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The
Root Cellar
Recent
columns by Root Strikers
What
Is Totalitarianism? - Part II
Column by Michael
Kleen.
Handouts
Recommended
"One of the debates among liberty seekers is about the extent to which
it's morally right to accept or reject government handouts. In my opinion,
it's one of a rather small number of issues still open to valid debate...."
Column by Jim Davies.
What
Is Totalitarianism? - Part I
"If
the
United States
came under the control of a totalitarian regime, would we recognize it?"
Column by Michael Kleen.
Bearing
False Witness
"This
is how Mr. Reid’s voluntary system starts, with a false employer
statement that effectively throws employees down an
IRS
rabbit hole where the fundamental
rights contained in the Fourth Amendment and Fifth Amendment do not exist."
Column by Bill Butler.
The
Control Imperative
"That
is why the easiest way to transform purely visual or informational control
into physical control is to cede the task of creating the latter onto external
forces, especially those working at the behest of an impersonal and de facto
ownerless entity. No other institutions are better suited for such a cession
than the institutions of representative democracy--their character allows an
envious and greedy individual to merge his own envy and greed with that
exhibited by millions of others, and then use it as the material to forge a
redistributionist system by the hands of those who can no longer be called
robbers hired by Mr. Lazybones to loot the resources of Mr. Diligent, but
should be called the executors of the common will instead. As soon as this
happens, all potential pangs of conscience and fears of ostracism
disappear--acts of plunder and predation (henceforth known as acts of
rectification) are no longer committed by any particular, individual person,
but only by a vast, collective immaterial entity, whose corporeal
representatives are to be regarded as tools of historical justice. The whole
process is complemented by far-reaching ritualization of the actions of the
abovementioned entity, as well as by the attendant series of semantic
distortions, which make unequivocal identification of aggression, violence,
coercion, theft and enslavement (let alone successful elimination of these
phenomena) incomparably more difficult than it was before." Column
by new Root Striker Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski.
Marbury
"...these
days most pols try to prolong their careers by pretending to govern by the
will of, or with the consent of, the governed. It's a ridiculous fiction, for
if consent is given, no governing is done, while if governing is done, consent
is obviously absent." Column by Jim Davies.
Origins
"Where
and when did government start? It's
quite a mystery. Given that human beings are basically harmless creatures, how
did it happen that an inherently violent institution arose in human society,
whose whole raison d'être is always to destroy the fundamental human
right of self-governance?" Column by Jim Davies.
Human
Nature
Recommended
"The
survival and growing prosperity of our species therefore depends entirely upon
the removal of the myths, the titles, badges and uniforms--and not much else."
Column by Jim Davies.
The
Prince of Peace
Recommended
"What is clear to me is that we mustn’t wait for prizes.
We must walk away from these people, and throw their trophies in the
trash. The only way to effectively
bring about a revolution for the betterment of mankind is to reach the
individual. The message is simple:
You are freedom. You are peace.
You are love. You are
truth. You mustn’t wait for
anyone else. You mustn’t be
afraid. You mustn’t worry that
mass murderers are continually lauded as bringers of peace.
It will continue. But we
needn’t continue along with it. They’ve
set the table, but what they’re serving is rancid leftovers.
Walk away. It will feel
better when you do it in your own way, not the way some charismatic leader
tells you to. If you are willing,
you are The Prince of Peace." Column by B.R. Merrick.
On
the Meaning of Voting
"...voting falls under
Oppenheimer’s
definition of 'political means' in the same sense that doing
business with (or, more accurately, asking someone else to, on your
behalf, contract with) a contract killer does: it is the
solicitation of violent services offering as only payment an
anonymous statement of support for an unenforceable advertised
political program." Column by Per Bylund.
F***
Tibet!
"Free
Tibet? Free Humanity! is the correct idea." Column by new
Root Striker tzo.
Insuring
Health
"When
[American voters] voted for 'free' health care, they were proactively
declaring, by pulling those voting levers, that it was fine and dandy by them
to take the needed funds from their neighbors and ultimately to shoot them
dead if they refused.
So
it's not really ignorance alone; there is, at root, an ethical question at
work, and it centers on the gross immorality of casting a vote. Yes,
politicians are malevolent or stupid, most likely the former in my view, but
everyone who votes for them is complicit, up to his neck, actively taking part
in the most humongous act of armed robbery in the history of man. That is not
'insurance'--a perfectly sound idea involving the voluntary sharing of the
risk of heavy but unpredictable loss--this is theft, neither more nor less.
That is the real, moral disease that has infected the core of this society and
no amount of medical care is going to cure it." Column by Jim
Davies.
