Had a visitor last weekend. An old online friend, S, whom I’ve been privileged to meet before in the real world.
S knows a lot about many things including, unfortunately, cancer. One of the topics of our wide-ranging discussion was my local friend, J, who’s undergoing chemo for a pancreatic tumor. S had plenty to say and I asked him to put some of it in writing when he could spare some time from his travels (he’s a busy guy and was on a business trip when he stopped by my place).
S drove away. But quicker than I’d ever imagine, back came an email with facts, links, and extensive personal observations. Then as rapidly as Amazon could get them here, along came two books on natural cancer treatment from S for me to take to J — a woman he has never met and almost certainly will never have any contact with.
When I marveled that he would do that for a stranger, S said, “You know her. You told me about her plight. Any friend of yours is someone I’m glad to help if I can.
“I’m growing convinced that phyles, or something like them, is the way forward. It’s how we will begin to shake off the state by simply ignoring it and allowing it to strangle itself. If you introduce me to someone, they are a friend of mine. My home, my resources, my knowledge is available to them. This is how we can harness the distributed many against the mighty, and mighty violent, few.”
How wonderful — not only the gift for J, but the thought. I’m not sure I could match S’s open-hearted nobility. But he’s right about our power to grow around and apart from the state.
I’ve called it community, but that evokes images of neighbors nearby. Phyles is a word I haven’t heard in a couple of years. But I like it as a descriptor for what we need to do — what we are doing, with the aid of this amazing tool, the ‘Net.
Phyles. Virtual tribes defined not by location or genetics or national identity, but by common interests and links of one member to another.
Neal Stephenson in The Diamond Age updated an ancient Greek term. Doug Casey has talked about the power of phyles. So has John Robb of Global Guerrillas.
Others have waxed more philsophical and even come up with 12-step programs for establishing phyles in the real world.
But you don’t need a program or even a conscious intention. We’re all part of phyles right now. Not only that, but we’re building interlinking networks of phyles, intentionally or not. Communities of hackers or gun owners or preppers linking seamlessly with communities of believers or non-believers linking seamlessly with communities of anarchists or Paulists or political agnostics linking seamlessly with communities of pot smokers or artists or small business people linking seamlessly with residents of New Zealand, Ireland, or Germany linking seamlessly with … well, who knows?
And the state? It plays no role at all (except of course its standard one of snooping and interfering). We are more important to each other than the state is to any of us, no matter what our nominal political philosophy might be.
And this power, and these amazing borderless communities, are going to grow larger and stronger and more independent of any nation-state over time (as long as we have the technology to maintain them). And isn’t that an amazing thing to contemplate? We will create our way around the state. It’s not a new thought, I know. Not an original thought. Just an astounding one.
Think of that the next time the state, with its endless violence and its mad, irrational rules, is doing its best to get you down.
“We are more important to each other than the state is to any of us”
And Mama Liberty’s “I own my life and am the only one responsible for that life”
The most important sentences I have read all week! Thank You!
OT: Someone who can reach Joel might want to tell him that Avast Antivirus is blocking http://joelsgulch.com/ as a “malicious URL”.
The state is already irrelevant to me and will stay so. As for your vision, it is a beautiful vision and I hope some day that such a world will exist, but sadly we still have far too many people that are more than willing to vote for a living. These are parasites that won’t wait for “S” to be generous, but will go get the goons in government to come an beat “S” up and take what they want.
Sadly these are people that will never understand what it means to be independent, self reliant, and responsible for yourself. They don’t understand a world where “S” and you and “J” all work together in harmony and willingly help each other in a spirit of cooperation. I fear as long as these types of parasites exist who create the kind of government we have today that this vision will always be part of a minority of people.
As a determined ghost hermit, I often hesitate over the ideas of joining a “community” and all the related issues of trust that would go along with that….however, Phyles I can totally wrap my brain around – it kinda still embraces the fact I am helpful (to a fault sometimes) and yet still retains a good amount of the stubborn independent side of things…
Bless “S” he sounds like a great person who has it figured out….
