I am determined to smash the State.  I want to see the very concept of government consigned to the history books. There is no compromise: The State cannot coexist with liberty. This has become in my mind The Choice: life or death. Freedom or slavery. Liberty or the State.

It is truly that blunt, that vicious. There can be no compromise between life and death. And what can the State offer us except death? Can it offer us life, or only the removal of its own threat of death? Think about the history of government, about what its basic authority rests upon. It is the authority of the whip, the persuasion of the sword. It is the choice between pain and death. It is "might makes right," only fancied up. This is what virtually all of human history has been. Even the brightest moments have only been a brief break in the clouds.

This is no accident--it is only political authority reasserting its natural state. A government is itself aggression, naked force. How could it indeed be otherwise? What rational person would listen to those poltroons who infest any given political office? Would you listen to some random lunatic who purported to tell you how high your fence could be, or what colors you were forbidden to paint your own house? Yet, the zoning board says these very things, and is obeyed. The zoning board is not obeyed because it is right, but because it is feared.

Slaves fear their masters, and we fear the State. Based on its past actions, what rational person would not? There simply is no moral difference between the plight of slaves, and the obedience of citizens. The only difference is in degree. Why would a man permit the fruits of his labors to be used by others, without his consent? Simply because he fears those others. He pays them in money or in toil, but the only thing he can expect in return is a temporary respite from their demands. He may labor for six out of seven days for his master, or for four out of twelve months for him, but he works for a master in either case. He is called a citizen, or a subject, or a slave, but he wears chains, and labors under them nonetheless. We may call our chains law, and our masters legislators, but chains and masters they are. We may call ourselves citizens, but what is our true status?

Are we free? Freedom is an absolute, an ideal. It is not something that can be compromised upon. If I am free six days of the week, and am compelled to work for others on the seventh, am I "mostly free"? Am I "almost free"? Should I call the men who compel me to work "partial masters"? I may be less enslaved than the man who is compelled to work the whole week, but I am not free. Freedom is not a proportional relationship, with whoever is the least enslaved being declared "free." Liberty is not a certificate to be awarded to me by my master, certifying me to be free from everything except his whims. The appropriate degree of slavery is not the issue: The question is whether I am rightfully to be enslaved at all. If the answer is "Yes," everything else is mere detail. A government number on a card, or a government badge on your sleeve? Property taxes, or "land reform"? What is the difference, other than degree?

For how can I claim to have liberty when there exists a class of men whose sole purpose in life is to control me? They may be called Kings, or Presidents, or honestly labeled as Governors, but their actions are the same. They may toss me "rights" like a scrap tossed to a dog, but it is quite clear that these "rights" only exist at their whim.  "The Constitution is not a suicide pact," as they say. Free speech? Not if it is "hateful." Free press? Only if it doesn't violate the law. Freedom to possess weapons? Only at the Master's whim.

How can this be otherwise? Either this class of men exists, or it doesn't. Either they have power over my life, or they don't. I am either a free man, or their chattel. There is no gray area, no compromise. There can be no compromise with reality. As Ayn Rand put it, "A is A." A thing is itself. Reality exists, no matter how unpleasant we may find it. Telling ourselves that water is air will not save us from drowning. Telling ourselves we are free, when we are not, will not save us from slavery. Our masters are real.

We cannot deny reality. We cannot pretend that slavery is freedom, that war is peace, that the State is our servant, rather than our master. We must choose between freedom and slavery. That is The Choice: liberty, or The State. The Choice: life, or death. The Choice: Our lives, to be lived as we wish; or Orwell's famous jackboot, crushing our faces forever.