Badges of Our Slavery

Column by Paul Bonneau.

Exclusive to STR

The Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe had to wear a yellow Star of David. The intention was to mark them as inferiors, subhumans, slaves, and to separate them from the rest of the population. Are there other, perhaps less obvious badges of slavery? Do we wear any such, without even being aware of it?

We might consider the antebellum American slaves. At that time, there were also other “blacks” who were free, so it was not skin color alone that marked them. Likely it was a combination; skin color, condition of clothing, lack of cleanliness, even smell (since slaves probably had little access to bathtubs). Manner was certainly also important--shuffling gait, slavish speech, not looking people in the eye--whether the slaves in question wanted to act that way or not. No doubt in those times, free “blacks” took care to wear clean clothes and act un-slavelike so as not to be mistaken for a slave. Badges of slavery are a much broader subject than just some yellow armbands.

I’d be willing to bet most people don’t think of automobile license plates as badges of slavery, but they strike me as just that. Conforming unwillingly to avoid “crimes" known as mala prohibita is slavish, is it not? I’m not a slave because I wear a seatbelt that I believe it’s in my interest to wear; but I am if I wear it for fear of being caught or cited. I do not willingly put a license plate on my car. If I were free, I would put nothing spoiling the car’s aerodynamics and looks up front, and might display the anarchist flag on the rear. It’s irritating as hell we put up with these things, supposedly just to make it easier for the police to “catch the bad guys.” For one thing, it’s getting harder and harder to decide who really is the bad guy, police or “criminal.” For another, movement or use of a vehicle does not need anyone’s blessing or approval. Imagine a scene from the old days, a wagon train on the Oregon Trail. The wagons all have license plates on them. Absurd, is it not? It’s just as absurd to have one on your car!

How about drivers’ licenses and proof of insurance? As late as 1948, the people of Wyoming could legally drive without a license. Imagine all the carnage on Wyoming highways that resulted from people not having that square of paper in their wallets!

I myself have paid a fine for not having a proof of insurance in the car, even though I actually had the insurance. Keep in mind I would have had no trouble if I had had the bit of paper without having the insurance, the reverse of what I did have. Paper is very important! More to the point, badges of slavery are important. Ask any Third Reich Jew.

Oh, but the cops enforce all these laws for our safety, right? Strange though, that the same people doing the enforcing for our supposed safety, endanger people every day by going along at a speed twice as fast as the rest of us are going.

Another huge one, the “conservative” pundit’s hobby-horse, is government permission to work. Have I ever mentioned that the reason I never have been and never will be a conservative, is that conservatives love government far too much for my taste?

Another such badge is shoes off at the airport and submission to the perverts there.

One of the most important badges of slavery is the concealed handgun permit. You need permission to defend your family? Nothing could be so impertinent as to require such a thing. Even the cops who enforce such laws, if they spent half a minute to think about it, would have to conclude that neither they, nor by extension anyone else, need any bureaucrat’s blessing to defend their kids and wife.

Imagine an actual free country. No car would have a license plate, nor “important” bits of paper in the glove box--unless the owner of the car enjoyed having such things. No one would be worried about their gun “printing” and rousing the interest of a cop. People would spend more time on honing their driving skills, and less on conforming to bureaucratic minutiae. There would be no thuggish signs on the road such as Washington State’s infamous “Litter and it will hurt!” The speed “limit” would become a suggested speed. There would be no road blocks with drug-sniffing dogs and “cops” slinging M4s.

Is this such a horrifying picture? What are people afraid of? We cling to our badges of slavery like talismans to ward off the scary unknown of liberty.

Try to imagine it, people. Don’t be scared of the unknown. I’m sure you can handle liberty; you might even find you like it. As Jefferson put it, “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” And, as Patrick Henry noted, “Fear is the passion of slaves.”

Throw off your fear. In time we may also throw off our badges of slavery.

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Paul Bonneau's picture
Columns on STR: 106
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Comments

Thunderbolt's picture

Great article, Paul. I am mightily annoyed by all that you mention.

Alex R. Knight III's picture

Excellent column, Paul -- a definite share far and wide!  :-)

Brian Mast's picture

Great article. I have in the past pointed out to my aquaintances the foolishness of traffic laws: It is absurd that we have to get permission to use our own property. Our ancestors didn't have to put plates on their horses or buggies. There were no speed limit signs depicting walking, trotting, or galloping horses even though horses are much more dangerous to ride/drive. Differences in performance abilities of vehicles and drivers, etc.
Paul, I suspect that you see people open carry very often in your state, but it is rare to see non-cops doing that in most states even though it is usually legal (but check your local laws first). I think it is better to open carry if one can than it is to get a concealed carry permit/permission slip.

Glock27's picture

Zygodactyl--Carrying concealed is far better. No one really knows you are armed and the ability to collectively attack you and steal your weapon is unlikely as it is carrying openly. I live in a state where by the Constitution of the state open carry is permitted, but concealed carry requires a permit (kind of stupid I think because for open carry you only have to carry proof you own the firearm), however strapping any long gun and strolling through the city streets will quickly get you arrested. It is freaky how stupid laws are created. I believe it was in 1932 that gun control began, 80 years ago. Hmm.
I guess for me even if there were no laws regarding guns I would still carry concealed.
Note: This is merely my opinion. I do not believe there is a right or wrong regarding carry.