I think that when “it” finally hits, there will be an amazing amount of like minded people who will find each other and help muddle the way thru all the chaos…..and will undoubtedly outnumber anything the gov can try to assemble to squash them……
Indeed naturegirl…
[quote]
But, in the end, I live and therefore I am. I don’t need any other person’s permission to live or defend myself. I don’t need anyone’s vetting of my intentions or sanity, nor approval for the self defense tool I choose or how I carry it.
I don’t NEED to explain myself. I don’t NEED any reasons at all.
[/quote]
Someone really took me to task for this statement the other day… telling me loudly that there is no way I can live without other people, that I am as dependent on others as anyone else… etc.
He missed the whole point, I fear.
Just because we do not need to control each other doesn’t mean we don’t need each other. The voluntary association of like minds is very necessary to human health and happiness – every bit as much as is self ownership. Without coercion or force, they are totally compatible.
Thanks, Claire. I’ve said similar things to people myself, but it’s good to be reminded at a low point that there are high points. Not that there’s anything terrible going on with me…I’m just sort of tired of being on the outside, lately.
Anyway. Again, thanks.
MamaLiberty wrote, “Someone really took me to task for this statement the other day… telling me loudly that there is no way I can live without other people, that I am as dependent on others as anyone else… etc.”
Sounds like an Obamatron spreading the basis of the idea, “You didn’t build that, goberment did!” … with blinders on and Full speed ahead.
Actually, Clark, they simply don’t “grok” the idea of self ownership at all, and think that any rejection of the collective is rejection of the community. It takes time to SHOW them that they engage in voluntary interaction and peaceful trade all the time themselves, and that THIS is what individual liberty is truly all about.
When we can frame the understanding of individual liberty completely outside the political arena and relate it to the ordinary things they do and say in their own lives right NOW, then we have a chance to reach the core and, sometimes, shed some light on it.
MamaLiberty: Kindergardeners understand free trade and free association, you can see it all the time on the playground. Amazing how thouroughly people forget that.
*that was supposed to say “some people”
Here’s someone who got his work ethics screwed by the government. He was working for them and was not allowed to take a second better paying job to live on. Yeah baby, they wanted him all to themselves. Didn’t slaves of old get treated better than this?
http://touch.thebillfold.com/thebillfold/#!/entry/it-turns-out-my-work-ethic-is-pretty-flexible,501c09d27af68a84dc5dac64/1
Another incentive to not bother with the government, as far as I am concerned.
On another note, and another example of not trusting government, here’s one of a hand-cuffed man shooting himself. Note the hand dominate in the article.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/01/chavis-carter-shot-jonesboro-police_n_1730997.html
Heh, set to music: “Phyles on my mind.”
Hard to remember the spelling, but not the “thing”.
MamaLiberty wrote, “When we can frame the understanding of individual liberty completely outside the political arena and relate it to the ordinary things they do and say in their own lives right NOW, then we have a chance to reach the core and, sometimes, shed some light on it.”
Keyword: sometimes.
I tell myself, “Self, it must be a worthwhile approach as I seem to be doing it a lot.” Don’t know if it’s sunk into many People’s minds though.
My favorite was describing anarchy/volunteerism along the lines of a stroll down the grocery store isles. There’s no shopping cart speed limit, no divided yellow lines painted down the isles, no grocery cart stop lights and such, yet things go pretty smooth with no goberment intervention required. … At least in my neck of the woods it works like that.
Anyway,… I came to post a link to a blog entry about grain free dog food. I thought of Living Freedom when I saw it and thought you all might be interested? I never thought about Paleo/Primal dogs before,… heh, cavedogs:
Grain Free = Freedom
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/117268.html
We can try to ignore them, but, unfortunately, they wont go away. The government will still insidiously slip it’s tentacles into everything we do, more and more every day. The government has the ultimate power to destroy. They can tax anything they want gone out of existence
I’m just curious if Ms. Wolfe still thinks we’re still in “that awkward phase”…
Is it STILL too soon??
“And Mama Liberty’s ‘I own my life and am the only one responsible for that life’
The most important sentences I have read all week! Thank You!”
“I own myself” is the ethical axiom in a social context, at least to the degree one believes in meaning and property.
