Column by Alex R. Knight III
Exclusive to STR
The recent conviction of Bernard von NotHaus, founder of the Liberty Dollar, which had provided a gold and silver-based alternative form of currency to U.S. government-sanctioned Federal Reserve Notes (pieces of paper backed by nothing of any value whatsoever; thin air) since 1998 demonstrates quite clearly where Amerika currently is. Observe and absorb fully the following quote from U.S. District Attorney Anne Tompkins, taken from the Evanston Times (Indiana):
“’Attempts to undermine the legitimate currency of this country are simply a unique form of domestic terrorism,’ U.S. Attorney Tompkins said in announcing the verdict. ‘While these forms of anti-government activities do not involve violence, they are every bit as insidious and represent a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country,’ she added. ‘We are determined to meet these threats through infiltration, disruption, and dismantling of organizations which seek to challenge the legitimacy of our democratic form of government.’”
This statement, filled with a brazen arrogance and abysmal ignorance so sacrosanctly evil it staggers even the most jaded mind, shows us all that we are now under direct threat.
The State must be completely abolished. Period. Now.
Easily said, perhaps. Not so easily done.
Why is this?
Many if not most of us, as children, were afraid of the dark. After mom or dad or whoever tucked us in for the night and turned out the lights, before sleep our minds would wander incessantly over the vague shadow-shapes in the room. These hulking forms would become bogeymen of every conceivable type, lurking in the closet, under the bed, behind the chair in the corner. Likewise, as we got older, we began to recognize that these fears were mere products of the imagination, brought on by the overarching causual fear of the unknown. We began to see that a dark bedroom is just that, and nothing more. Our fears now, if we harbor any at all when we get up in the dark of night to use the bathroom or get a drink of water, are limited to stumbling or barking our shins on an unseen piece of furniture. We have assimilated the dark as merely a condition of the world in which we live, and not some reality-altering sorcery that besets hosts of paranormal monsters upon us as soon as the sun sets each evening. Except, perhaps, when we read well-written horror fiction...but that is another matter for a different venue.
But this, I expect, is why government survives. When any anarchist proposes that government be replaced by a voluntary free market in goods and services, the average mainstream individual recoils as if they are once again a tot in that benighted bedroom. They instantly envision a world in which they, their families, their possessions – and their very lives – are no longer safe. They envision a landscape of warfare, killing, bloodshed, chaos. They experience, quite simply, the fear of the unknown.
And like the goblins and ghouls of childhood, this is entirely irrational.
Government, we are told from earliest childhood, after all, is the very repository of peace, order, justice, and the one enabling factor that allows human progress to continue. Yet, the most cursory examination, in ways far too numerous to cover in a single essay, demonstrates conclusively that this is anything but true; that in fact government – both as an idea and manifest institution – is the polar opposite of all of these things, and further, affords the individual no choice but to comply or be harmed.
However, government is and can be seen. A society without government, for the most part, cannot be so easily discerned – albeit elements of one are evidenced all the time in any number of daily human interactions.
Thus, the retreat of the average person away from the proverbial dark room, away from the unknown, the uncomfortable, the new and the strange.
And straight into the arms of that which, I submit to you, should be the object of everyone’s greatest fear. The brutal thieving, murdering, lying beast known as government. More money will be stolen from you by force at the hands of this monstrosity during your lifetime than all other persons or organizations combined. More of your personal liberties will be curtailed by it than by any other affronting source. You are at greater risk of being kidnapped and/or killed by its minions than by any other league of criminals, vigilantes, bandits, or “terrorists.”
The line of reasoning goes on and on. And the evidence is abundantly clear to anyone with an open and honest mind. Yet, traditionally, the anarchist is reviled for exposing this truth. And bodies and minds back away – back to the parasite that feeds off of them vampirically, and without mercy. Madness.
Stop fearing the end of your slavery, the end of usurpers and tyrants who dictate your life to you as if they had any legitimate right to do so. Take back what is yours, what always has been yours.
Stop fearing real solutions. For in truth, you and I have nothing to fear but government itself.
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