The dumbest objections against statelessness #11
"Freedom means freedom to enslave!"
This objection to statelessness is beyond dumb — it’s retarded. I shouldn’t even have to address it, but there are multitudes of retards out there feeding the AI singularity with their overwhelming retardation.
So, here it goes, humiliating myself, stooping to the depths of idiocy to explain things with crayons to simpletons.
So, the “argument” goes like this: “We need some form of authority-based government, because without authority, people would be free to enslave each other, right? I mean, who would stop you if you wanted to take a slave for yourself?”
The first level of retardation this “argument” assumes is that the state or government is somehow morally bound to serve justice, when there is absolutely no way for the people to hold the state accountable for anything. History proves this. There is no mechanism in any type of government that can hold the state accountable, except revolt or non-compliance, but these are not within the scope of the state. Within the state, the state has absolute unaccountable power, and a corrupt election every few years, when corrupt voters sell their votes for scraps, doesn’t make any difference. Elections are just a psychological operation to appease the dumb, gullible masses with empty hope that ensures their obedience, generation after generation.
So, this same objection applies even more against the state: a threat-based monopoly of power, the government, means freedom to enslave. Who is going to stop the government from enslaving?
Demonstrably, no one, as we see today.
Slavery is alive and well today, and if you think it isn’t, you are the perfect example of the perfect slave: not only physically enslaved, but also mentally.
Don’t believe me, ha?
Most governments in the world enforce via brutal violence some sort of conscription, supposedly your “duty” to “serve” (as a slave) the ruling class, to waste years of your youth as a mindless, dead-eyed soldier bereft of free will and dignity, obedient to the gay cult of the military. Then, you are forced to go kill and die in a ditch for your government (not for your country) over petty political interests. And for the countries without conscription, like the USA, people are forced to pay taxes for the lush salaries of professional soldiers; so in essence, they still have conscription… they are just forced to buy their way out of it.
Yes, taxation is slavery, by definition, and without exaggeration. It is illogical to think otherwise. When the vast majority of the product of your labour is involuntarily taken from you under extortion and the threat of violence, what else do you call that? You are a tax slave with illusions of freedom just because you have a passport and can move around with full surveillance of your every movement. You pay income tax, sales tax, property tax, tariffs, corporate tax, energy tax, licensing, social insurance, and every other type of hidden tax and fee embedded in the prices of everything you purchase.
Most of what you spend (with your already taxed income) is more hidden taxes. And for what? Lavish politician benefits, corporate funding, government waste, corruption, and embezzlement, and war: drone-striking children in your name and on your dime. If you’re not angry, I don’t know what’s wrong with you.
At least slaves of the past knew they were slaves; they were allowed the dignity of their reality.
So, if in a stateless world, people might be free to enslave, then this is all the more possible under a monopoly of violence and absolute, unaccountable authority, be it communism, fascism, or the scam of democracy. At least overt dictatorships respect you enough to be honest about their totalitarianism. Democracy is the monster that rapes you and calls it lovemaking.
Yes, in freedom, you are free to enslave and commit any atrocity, the kind that government is even more free, empowered, and unopposed to commit… and it blatantly does commit every day in our name and on our buck.
If you are free to hurt others on a level playing field of free competition where people are as free to defend themselves, then how free is government with its concentrated monopoly of absolute and unaccountable violence to ensave you?
The difference is that, in freedom, other people are free to resist, free to defend themselves, and free to escape, unlike in the case of government.
In every single instance of organised, overt, and state-sanctioned slavery in history, it was the state (be it monarchy, theocracy, communism, or republic) that enabled and enforced slavery by treating it as “legal”. It was illegal to escape if you were a slave. If you escaped, it was the apparatus of the state with its brutalising enforcers that hunted and kidnapped the escapee slaves, not the slave masters. It was illegal to defend yourself if you were a slave. It was unlawful to resist being enslaved if you were marked for slavery.
And today, we are still experiencing slavery, just with extra steps to perpetuate the illusion of freedom. It’s illegal to move around without permission, without your government tracking you down via microchipped passports (just like slaves of the Roman Empire were allowed some freedom of movement as long as they had written permission).
It’s illegal to refuse to deliver the vast majority of your income to the state in the form of taxes. Sure, the government gives you back some pathetic services for the wealth we all give them, but that’s nothing; even plantation slave masters had to “give something back” to their slaves (food, clothes, accommodation, healthcare). The majority of your taxes don’t go to public services: they go to corruption and war. You literally work your ass off to have children get blown up half the world away, all in your name, no less.
Still think you are free? If you do, keep believing it. Self-deluded denial of reality will grant you health. Ignorance is bliss, and I almost envy you.
In a nutshell, under a state, you are not free to resist your slavery. Without a state, sure, you are free to try to enslave people, but you are also free to FAFO. There is no state stopping your “slaves” from destroying you. Your freedom ends where the freedom of others begins.
But it’s been my experience that the most enthusiastic foaming-at-the-mouth defenders of statism do indeed have an elitist slave-owner mindset; they imagine themselves part of the ruling class, the “deserving” aristocracy, the “superior” brutalisers of whomever they deem their inferior.
You are a slave. Act like it.
Recommended reading
‘Chaos Theory: Two Essays on Market Anarchy’ by Robert P. Murphy
‘No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority’ by Lysander Spooner
‘For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto’ by Murray N. Rothbard
‘Power and Market: Government and the Economy’ by Murray N. Rothbard
‘Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market’ by Murray N. Rothbard
‘The Enterprise Of Law: Justice Without The State’ by Bruce L. Benson
‘The Machinery of Freedom: A Guide to Radical Capitalism’ by David Friedman
‘The dumbest objections against statelessness’ series by Sotiris Rex
Here's something I posted elsewhere:
The fundamental principle of liberty is self-ownership because the opposite of liberty is slavery, the ownership of one person by another, or tyranny, which is slavery writ large, the explicit or implicit ownership of most of the people of a nation by a tyrant or set of tyrants. France's Louis XIV is an example of an absolute monarch who explicitly claimed to own his subjects. In “Patriarcha,” Robert Filmer defended the divine right of kings by appealing to the principle that the king owns the entire territory over which he rules, including everything and everyone in the territory. Substitute “ruling authority” for “king” to get the general basic principle of authoritarianism. Regarding humans, the fundamental principle of authoritarianism is this: The ruling authority owns all those who are ruled. John Locke's “Two Treatises of Government” was primarily a response to Filmer. In the “First Treatise,” Locke refuted Filmer. Concerning ownership of humans, in Chapter Five of the “Second Treatise,” Locke appealed to self-ownership, the basic principle of libertarianism. From that principle, he derived his political philosophy, which includes the right to property in land and its resources, which opposes ownership of a territory by a ruler. Thus, two basic political alternatives are state ownership and individual self-ownership.
Consider adding to your reading list "The Problem of Political Authority" by Michael Huemer.
BIG TRUTH, worth making a meme out of it:
''Democracy is the monster that rapes you and calls it lovemaking.''