Paul's picture

I just sent the following letter to the editor of the local paper:

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Cody has been getting a pretty unfriendly look lately.

I went down a single block of Sheridan Avenue, and on one side only, counted six signs that amounted to petty dictates: Two commanding no bikes or skateboards on sidewalks, two with commands about restricted parking, one commanding that turns be made from the center lane only, one commanding that no U-turns be made. There were also instructions on how to use crosswalks! Let's not forget the silly lines painted making the boxes for people to park their cars in. With so many signs, how do drivers find time to pay attention to traffic?

I expect fascistic nonsense from the federal government; but it gets annoying to see it at the town level. Perhaps tax dollars can be spent on a boondoggle a bit less obnoxious? Maybe a nice "bridge to nowhere"?

We get plenty of foreigners here. What must they think when they see this? "Americans are children who must be directed at the minutest level?" Sorta gives lie to the image of self-reliant cowboys and such. Ah, but we all understand: "Don't worry, the government will take care of you." I feel better now.
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I'm starting to get seriously annoyed at all this crap.

Glock27's picture

How about the one Mayor forcing shop owners to place "Gun Free Zone" signs in their windows so the criminals will know not to go in their because it is a gun free zone. How about the kid who chewed his pop tart into the shape of a gun and got suspended. Wait until agenda 21 gets fully implemented here.
People are trapped because of the mini-tyrants also. However 4 counties in Colorado have petitioned to become the 51 state because of the Colorado Legislature. Hmmm. The piece was a brilliant observation and glad to have read it. The only problem is that this needs a wider audience; it's the one thing which irks me. You write for a select audience and those whom need to see these words will never see it. This is the incredible sadness.

Samarami's picture
    "...We cling to our badges of slavery like talismans to ward off the scary unknown of liberty..."

Well, Paul, I don't know if I'm "...clinging to (my) badge of slavery..." but I do get your point. And, yes, I tolerate those who inflict coercion in the same manner that I countenance rattlesnakes: I wear protective gear in the woods; I watch my step; and I refrain from reaching without looking. I understand that they have no compunction whatsoever about striking me on my own property or on yours.

The advantage I have with rattlesnakes is that they do serve to keep the rodent population down.

Here's a quotation:

    No tyranny is so great as that emerging from those recruited and promoted from the ranks of the slaves, and appointed to oversee the slaves.

I think it originated with me. At least I googled it and could find nothing close.

But the principle is as old as history itself. From the khans forward it has been known that to obtain compliance the major police force (senates and legislatures and grand wizards of the klan) would need to come from the ranks of those being tyrannized. That's how to maintain the appearance of any semblance of "law and order". That's how the "we-are-the-government" meme has been sustained.

In fact, you mentioned the Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe. There were quite a large number who refused to wear the "yellow arm bands" and survived -- often simply blending into the scenery and escaping -- to the chagrin of those who dutifully complied and were imprisoned, but survived to later bitch about those wise enough to not comply with the arm-band edict.

Success elicits resentment.

The wise Jews understood the stupidity of the white man.

Murray Rothbard had a good treatment of the we-are-the-government nonsense in his first paragraph of Anatomy of the State -- and used the European Jew tragedy as an example of its ridiculousness.

Good article, Paul.

Sam

Glock27's picture

Samarami. Would you be suggesting jews like George Sorous?

Samarami's picture

Sorous is what we call a "JINO" (Jew-In-Name-Only).

I'm talking about (in the yellow arm-band edict of the 30's) Jews who simply refrained from obeying the edict and eased their way into obscurity and freedom.

They're the ones who understood intrinsically the white man's stupidity -- his total dependence upon the hype and outrage of the hoi polloi to obtain "...voluntary compliance..."

Sam

Glock27's picture

If I understand you correctly these Jews did not turn on their fellow Jews as Sorous did? You are making a distinction between traitor to his race where the others merely sought to escape? Am I correct in this assumption?

Samarami's picture

Glock, this misses the whole point.

"These Jews" -- the ones who simply declined to wear arm bands and walked away and escaped into the crowd -- could perhaps be compared to U.S. "illegal tax protestors" (I think the white men have found the need to change their nomenclature to "tax resisters" for some obvious reasons pertaining to the "legality" phenomenon). They refrained from "voluntary compliance".

Are U.S. "tax resistors" traitors??? Well, shouldn't they be "...paying their fair share..."??? You have to think about that for a time in order to understand "...the whole point..." as I have mentioned above. "The whole point" is mindset -- mentality.

Either you have a statist mentality or you have an anarchist mentality. But you can't have both.

Do you, Glock, believe "we" should all pay our fair share of "taxes"??? Don't feel bad if you do -- you're among the great, great majority of "U.S.Citizens". You are also one (had you been Israelite of the "Des Juden" in 1930's Europe) who would have docilely worn a yellow arm band. And, had you survived all attempts at your extermination by state agents, you would be resentful toward those wise enough to have refused "voluntary compliance".

