That is the official count. 195 seperate and mutually contradictory manifestations of rulership, living together not-so-peacefully on planet Earth. Every other standing eternally as each one’s justification. All of them subversively disseminating xenophobia, crime, and bad will towards our fellow man.
Some are undeniably better than others, of course. Who is willing to argue that domestic life in the United States is worse than domestic life in, say, Iran? Indisputably very few. But this no more makes me a patriot than not being murdered makes a rape victim a happily wedded woman.
Too often do people think of “THE government” as a fixed entity, some homogeneous hominid deity making things safe for us from afar. Government is an action. It is a transgression. When I am instructed to be at a certain place by a certain time, by threat of physical retaliation, I am being governed. I may not know it, because I may comply with it’s dictates, out of sloth or ignorance. But when I fail to show up at whatever camp I’m interred at – be it a workplace or school building – then I am introduced to government’s real face, a face inflamed with rage and violence.
It is when one combines the continued occurance of these despicable actions, induced by a majority as an indissoluble given, and a generalization of a variable quantity of humen into a “society” or “nation” (forgetting the obvious truth of methodological individualism), that a State is formed. A State, a celebrated coalition of thieves and liars, claiming necessity in the existence of other thieves and other liars. Without someone deceiving the deceivers, you will be deceived, says the State. Without someone murdering the murderers, you will be murdered, says the State. There is a name for this fallacy – it’s popular name is “two wrongs make a right”.
If you don’t support genocide, don’t commit it. If you don’t support marriage, don’t get married. It’s that simple, and that’s as far as our moral prescriptions to other people should go. Never should we presuppose the necessity of retribution or retaliation, for if one man can be convinced to restrain a murderer, that murderer could just as easily be convinced to restrain himself.
And if that is not the case, what is the use of speaking? Keep your guns close and your suspicions closer, because some men can’t be trusted regardless of your words.
Anarchism is the name given to the struggle for a society wherein each actor has a say in each decision to the degree they are affected by it, as one t-shirt so eloquently puts it.
I couldn’t say it better myself. An anarchist is a person that trusts liberty fully – not conditionally or contractually. And in order for us to realize it, in order to cross out each State from the list of world countries as if we were marking off collected groceries from a grocery list, we’ll have to do more than speak out. We’ll have to live in accordance with our principles. As the saying goes, anarchism does not stop at the doorstep.
Wherever and whenever, we must not choose to rule. We must choose to not permit the continued existence of fallacious self-justifying authority. Do not be offended if your friend is wearing clothes not fit for some occasion you both plan to attend. The stigma is his consequence to reap. If you yourself are bothered by his appearance, be honest and say so, but do not presume to speak for others too afraid to. Do not say, “you cannot wear those clothes because those others will not like it”. If that is the case, let those others speak when the occasion arises!
Anarchism entails liberty, liberty entails honesty, honesty entails personal responsibility. A duty to your own happiness and nobody else’s, a deed to your own life alone. Live, and let live.
Love, and let hate; hate, and let love.
Do any thing, save make it certain for another.
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