Ringo's
Law and the Healthcare System of Doom
Recommended
"By
now it should be clear to anyone: This government 'help' has
made things dramatically worse in healthcare, just as government reliably
makes things worse in all spheres of life that government involves
itself in. For many reasons, coercive government is the
worst way to do anything.
Like gravity, Ringo's Law is a built-in rule of the universe, omnipresent
and unavoidable. There is no country on Earth where the Law is not
conspicuously on display: 'Everything government touches turns to crap'."
Column by Glen Allport.
Behind
the Wire: An Insider's Reflections on Gitmo
"I
admit that I do not have, nor am I aware of anyone having, all the information
necessary to determine the guilt or innocence of each person detained in Gitmo.
Therefore, I honestly confess that I have no basis on which to claim
justification for my actions in continuing the confinement of fellow human
beings while I was there." Column by new Root Striker Daniel
Lakemacher.
I
Don't and Won't Vote: Here's Why
"I
have a very hard time believing that grown adults, quite able to grasp the
concepts I laid before them, do not understand what they are intentionally
doing by being so foolish, shortsighted, self-degrading, and destructive as to
continue voting in political elections." Column by Alex R. Knight
III.
Let
Us Awake Now
Recommended
"Freedom comes from within. It
does not come from without. It
does not come from a charismatic leader. It
does not come with a set of instructions....It does not come from being given
your freedom only after you prove yourself to your parents, teachers, pastors,
or other authority figures. It
does not come from any God who demands obedience before He promises blessings
(or threatens curses). It does not
come from delineated rights. It
does not come from The Constitution. It
is you from whom freedom springs. It
is you in whom freedom thrives. No
one gave it to you. Like Dorothy
and her ruby slippers, your way home was with you all the time."
Column by B.R. Merrick.
The
Blinding Fog of War
Recommended
"Only when individuals give up their
humanity and principles to kill for the king can the obscene drama of
war begin. Only when the state witnesses the fact that individuals are
willing to surrender their benevolence and decency to fight, kill and
die whenever ordered can the state feel confident to attack still more
liberties that individuals hold dear." Column by Roger Young.
Time
for Government to Finally Ban Itself
Recommended
"After centuries and millennia
of tyranny, war, mass murder, torture, corruption, legalized theft, unjust
imprisonment, economic devastation, and other needless evil, isn't it finally
time we banned the cause of all
that horror? Can we
not find the strength to end this
intrusive, violent, coercive scam – this conspiracy
against love and freedom, this formalized über-criminal empire, this sick
enabler of Hitler and Stalin and Kim Jong-Il and so many other psychopaths,
this boot on the neck of every man, woman and child? Is it not
time, and long past time, to stop
putting up with government wars and government concentration camps and government injustice and government central-planning inefficiency
(directly or via government-granted monopoly) and other methods of government impoverishment and cruelty? Will we not
finally understand that running society via coercion and violence is not
merely inefficient but horribly, shockingly wrong?" Column by Glen Allport.
A
New Strategy for Liberty, Part 1
An
open letter to Ron Paul supporters. Column by Stewart Browne.
A
New Strategy for Liberty, Part 2
MUST
READ Secession
in three easy steps. "Just as the rules of basketball favor those
who are tall, strong, and have a good jump shot, the rules of democracy favor
those who want to grow the government. For decades, we have been playing
by Goliath's rules, the very rules that allowed Goliath to rise to power in
the first place. The only way we can play away from our weakness is to
get out of the electoral politics game altogether." A brilliant
column by Stewart Browne.
It's
Time to Get Passionate About Not Voting
Recommended
"The
non-voting libertarians won the ethical debate years ago, but the voting
libertarians are still more numerous and visible because they want to get out
there and do something. We need to share the difficult truth with
these people that their efforts in the political arena are hopeless. We
need to remind them that libertarians have already won the hearts and minds of
America
and still
Washington
grows. We need to explain to Libertarian Party types that the most
powerful force in a democracy is not the will of the people, it is the
phenomenon of your own personal bailout." Column by new Root
Striker Stewart Browne.
Further
Adventures in the Quantum Wrongness Field, Economic Crisis Edition
MUST-MUST
READ "If
printing up trillions of dollars to 'stimulate spending' is going to save the
economy, why do we ever put up with even the slightest recession? Just print
that funky money, boys and
girls! Give every citizen a high-speed color laser printer and require everyone to download the Official Dollar Jpeg Files and then print, print, PRINT those
dollars nonstop, day and night! Every man, woman, and child would be a
multi-billionaire, and economic activity would be red-hot forever!"
