Where Have Our “Rights” Gone?[i]
A read through history shows us the truth of what happens when those in power have an agenda other than what law, order and duty require of their service.[ii] Yet the average American does not seem to mind. Perhaps that is because people have been conditioned since childhood[iii] to accept the current social order handed down to us by the power elite in Washington[iv] and their various tentacles of control.[v]
What Do People Want?
Nonetheless, questions can and should be asked: what do people really want and what should they aim toward in terms of a society? What does it mean to be free and prosperous? Is the government working for us or themselves? Do we need our current Federal Government or is there another way to look at the legal structure of society and how we go about securing law and order so that we can be free and prosperous?
Sadly, most people have not thought too deeply about any of the above questions. If the current system works, whether for the middle class and above – enough protection to live their lives in reasonable peace and quiet – or the lower class – enough give away programs to keep them in food, healthcare, and a roof over their head – all is well.
Unfortunately, wherever one ends up on the socioeconomic spectrum the costs have gone up year after year for our current society and have delivered less and less of what is promised. From Covid lockdowns, arrests for not wearing masks all the while the streets of America are on fire with violence or buried in garbage – one does begin to wonder.
Our borders are fluid, and anyone can enter and be part of the great giveaway that is modern America without so much as a by your leave from tax paying citizens or, for that matter, even those on the bottom of the economic spectrum. Either way, all of the above including the “give away that is modern America” continues even to this day but to foreign countries located on the other side of the globe.
When does it end?
The Great Escape?
There are other options that need to be considered and discussed. Unless we prefer national bankruptcy and the end of all government services as well as law and order.
What if we tried privately funded security services as noted in this podcast by Robert Murphy at Oklahoma State University: https://mises.org/podcasts/human-action-podcast/making-case-private-law-and-defense-scratch
In such arrangements noted by Murphy and others,[vi] decentralized local communities decided for themselves what they wanted in terms of both law and order as well as government services. The main focus being upon safe, functional neighborhoods that have a minimal number of laws governing people, places, and things that allow for maximum freedom yet remaining with the strictly prescribed purpose of the protection of life, liberty and property.
In as much as one wanted lots for freebies from the Federal Government, they would be encouraged to move to the blue states and their cities that insist upon providing womb to tomb “freebies” for the less fortunate (or less motivated?).
But for those who are able to think for themselves, and behave themselves, and choose NOT to finance other people’s wars and solve international problems – another order of business can and should be considered.
As was noted in the previous century by Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises in his tome Human Action, there are other ways to look at the place and purpose of government in society:
Imagine a world in which the principle of private ownership of the means of production is fully realized, in which there are no institutions hindering the mobility of capital, labor, and commodities, in which the laws, the courts, and the administrative officers do not discriminate against any individual or groups of individuals, whether native or alien. Imagine a state of affairs in which the governments are devoted exclusively to the task of protecting the individual’s life, health, and property against violent and fraudulent aggression. In such a world the frontiers are drawn on maps, but they do not hinder anybody from the pursuit of what he thinks will make him more prosperous. No individual is interested in expansion of the size of his nation’s territory, as he cannot derive any gain from such aggrandizement. Conquest does not pay, and war becomes obsolete.[vii]
At first blush the above seems naïve to the point of a fairy tale. Yet our current situation in Washington begs the question of who is chasing a “fairy tale” rather than freedom and the good of the American people? Equally important, what is the average American chasing?[viii]
Again, Mises is succinct:
Any existing state of social affairs is the product of ideologies previously thought out. Within society new ideologies may emerge and may supersede older ideologies and thus transform the social system. However, society is always the creation of ideologies temporarily and logically anterior. Action is always directed by ideas; it realizes what pervious thinking has designed.[ix]
People need to realize, as Mises noted above, that all socio-political-economic systems are the result of ideas thought up, thought through, and talked through, and then acted upon. If we are not happy with the current societal structure as common men and women, then we need to start thinking a different way even if it means outside the box.
The above is NOT a call to violent revolution but merely a call to thought and thinking differently about what is necessary to live free and independent rather than depend upon the mirage of salvation from the state always coming, yet NEVER arriving every four years. As we have seen – it has not come! Perhaps it is time to do some independent thinking as those who came before us once did: https://mises.org/podcasts/human-action-podcast/ryan-mcmaken-history-and-benefits-secession
Moving Forward
Christian Liberty Homeschools has long championed a vastly decentralized social order similar to what the original 13 colonies agreed to when they broke away from England – the Washington D.C. of their time – and declared themselves to be free and independent in the Declaration of Independence. Unlike the past – with prayer and hard work and the building of trust between all citizens regardless of color – perhaps this time we can get it right. We need to educate ourselves and our children and rise up and build!
Christians Liberty is here to help: www.homeschools.org
Books on my shelf:
The Law:
https://store.mises.org/The-Law-P408.aspx
Democracy: the God That Failed:
https://store.mises.org/Democracy-The-God-That-Failed-P240.aspx
Breaking Away: The Case for Secession:
God and Government:
Citations:
[i] https://mises.org/mises-wire/
[ii] https://mises.org/mises-wire/cowardice-not-courage-led-house-republicans-side-democrats
[iii] John Taylor Gatto, The Underground History of American Education, (New York: The Oxford Village Press, 2000/2001), p. 367 – 380.
[iv] “Intellectuals
are naturally attracted by the idea of a planned society, in the belief that
they will be in charge of it.”
See: Sir Roger Scruton, Fools, Frauds and
Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left
[v] https://mises.org/mises-wire/fbi-and-cia-are-enemies-american-people
[vi] See books listed in Books on my shelf.
[vii] Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, (Fox & Wilkes: San Francisco, CA; 1996, 4th edition), p. 685.
[viii] https://www.oftwominds.com/blogapr24/cities4-24.html
[ix] Human Action, p. 188.