know. Why did he do it? We can only speculate. What happened to him? No one is saying. Tank Man is important. He changed the world (according to PBS). He inspired millions. He must be an exceptional individual. We absolutely must know everything about him, right?

Tank Man was a bigger badass than you thought!

Wrong.

Do you think Tank Man risked being crushed by a tank, tortured by the state, imprisoned for decades and murdered by a heartless firing squad one day coming home from the grocery store just so he could be the next t-shirt star? I don’t think so. He’d prefer you follow his lead, instead.

What matters about Tank Man is that each and every one of us has the same spark of courage that he showed on June 5, 1989. What matters now is that each and every one of us find that spark inside ourselves and that we put it to good use.

Oh you don’t have that spark, you say? You’re just a regular guy or girl, nothing special, no unique courage, you’re nothing like Tank Man. Bullshit. Like an important video deleted on your camera’s hard drive by a US marshal, your spark is still there. You just lost the address through years of mind-numbing education and the lack of respect and solidarity that passes for parenting these days.

You have the spark. Find it, homestead it and make something good happen in your life. That’s what Tank Man wants.

This is not a call to martyrdom. This is a call to be more courageous today than you were yesterday, and to keep repeating that cycle for as long as you can.

The post You are Tank Man appeared first on George Donnelly Arm your Mind for Liberty.