“Random political acts produce random political results. Why waste even a rock?” — Abbie Hoffman
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In comments yesterday, a reader noted that he had the habit of lifting the digitus impudicus every time he saw a cop car.
Not meaning to pick on you, faithful commenter, but you raise something else along with that middle finger — the issue of useful (and non useful) actions on behalf of liberty.
Raise a finger and what do you get? A cop who thinks you’re an ass***e and who’ll remember that should you ever run afoul of him. Are you more free because you give the one-finger salute to Officer Unfriendly? Do you help end police abuses? Do you de-legitimize the state? Nope.
On the contrary, you are saluting the power the state has over your mind.
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But this isn’t about one rare guy who chooses to salute the state.
Life’s too short to waste time on gestures — or thoughts — toward the state that don’t serve to liberate us from its grasp.
Only one guy hereabouts might be raising a finger to the cops. Others might tsk tsk at him. Yet as we shake our heads, we (and I really do mean “we,” being as prone to this as anybody else) are giving the state and its mythical power more credence and more respect than it merits.
The emails fly fast & furious: Oh, horrors, the fedgov has some new technology that’s going to read our minds! Or if we don’t vote for so-and-so we’re going to lose our gun rights! Or some horrific new regulation might forbid us from painting our house green or having more than six cats or scavenging scrap metal. Whatever …
It’s natural … absolutely natural and a key step toward our self-liberation to be alarmed & furious when we discover that The Government Is Not Our Friend. And it’s absolutely natural after that to spend some time OMG!ing over every new revelation of government excess or overreach.
But that’s a phase. It’s a kind of adolescence of freedomista thought.
How many people just get stuck there? Get stuck in a perpetual tizzy of fear, disgust, or rage? So off we go to a blog or a forum or a Facebook page and shout and pound our fists — or raise a metaphoric digitus impudicus toward Our Eeeevil Overlords. And we neglect to move on to the next step, which is detaching ourselves from the state and refusing to honor the state even with our thoughts.
Is all that fear and fist-pounding any more useful than raising The Big Finger toward cop cars?
Nope. Just a more grownup — but less gutsy — salute to state power.
It seems like most of my life I spent raging against the machine at the urging of of one or another or several gun rights/libertarian/pseudo freedomista organizations. Later in life than I really like to admit, I discovered I was being milked like a cash cow only for the benefit of those running the orgs and producing no real results in favor of freedom. Since having that epiphany I’ve been living the stealth life and committing my 3 felonies a day in relative peace. My attitude toward the state and it’s enforcers hasn’t changed. I’ve just managed to put it into perspective and not let it ruin the quality of my life any more than absolutely necessary. I am pretty embarrassed that I voted faithfully for so many years and actually believed it could make a difference despite all of the evidence to the contrary. Better to do small things locally that have small effects than to waste my efforts giving the finger to the pigs. I’m not really criticizing Il Tim, just following a different path more compatible with my nature.
PS Since loading the Kindle app on my PC to read Shiver In The Sky I’ve discovered that Amazon has lots of free books available for download. It’s like being a kid in a candy store. Because I’m suspicious by nature I’m running the app in a sandbox just to be cautious and I’ve turned off the auto update feature as well. I’m having fun.
But if cussing the government has zero transaction cost, and someone enjoys cussing, where’s the loss?
Hard to ignore the state when its parked at every third street corner looking into your windows. Might as well give ’em something to look at.
Ah yes, the perpetual “OMG, we have to DOOOOO something…”
Most people don’t understand how unproductive all that really is, as you so aptly describe here (and so many other places).
I tend to tell them, “Thanks, I care very much, but I have outrage fatigue. I can’t spend my time outraged, tilting at windmills. I have a life.” And then I try hard to explain why they do too… 🙂
If it is a question of people being drained by their anger, I agree completely. But sometimes a little wrath can be a tonic.
This is also why, even though I am an atheist, I don’t say “god” in any flippant way, even if inspired to cuss. It just gives something more attention- more importance- than it deserves.
I sometimes do get angry at a particular cop action that I see. My middle finger twitches when I pass some guy being robbed on the side of the road by one of the tax-addicted reavers. But generally, I don’t think about them or concern myself with them. They just aren’t that important.
I am pretty much in “shun mode” toward the local cops. If they wave at me I do respond, but I don’t generally speak to them unless they speak to me first. I have told them exactly where I stand- in the local newspaper- a few times. They should know by now that I’m not going to be breaking into houses, but that I will also not lift a finger (haha!) to help them impose their “laws” on my neighbors.
Jim,
In some states, mine included, flipping off a cop is considered some kind of assault or disorderly persons offense and you can and will be arrested for it. A story read somewhere realted that a woman told a cop “f you”, and she was arrested for attempted solicitation for prostitution. So expressing yourself to cops is not necessarily always a zero cost transaction.