Column by Glen Allport.
Misallocation
Recommended
"What's
being done is (a) to fabricate some money that has not been saved by
postponed consumption and is not owned by someone who earned it
(because fiat money isn't earned by anyone and stolen money is certainly not
owned by the thief) and then (b) to spend it on projects that seem likely to
give jobs (of some kind . . . any kind) to people who will vote, come
next election--so that, presumably, the cycle can be repeated."
Column by Jim Davies. (Editor's pick)
Law
and Ethics: Unrelated
Recommended
"Laws are made by people who are, for the most part, the very scum of the
earth; if something they impose on society is ethically beneficial, therefore,
the coincidence involved is considerable. They are drawn from those with an
urge to dominate, who have quite often never done a day's work in their lives....Instead
of being benevolent, disinterested and morally upright, therefore, lawmakers
are normally psychologically freakish, kleptocratic, mendacious, murderous,
irrational and hypocritical." Column by Jim Davies.
Why
Does the World Feel Wrong?
Recommended
"Moreover, we should
consider that the state not only acts like a recruitment center for
psychopaths, but that psychopaths probably invented
the state to take advantage of the rest of us.
I can give you no better explanation for the existence of an
organization that fails in every ethical dimension and invokes psychopathic
thinking at every turn than this." Column by Will Groves.
The
Year Ahead: 2009, Part 2
MUST
READ Column by Glen Allport.
The
Year Ahead: 2009
MUST
READ "The
America of Henry David Thoreau, of Mark Twain, of Walt Whitman, of Thomas
Jefferson and Tom Paine and the millions more who brought this nation into
being and kept it alive in their hearts and, to a large extent, on the ground,
for so long – that America, the
real America, the 'asylum for mankind' that Paine wrote about so eloquently
– that America is gone, fading already into myth and legend, gone soon even
from living memory as the last citizens who remember America's dying embers
wink out from this world, one by one." Column by Glen Allport.
Grand
Theft America: "All Your Wealth Now Belong To Us"
Recommended
"By now, the original idea of
America
– as a haven for mankind and a
place where freedom from tyranny was the plainly-stated and largely-attained
goal – has simply been lost. The concept and benefits of freedom are no
longer understood by the majority of Americans; the all-powerful State and its
shackles are now everywhere, including deep in the mind of the average person."
Column by Glen Allport.
Signs
of Autumn
Recommended
"That is directly where my pushing of a button on an electronic voting
screen leads. It leads to the threat of violence from the government that is encouraging my
participation. I am...engaging in a violent act by silently threatening
those with whom I disagree." Column by B.R. Merrick.
(Editor's pick)
Crop
Seeding in America
Recommended
"The
state’s money removes the idea of limited means, and since it’s controlled
by the state, it removes the idea of limiting the state.
Given the federal influence on education, media, and just about
everything, should we be surprised no one is on center stage calling the
government a counterfeiter?
" Column by George F. Smith.
I
Don't Mind If You Keep Voting, But Do You Mind If I Keep Laughing While You
Do?
MUST
READ "I
don’t care who the candidate is. I
don’t care what issues to which he seems to gravitate.
I don’t care about his record, his leadership qualities, the
apparent first-lady-ness of his wife (or her husband), his insider-ness
or his outsider-ness, his race,
his height, his weight, how well he speaks, how wonderfully he
photographs, the nation of his birth, how likely it might be that he’s
fun to drink with, or his appreciation for unique uses for a fine
cigar." Column by Wilt Alston. (Editor's pick)
The
Meaning and Value of Gold
MUST
READ "Can
gold prevent such horrors [the
democide of the 20th Century]? No, not entirely, but gold can and does reduce
the likelihood of such horrors when used as a nation's money. Gold as
money provides a strong limiting factor on the resources available to
government, and in so doing, gold saves and improves the lives of millions."
Column by Glen Allport. (Editor's pick)
Not
to Worry, They're on Our Side
Recommended
"It’s pointless to look at their campaign platforms.
They’re made up of words, and words to a politician are like drops of
water on a hot skillet – they sizzle, then they’re gone.
We know a priori both candidates are certified, homogenized, lobotomized
statists, otherwise they wouldn’t be the two contenders." Column
by George F. Smith.
Notes
on Democracy: Mencken Vents His Spleen for His Era and Ours
Recommended
"Read onward as Mencken’s delightful microscope tears into the
presidencies of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and
Franklin Roosevelt with relish—exposing them and their adoring
constituencies for what they are. If Machiavelli took off our blinders and
exposed the rancid underbelly of tyrants in The Prince, Mencken did the same for democracy in this gem of a book."