Each of those three words, and the statement as a whole, cannot be taken in any sort of ambiguous meaning. And as stated, it is true. That is, there can be no denial. The only way out would be to claim that “own” is referentless, ahem.
Surely everything else flows from that, at least in our interactions.
Not a lot of people can come up with axioms, but I think it figures that ML would!
Hey DD, we wish it were awkward; much too plain, eh?
A man here was sent home from the veterans hospital to die of his cancer and someone got him a $20.00 bottle of MMS, which he took for 6 weeks and is completely cured. People who have a health treatment place here have been completely convinced that this works for nearly any illness.
This man is teaching about it around the world except in the US where I guess they are afraid it will cut the profits of the drug companies and doctors.
http://jimhumble.biz/
Marilyn,
I went to that site. It seemed to be all about raising money. The “basic science” paper doesn’t contain much science. When I did a search, virtually everything that came up on MMS (that wasn’t about some other thing with the same initials) was commercial. Not a good sign. I may ask a friend who is very educated about cancer (both traditional and non-traditional treatments) what he knows. But seems bogus to me.
I know that may out there are not “believers”, but I can tell you that true Christianity has always functioned this way. And Christian churches (I will not talk of other sects because I am not knowledgeable) today support the community in so many ways. The instructions we follow are to love God and to love our neighbor as ourself. Not saying that non-Christians aren’t loving, only that true Christian are, and always will be.
I’m sorry about the jim humble website. When we first started he seemed to be a reputable person but is not now so we have a new place to deal with.
There is a place in Henderson Nevada that sells the mineral and the website is: http://www.shop.a2zhealthproducts.com/Sodium-Chlorite_c5.htm
Thank you, Marilyn. I’ll keep looking into this.
A friend of mine, who’s knowledgeable about such things, says that Christianity spread so rapidly and powerfully in Rome because it was, indeed, a phyle. Christian congregations provided support network for their generally poor and powerless converts that the recognized religions did not. Including simply feeding them.
My own experiences with phyles lies with one which has existed for almost 80 years: (semi) organized science fiction and fantasy fandom. Which incorporates a good many pros, since that’s where most of us came from, and where a good number of us remain.
More than a subculture, it’s a remarkably cohesive phyle that extends worldwide. Fans have a tradition of helping out other fans, whether it’s giving them crash space when they go out of town to a con or chipping in when one’s in trouble. It started in the old mimeographed fanzine days. The Internet has widened and strengthened it.
It literally saved my life, two and a half years ago. Primarily my New Mexico branch, especially my own club, the Albuquerque Science Fiction Society, and the NM writers. But people all over the country helped me.
So I know the power of phyle’s first hand. I believed in that power before I got sick. Now I’ve experienced it first-hand.
Sodium chlorite is a type of bleach. Great as a disinfectant, but given the toxicity warnings I wouldn’t want to swallow any.
PS: there’s a searchable index of research papers located at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed but all the ones I came up with that mentioned sodium chlorite were in reference to it as a cleaning and disinfecting agent.
Ellendra, Citric acid is a bitter acid found naturally in many fruits. As with many natural compounds, it can and is synthesized. Such compounds are used for many things, both food and such things as cleaning. Many people clean with vinegar, for instance.
I use citric acid often in canning to increase the acid level of some fruits and vegetables to increase safety and retain color. Lemon juice and vinegar are used for similar reasons in many recipes.
I’m not at all sure if using citric acid is a good medicinal practice, and I intend to look into it more closely, but don’t let a chemical name scare you off all by itself. Food safe citric acid is available almost anywhere in bulk. It does not make any sense to pay pharmacy prices for it. 🙂
My bad! I looked more closely at that site and see they are two different products, which I should have noticed right away.
No, I’d not be interested in using “chlorite” in any internal fashion without a great deal of good, solid scientific research.
But I will read it. 🙂
Yeah, the two products fooled me at first, too, especially since the chemical name for citric acid is NOT “sodium chlorite”. But a search on sodium chlorite turned up several mentions of “MMS”, so I’m assuming that was the product Marilyn meant.