By MamaLiberty
I won’t argue with anyone much these days. Over the years, I’ve found it pretty much a waste of time. Most of us get defensive if our ideas or way of life is challenged, so in the last few years I tend to ask simple questions, and leave people alone after that to answer them in their own mind… if they want to. So, I’m going to post a few of those questions, one at a time, here in my blog. I urge you to give them some serious thought, give your answer in comments if you wish, and ask them in your own conversations about life and liberty.
Who owns your life? Who has legitimate authority over your life?
Remember… I’m not here to argue. Your answer is your answer. But I’d be interested to learn what that means to you and how you carry it out in the “real world.”
The Price of Liberty 
Mama, I think all of us like to think we own ourselves and have exclusive, legitimate authority over ourselves. In truth none of us do. Each of us individuals have someone to answer to. For those who are religious, it is a heavenly authority. For others it could be our parents, our spouse, our children, our neighbors, or big brother. But none of us stand alone apart from every other person. Even one of anarchy’s philosophers, Lysander Spooner, was a lawyer who tried cases before judges and tribunals. His participation in these trials is prima facie evidence he believed those judges and tribunals had authority over him. We all pay taxes of some kind – property taxes, sales taxes, gas taxes, etc. Funding the state in these ways proves we accept its authority to some extent. The computers you and I are using to write these blogs and respond to them says we accept the authority of the state to regulate and tax the internet and its providers. If we were serious libertarians/anarchists we would be communicating with ham radios.
But in the end, by participating in the state and accepting some authority over us, we can use its very weaknesses to defeat it. What I would like to see discussed in this blog are those weaknesses.
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Being a captive, with a gun to your head, does not change the fact that you own yourself. You can choose to accept captivity and coercion, and most of us do to one extent or another to stay alive, but that doesn’t mean we don’t own ourselves by any means. It’s a matter of choice. The problem comes when we surrender that power over ourselves if we actually believe our oppressors have some legitimate authority to control our lives and property. That’s a very different thing, and is the poison in so many discussions about freedom.
If people choose to give their natural authority over themselves to anyone, including religion, it is most certainly their choice and welcome to it. The problem remains when those folks insist that they can choose the same for anyone else. And that includes Spooner.
I would be interested in your ideas and urge you to write them down. Defeating the false authority by surrender to it? How does that work?
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I am not talking about unconditional surrender Mama. I am talking about using the authority of the state against itself to demand that my natural rights and everyone’s as acknowledged under the Bill of Rights, when violated by the state, be recognized and defended by law and force if necessary. If I do not accept the state’s limited power over me, can I use the power of the court system to protect my rights whether property, person, or contract?
I have been a libertarian for 35 years. I have only recently began my studies of anarchy. Maybe as I mature in those studies I will understand how society would work under a system of anarchy. Until then I believe as John Donne that, “No man is an island, entire of itself……. any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind…”.
Blessings
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Individual liberty has nothing at all to do with refusing interaction and mutual accountability. There are only two ways to deal with people. You either negotiate, cooperate, and honor commitments, or you attempt to control, manipulate or force people into doing things you want. Individual liberty means we work together for mutual goals, voluntarily. Which would you rather be? Which would you rather live with?
You can attempt to “work within the system” all you want, of course. Just remember that this system uses only force, fraud, lies and theft to operate. The “state” is not in the least interested in your “rights” or even your life. They – politicians and bureaucrats – are only interested in using their power to control others and to retain their own share of that power as long as possible. They are not even trying to pretend otherwise much any more. 🙂
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First answer: I do. Second answer: I do. Does this mean we are wed???
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