Claire,
Unfortunately, guvmint never seems to run out of new ideas to further strip us of our freedoms or our money. We’ve experienced the Caesar Salad Law (no raw eggs allowed) Ham Sandwich Law (no eating anything while driving) Kaley’s law (requiring young drivers to identify themselves to everyone, predators included, with a special license tag) Tanning Salon Law (I guess they gauge your tint?) Primary Seat Belt Law (you can stopped, searched and harassed for not strapping in) and now Seamus Law (requiring dogs to be harnessed in a car).
Every day, with every new “law”, it gets harder and harder to dismiss guvmint from thought. They seem so damned determined to impose their will upon every single aspect of our lives, its hard not to live in fear that someday they’ll come knocking.
It is good to avoid wasting effort or get mad without result. But the people around me must be reminded every day that there is a different way to think. Sonner or later everyone will start thinking that way and cops will quit their and people won’t pay for wars anymore. It is a gradual and largely unrewarding process.
At least most of us do not believe the world is flat anymore. 99guspuppet
I agree, I have started not doing a lot of things that I know aren’t really useful. For example, I never jump into the fray sending around all the email jokes, quotes, etc. that I get or see on Facebook. It is not that I don’t agree with them, it just that in my opinion it does nothing to advance the true cause of liberty and only gets me involved in time wasting arguments with people who will never see my point.
Also I would add on this post in particular, police are not always the enemy. I know several police officers who are fine people and just as much of 2nd Amendment and freedom fans as many of us. So not all police are bad people or cogs in the wheel of tyranny as some would believe. Some are very good people that you are glad are one of the good guys.
” So not all police are bad people or cogs in the wheel of tyranny…”
Deep down I understand the truth of that. It’s just that the other 99% give the good guys a bad rap.
I wasn’t thinking of flipping cops the bird when I said that a little wrath can sometimes be a good tonic.
Grinning at them seditiously can often be much more effective.
You’d be surprised at how many “important” things you can just flat out ignore without any repercussions. Government-any one on the planet-is not one big happy family all working in unison. It’s extremely dysfunctional. This can work in your favor, but it usually means a whole lot of Shutting Up. Over the last few months, I’ve been talking to a vendor I frequent at one of my favorite flea markets. She decided a few years ago to “go off the radar”-with no real knowledge on how to do so, and a lot of guesswork, accomplished it as much as is possible. She could be anyone’s Aunt Millie, and is a pleasant, friendly sort. No ranting, raving-just doing. ya gotta admire it.
I loved this line, but talk me through what it looks like in practice in a real life: “detaching ourselves from the state and refusing to honor the state even with our thoughts.”
A finger in the air is the same as a finger on the keyboard?
C.W. wrote, “Is all that fear and fist-pounding any more useful than raising The Big Finger toward cop cars?”
Is that clear? I mean, how does a Person weigh the results of those actions to make a value judgment like that? The seen and the unseen.
The members of The White Rose should have never said a word, rather they should have jumped ship, moved to New Jersey and gotten jobs milking cows?
I thought this was a pretty good approach to things, only I’m not so good at it,… yet:
methylamine on October 5, 2012 at 4:02 pm:
I ran across that friend-of-a-friend, a lawyer, a while back at the local pool.
Last time I talked to him we’d started an interesting 4th amendment conversation, and he brought up football. I asked him if he really thought that was more important than watching the Republic imploding.
Saw him again recently and before I’d said anything he asked if I’d “seen the game”. My reply was:
“I don’t know what ‘game’ you’re talking about. I grew up after I left my teens and now I’m worried my kids are growing up in a fascist hell-hole. Doesn’t it worry you that the country is totally… [fubar]?”
He looked stunned for a second, then said,
“You’re always so negative, why don’t you lighten up?”
I walked away.
At this point, I’m adopting a new way of awakening people. If I don’t get a nibble, a glimmer of hope or interest right away, I move on. Most of them are too brain-damaged to save and you’ll just waste your time and get angry and bitter.
Find the ones that are ready and help them. Ignore the rest.
The above was from a comment at ericpetersautos website.
Also, Perfect reply, Woody. If anyone wanted to expand on that thought, here’s a starting point:
Heroes … Not
“Cops are the enemy.” …
http://ericpetersautos.com/2012/09/29/heroes-not/
Every time I see the cop stories here, I wonder if I’ve been spoiled. The cops around where my land is seem to behave like everybody they meet is an honest, rational adult unless proven otherwise. They’re respectful towards everybody. More “Andy Tailor” than “Barney Fife”.
There’s a spot I drive through often where the speed limit changes in such a way that it seems set up for a speed trap. In the 5 years I’ve been driving that route, I have never seen nor heard of anybody ever being stopped there.
Is this a midwestern thing, or have I just been lucky all this time?
“The members of The White Rose should have never said a word, rather they should have jumped ship, moved to New Jersey and gotten jobs milking cows?”
