Patrick B. Yancey's Columns
"I
no longer feel as if the
"Only when high-minded rhetoric is combined with higher acts can any State be called anything approaching legitimate, and this government has, for generations, strayed from that road. Whatever moral mandate has ever been enjoyed by the State has long since evaporated, along with its honor, in the fires of the cities it has burned to the ground." Column by Patrick Yancey.
"No
other system comes anywhere close to the absolute parity between men as money.
When a satisfactory means of commerce and compensation has been agreed
upon among people, it is a triumph of the human will and intellect, the
archetype of reason and humanity." Column by Patrick Yancey.
"In short, the 'justice' system is nothing but a tissue of lies supported by a profession of liars, obfuscators, and demagogues whose only interest is not in 'justice,' but in power for themselves and their cronies at the expense of individual rights." Column by Patrick Yancey.
"But to quote Heinlein again, 'Before a revolution can take place, the population must lose faith in both the police and the courts.' The viewership of police dramas and military programs must plummet. The reporting of crime must cease. The label 'informer' must once again connote betrayal. The people must see that they are not free, and have not ever been. There must be civil disturbance, on a scale unknown in the past, and there must be men of resolution to do what must be done to stop tyranny." Column by Patrick Yancey.
"Though the State holds no bit of my loyalty, I will never betray my country, for to do so may result in the death of innocent people (yes, there are a few). My country, however, is eminently capable of betraying me, and will likely do so as soon as politically possible, probably within the next two decades or so. I hope to be ready." Column by Patrick Yancey.
"This is the fundamental difference between the statist and the anarchist, that one seeks control, and the other seeks liberty. No voter believes that men may govern themselves if allowed. Every true anarchist does so believe." Column by Patrick Yancey.
"The State fears the intelligent, independent, armed man, and when the State is afraid, people will die." Column by Patrick Yancey.
"Incomplete people know they are incomplete, and tend to resent those who are whole themselves, who do not need that emotional coalescence celebrated for reasons beyond me in popular culture." Column by Patrick Yancey.
"Death is a corrupter, a cleanser, a thief, and a clarifier. It is immutable, and the only thing any of us beyond doubt have in common. Death is the forge in which resilience is tested, and the gauntlet to be run which none shall finish. It is tragic in youth, a relief in dotage, an endless ache to a mother, and a tool of the powerful and power-mad. Much is thwarted by death, and much accomplished. It is the meter by which life is measured, in some ways, more incisively than others." Column by Patrick Yancey.
"How can any right-thinking being not see the futility of rule by coercion, the power of the state to murder its citizens being the ultimate expression of this doctrine? Confucius it was who asked why the State felt itself obliged to punish its citizenry when they did not behave morally or justly, since if the State behaved that way itself, its citizens would follow such example. This is the illusion of society, that, if one refuses to belong, one must be insane, for only the deranged would not accept the inevitability of submission to authority." Column by Patrick Yancey.
"...in
one of the most influential tracts ever written in defense of anarchism,
Thoreau's Civil Disobedience, which I quote at the beginning of this essay,
the author asks: 'Must the citizen, even for a moment, resign his conscience to the
legislator? Why has every man a
conscience, then?' How we answer these questions is, I think, one of the
most important responses we can ever give to any inquiry, for, by our answer, we
determine the fate of our own independence of thought and freedom of action.
"How can revealed religion be practiced by one who has given the matter any thought? I lack the answer. Likewise spiritualism, or astrology, or any of the other nostrums taken by those disillusioned with organized religion to balm their lack of purpose or sense of worth without a higher authority to appeal to." Column by Patrick Yancey.
"Wherein lies the value of life, then? It lies, I feel, in the filling-up of the self with the experiences, both inward and outward, which make my life worthwhile. Every eddy of the stream I travel is a whirlpool of insight, every minutiae of thought teaches me about myself, and life, and all the persons I know instruct me daily in how to live, without ever knowing they do so. I am man, individual, free, and that is value enough, for liberty, in every form, is the meat of the nut of existence." A well-written column by new Root Striker Patrick Yancey, who sounds a lot like Thoreau.