Column by Lawrence Ludlow.
Everyday
Anarchy, Part 5
MUST
READ "When
we think of a truly free market...we understand that we do not have to work
for years and years, and give up thousands of hours and tens or hundreds of
thousands of dollars, to satisfy our wishes. If I want to shop for vegetarian
food, say, I do not have to spend years lobbying the local supermarket, or
joining some sort of somewhat ineffective advisory board, and pounding lawn
signs, and writing letters, and cajoling everyone in the neighborhood – all
I have to do is go and buy some vegetarian food...." Column by
Stefan Molyneux.
Everyday
Anarchy, Part 3
MUST
READ "The
statist looks at a problem and always sees a gun as the only solution – the
force of the state, the brutality of law, violence and punishment. The
anarchist – the endless entrepreneur of social organization – always looks
at a problem and sees an opportunity for peaceful, innovative, charitable or
profitable problem-solving." Column by Stefan Molyneux.
Spread this one far and wide.
Scapegoating
and the Anti-Immigrant Hysteria
MUST
READ
"...Americans, like most people, would rather not look too closely at
their unattractive traits. We like to pretend that we are self-sufficient,
honest people. But our desire to rely upon and preserve the welfare state
reveals the truth about who we really are. Instead of facing up to the theft
and self-deception that surround our support of the welfare state in its
various manifestations, we simply project
our traits onto people who seem different because they are poor and desperate
and have nowhere else to go to make a better life. Furthermore, when we accuse
these immigrants of 'breaking our laws' to come here, perhaps we should
remember that the kind of laws they are breaking are the kind that were firmly
in place in the Soviet Union before it fell – laws against making a profit,
earning a good living, and creating one’s own destiny. In other words: laws
against freedom." Column by new Root Striker Lawrence Ludlow.
The
Anarchist Vote
MUST
READ "I like
this analogy because it reveals how voting is an act of submission: When
you no longer resist tyranny, but agree to submit to the threat or use of
force and do as you are told, when you no longer question the higher
authority because you are allowed to choose your supervisor.
In the process you condemn your offspring and future generations to
be subjects of this authority establishing an institution of tyranny that
eventually is accepted unquestioningly, perhaps even
celebrated." Column by Mark Davis.
Danger
Is My Middle Name--And So Is Yours
MUST
READ
"Nothing is completely safe,
including eating and breathing. And if nothing is safe, then throwing people
in prison for doing something that endangers them is insane, even without
considering the dangers of arrest and imprisonment, which are substantial.
Using coercion to "save people" from their own choices is a huge,
horrifying mistake that can only lead to ever-larger disaster, because the
list of dangerous activities includes everything
that people might ever do." Column by Glen Allport.
Money
Recommended
"Without the United States
federal government, the Fed would
not exist and the money used by Americans would be gold and silver – things
which could not be counterfeited constantly to supply 'money' for war, for
special interests, and for other groups and purposes opposed to the interests
of the average American. Nor would Americans be forced to literally borrow
money – money created from thin air – from a privately-owned central bank
(as our government does now) and then pay interest on it as part of the
national debt. What a scam!" Column by Glen Allport.
The
Worst Way to Do Anything
Recommended
"What have we bought with all that money? Thousands of dead American
soldiers, many thousands more injured, 655,000 (and counting) dead Iraqis,
cancer-causing depleted uranium poisoning in Iraq (and DU particles are being
spread around the planet on the winds), a ruined Iraqi infrastructure (which
had already been wrecked in the first Gulf war and which a decade of sanctions
kept in poor repair), millions of Iraqi refugees fleeing the mess we have made
of their country, an increased threat of terrorism in America, widespread use
of torture by our own government, a sharply lower opinion of America by people
in other nations, and (on a separate invoice, for additional money) a police
state here at home."
Column by Glen Allport.
My
Son: Klan Reformer
MUST
READ "But
what you’re doing, what you’ve been doing for 20 years, is telling people
that the Klan can be good if only the right
person is in charge. You’re giving people false hope, because the Klan can never
be good." Column by Stefan Molyneux.
E-Passport:
Doorway to the Panopticon
MUST
READ "The logistics of trying to interconnect 189 governments’
databases quickly escalates well beyond the realm of 'nightmare'
into some kind of Lovecraftian singularity of technological
horror." Column by Scarmig.
Importing
Freedom
MUST
READ "Immigrants
weren’t in charge when we lost our freedoms. White guys were.
Millions of 'illegal immigrants' threaten you somehow? Compared to your
neighbor who votes Democrat or Republican and demands his Social Security? Puh-lease!"
