Think Tanks, Not War

by Alex R. Knight III

Exclusive to STR

October 17, 2006

It's been a long time coming, but it has finally arrived:  An anarchist think tank designed to reach out to the "mainstream" press and other media in order to directly engage the public in a rational discourse on the true nature of government.  In the newly founded Center for a Stateless Society, there now exists a zero-government alternative to the more minarchistic libertarian think-tanks, such as the Future of Freedom Foundation, or the Foundation For Economic Education -- who, although they do much good work, do not always strike the root.  That now has every chance to change.  

I certainly won't lie by saying that I've not grown cynical regarding the lack of candor afforded all the various wings of the Freedom Movement by the government-micromanaged "mainstream" media.  There is but no question that they are biased to the point of obscenity in deference to their well-moneyed governmental and corporate sponsors and shareholders.  The Center for a Stateless Society is most certain to be facing an uphill battle.  Nonetheless, given enough time, they will garner some measure of exposure in newspapers, magazines, talk radio--and of course, the Internet, which for now is still wide open territory.   

But there's another reason why I think that the CSS (please forgive my use, if you will, of such an alphabet-soup government agency-sounding acronym) has arrived at a precipitous moment.  With the launch of The On-Line Freedom Academy this past summer, it may well be that the tandem effect of engaging the news media head-on with Market Anarchist philosophy, coupled with the "Quiet Revolution" proposed by fellow Root Striker Jim Davies, may just give this movement the one-two punch it has always needed to bring itself out of what has heretofore been a mere fringe minority of thinkers--even in so-called "libertarian" circles.  Indeed, CSS and TOLFA, both working separately but in inadvertent conjunction towards the same goal, may well prove our last and best hope for a peaceful end to the nightmare of the State.   

Unlike any group of would-be dissidents in North Korea, or Libya, or Cuba, where (assuming weapons could ever be clandestinely procured) violent insurrection is the only avenue left in any given bid to achieve liberty, we here in the United State (lack of plurality deliberate) have not quite approached that precipice.  We're close, true, and getting closer all the time.  No one can deny that the day is indeed very late.  But at present we have these tools, and our voices, and our ability to appeal to people's reason, and no one is yet making any serious move to try and stop us on these fronts.  I beg we capitalize on that fact before--on threat of prison or pain of death--it is no longer possible to do so.