As to Soros -- I don't know the whole story other than he did what all "citizens" are expected to do: give praise and cooperation to "Our-Great-Nation", that evil abstraction made up of those perpetrators of all wars in human history. Soros just did it better and more successfully than most of his colleagues, thus all the resentments against him. Governments are always made up of "citizens" chosen and promoted from within the ranks of the hoi polloi -- the "patriotic". That is a basic of the psychology of rule -- from Grand Wizard to the city inspector.

Soros is "JINO" in that, sofar as I know, he is not descendant of the Israelite Tribe of Judah, from whence the name "Jew" derives.

Sam

Glock27's picture

As far as my understanding about taxes it was not an original in the Bill of Rights. However, I resent paying taxes. I pay from fear like most Americans. I cannot be certain any American wants to pay these things. It is my understanding the colonies needed to pay their war debt and they made attempts at gathering them from the states and not with good success. How they managed I don't know. Maybe it was an executive order via the setting president.
I am retired and it is a fixed income and with the passing years daily survival is getting to be more difficult, especially when your income remains the same. Every year I have huge taxes I have to pay and I cannot understand why. Fortunately I no longer have to pay state taxes, but the fed is a nightmare. I have seriously considered not paying. Wait till I owe $50. $70,000 an go to one of those tax guys who gets your taxes negotiated down to about five to eight thousand. I am reaching a point wherein I may have to do a reverse-mortgage just to pay taxes. Soon the face of it no I do not believe in taxes. There has to be another way. Taxes to me is nothing more than "Moochers voting for looters to rob from producers"

I think I have more empathy for the Jews than I do an understanding of them and the events that have encircled their existence. As far as Sorous is concerned I am lead to believe he is wanted in a few countries where he toppled their economies to his advantage and departed. His goal here is to turn this nation into an "Open society". What little of that I really do not understand. I know he donates millions to Socialist Progressive organizations and has started some himself. What little I know of Sorous and his goal it would be worse than what we currently must endure.

P.S. Sorous has openly admitted that he turned in his own people to the Gestapo and assisted in their transport to the various death camps. That has come from his own mouth along with some other grandiose passages.

Respectfully

Suverans2's picture

If one continues to take member-only benefits/privileges, one should pay their "fair share".

And, those weren't Israelites, "of or pertaining to the tribe of Israel or of the kingdom of Israel", they were Judahites, "of or pertaining to the tribe of or kingdom of Judah", big difference.

Judahites - noun 1. a member of the tribe of Judah or of the kingdom of Judah . adjective 2. of or pertaining to the tribe or kingdom of Judah (Source: Dictionary.com)

Suverans2's picture

"Why do men dread responsibility? Because they will have to live a life of their own choosing, with no one to blame but themselves if things don’t go exactly as planned. Why do men dread liberty? Because it requires them to live this type of life." http://tinyurl.com/no387y6

Samarami's picture

Nothing to disagree with in your comment, Suv. It's easier to take orders than it is to give orders. Leadership requires thought and entails personal responsibility. It's easy to dis the boss when you don't have to walk in his shoes.

But I couldn't get your link to work.

Sam

Glock27's picture

Suverans2: This is a marvelous article from tinyurl.com.

Glock27's picture

"....mark them as subhuman or slaves..." It is impossible to agree with you more Paul. There appears to be a tight knit circle of "massas" infringing upon liberty. I set here and feel as if I am free while a conflict arises to tell me I am not as free as I think I am.
Liberty and peace seem also to be bed fellows. "There will be no peace until there is justice" and my thoughts run almost identical, "There will be no Liberty until there is justice"; yet Justice is allusive or illusive. Even if a common ground were to be achieved it would still be less than what is truly desired.
Ideas as yours truly needs to be shouted from hill tops. Even so, I fear there may be more moochers who vote for looters to rob the producers. Now I realize there are many here who refuse to vote, but the moochers are certainly not fearful of voting and as long as they do vote Liberty will be a distant dream. Please note this is my belief and not presented to incur dispute. I recognize that voting only perpetuates the mess we have, but I remain hopeful that one day we shall overcome the moochers, cheats, psychopaths, deceivers and etc.
Submitted with all due respect.

Samarami's picture

Glock, Butler Shaffer did a piece, "What Is Justice?" on Lew Rockwell a few years back. Recommended reading.

Sam

Glock27's picture

Just read the article you suggested and I embrace his fundamental concept. It is why I said originally there will be no peace until there is justice. I guess I should have carried on and pointed out that Justice just does not exist, it is an allusion or illusion. Because there is no true justice there will never be peace. I find it rather ridiculous when I hear about the "Peace Initiative" and the Palistine/Israel peace efforts. I just read an article of news where a forty-five year old teacher raped a fourteen year old girl and the fuqing judge gave him 30 days in jail and parole to follow. Justice is a matrix issue wherein something else arises out of the original intent and has nothing to do with the original intent of justice. I guess getting justice is like nailing jello to a wall.
Thanks Sam for your input.
Respectfully, Glock