Column by Stefan Molyneux and (new Root Striker) Wilton Alston.
A
Short Guide to Market Anarchy Deconversions
Recommended
"[Market anarchy] means
everyone is allowed to live the way they want, according to their value
system. Everyone has different value systems, and all that statism does is
impose the ruling class value system over everyone, creating social warfare.
In an M.A., there would be no more need for social warfare because everyone
would be free to live the way they want." Pamphlet by Andrew Greve,
Aaron Kinney, David Pearson and Francois Tremblay.
The
Two Great Evils and the Hammer of Infinite Power
Recommended
"There is no doubt that the
Hammer of Infinite Power is coming; the leading edge is already here. It smote
Hiroshima
and
Nagasaki
in 1945. If the power to vaporize
a city with a single bomb is not sufficiently god-like for you, just wait."
Column by Glen Allport.
Murdering
the Group, Saving Individuals
MUST
READ "It’s the
same with immigration, the national debt, welfare, the war on terror and all
the other state-driven and media-obscured questions of the day. Obsessed by
details, blind to the obvious, we are like swimmers in shark-infested waters
worrying about cramps." Column by new Root Striker Stefan Molyneux.
How
We Can Get There From Here
MUST
READ "So
the main task to be completed in my opinion is to so educate every member of
society one by one as to convince him that a zero government society is the
only kind consistent with his human nature and the only one that will maximize
his pleasure in life; and that must be done by
reason. So the two obstacles
to surmount are the vast numbers involved, and the ugly fact that most people
have been so well indoctrinated that they are barely open to reason; they live
rather by myth, prejudice and superstition." Column by Jim Davies.
Are
You a Submitizen?
MUST
READ "How
has it come that we no longer see each other as people? How can we reverse
this trend? The next time you are asked for identification, consider the
ramifications of participating in this system. Who owns you?"
Column by NonEntity.
The
Preamble Reconsidered
MUST
READ "And
so it was 'ordained and established'--the wind was sown. Today, we reap the
whirlwind." Column by Jim Davies.
Legalize
Methamphetamine!
MUST
READ "The
question of who gets to make decisions about the disposition of
certain property is central to understanding freedom.
Who gets to decide what activities are too dangerous for you?
Should I get to decide what activities are too dangerous for
you? What about your
neighbor? Or the majority? Or
the president? Or
Congress? Or some judge?
In a free society, the owner of the property gets to decide
how the property is used.
Because you own your body, I assert that you should decide
how your body is used or abused." Column by Marc Victor.
How,
Why?
MUST
READ "There
is a certain suspension of disbelief attendant to those social and political
theories endorsing endless and boundless murder, theft and fraud (i.e.
"statecraft"); one must believe, with the naive faith of a child who
believes that world hunger can be eradicated by making a law that everyone can
have ice cream for dinner if they want it, that one may kill the goose bearing
golden eggs and still have eggs every day for the taking. The iron laws
of time, human desire, and economics are in the process of refuting that
belief; its defense rings hollow, there are no believable Utopian adherents of
this philosophy anymore, only those that make no pretense about wanting to
kill millions of people and suck the marrow from their bones for the sake of
their own glorification and what they conceive of as a better world, organized
by boot heel and rifle butt." Column by Szechuan Death, who sounds
like a libertarian Mark Morford.
SpyChips:
How Major Corporations and Govt. Plan to Track Your Every Move With RFID
MUST
READ Chapter 1
of a new book by Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre. You can buy the
book by clicking on the link at the end.
Defining
Anarchy
MUST
READ "To
define anarchy as statist-government failure is such an obvious distortion of
the concept of a free society that it is hard to decide where to begin to
dismantle such thoughtlessness. I
like to begin by simply pointing out that at least four layers of
statist-government agencies still claim jurisdiction over the area known as
New Orleans
(city, parish, state and federal). The
undeniable fact is that they all four failed to provide the services they had
promised to provide when they were justifying the theft of individual
resources called taxes." Column by Mark Davis.
Serene
Outlaw: Henry David Thoreau in His Second Century
MUST
READ "At
times, Thoreau thundered at his readers like a Calvinist preacher,
rhapsodized like an Indian prophet, stung like a gadfly or chided their
sensibilities as a droll friend. The
odd collection of essayists who write for Strike The Root, and the thousands of
readers who peruse the columns there may hardly reflect on the moralist under
whose portrait their work appears, but by striving to write essays on a variety
of topics, many of them dedicated to the rights of individuals, they keep his
standards alive."
Column by Doug Herman.
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