There’s a vast difference between risking your life to agitate against unjust authority when no one else has the guts to speak up and just sitting on your butt as a keyboard commando along with a million other do-nothings.
Laura — Can’t do that in a blog post or a comment. But I’ve been trying to do it for most of my career. There’s already a lot on this blog and in my books that covers that territory.
I’ll try to sum it up one more time in a future blog post, but in the meantime you might search the blog for the term Freedom Outlaw.
Not even giving them [STATISTS] your thoughts. Reminds me of a line from Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead. Ellsworth Toohey asks Roarke what he thinks of him and Roarke replies “but I don’t think of you”. So take that statist. Gonna go register to vote for the second time in my 50 years on this earth. Writing in Ron Paul. I know he won’t win but I’ll feel better doing it.
“Grinning at them seditiously can often be much more effective.”
Yup, if you must deal with them at all.
Also — everybody — don’t get me wrong. I’m not against gestures and I’m not against being either enraged or informed. I’m just more in favor of gestures that accomplish something and using rage and information to create freedom.
Ah, I am just getting out of the almost obsessive need to reply angrily to every affront to liberty as I see it. Coming out of the adolescent stage, huh? Glad to know that I am finally growing up….
In the Bible, it talks about the wise man being discerning and keeping his trap shut at important times (yes, I paraphrase, crudely)
One compromise between flipping the bird and grinning seditiously – just take their photograph. Lots of times…. but keep smiling.
I actually wave (all 5 fingers up) when I pass an officer.
I also will tell an officer ‘have a good day and be careful out there’.
I spent a number of years riding turns with an officer. He was barely 5′ tall. I once asked how he handled those so much larger than him. His reply, ‘don’t ever let them know they scare the dogsnot out of you’.
Fairly good advice, from my point of view.
mike
I’m reminded of the last words of August Spies – a man who was hanged for his alleged part in the Haymarket Riots:
“The day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you are throttling today.”
He was probably an optimist – but I can imagine how ominous that silence could be.
“The members of The White Rose should have never said a word, rather they should have jumped ship, moved to New Jersey and gotten jobs milking cows?”
I’m fairly sure Hans and Sophie Scholl, Christoph Probst, Alexander Schmorell, Kurt Huber and Willi Graf thought maybe that would have been a better plan. At least now and then. While they were waiting to be beheaded by the Nazis. For a very, very brave act of anti-authoritarian propaganda that did no earthly good except to get them posthumously canonized. One of them literally.
What they did was, as the evidence amply demonstrates, very much more hazardous than raising a middle-finger salute to a cop. It bought them fame and honor, and one of their leaflets was even reproduced and allegedly airdropped by the Allies. Not that they lived to see it. It was certainly heroic, and only they could judge whether it was a good outcome for spending their lives.
But if any or all of those people had decided a long, obscure life in America beat a very short life followed by a great Wikipedia entry and some memorials in Germany, I wouldn’t have had a thing to say in rebuttal. Because it’s the sort of thing only the individual can decide for himself.
Out here, in these remote mountains, you can learn a bit, from the coyotes, and wolves, and such. Being sneaky, and war, can be just what situational things require. That is pretty much all there is to it, everything else tries to be lip gloss, on you know who. If humans spent more of that time with the rest, well, that could be some thing.
Ellendra — Yeah, I’m thinkin’ it’s at least partly a midwest thing. Don’t know what part of the midwest you’re in, but I never saw as much politeness in my whole life as I saw in Minnesota and Iowa.
The local cops here seem like decent sorts, too. Maybe I wouldn’t think that if I had any hardcore encounters with them. But I’ve seen them busting people in this neighborhood and I’ve never seen the slightest sign of rough stuff.
Mic-
“…it just that in my opinion it does nothing to advance the true cause of liberty…”
I would say, lighten up. There is more to life than advancing “the cause”, such as living. A life without some jokes is not worth living.
I don’t always take my own advice, but I know I am a more effective libertyvangelist when I am not being miserable.
Your perceptions of cops may be squed just a bit because of your sex. Every encounter I’ve ever had with cops has been a whole different ball of wax when I had a girl with me. The contrast was like night and day.
Anyway,… I wanted to know why Claire left her yurt?
Perhaps I should add, the reason why I want to know: the yurt looks like a half-way good idea, I’m just looking at all the negatives to see if they out weigh the positives.
I’ve lived in a tent, and I’ve lived in a house. Houses are better. Fortunately (as I recall) Claire was living in her cabin when the yurt was wiped off the face of the earth by a big storm.
People have a psychological need to feel an accomplishment when logic and reason all point to futility. When you know you can’t do anything it becomes that much more important to do something. Even if it’s just walking around with a witty sign, an angry internet post that other angry people applaud, high fives from freinds after tipping over the man’s port-a-john…the worse things get the more satisfaction a person gets out of small, safe gestures of dissidence.
Flipping off cops just for being cops is pretty childish however. I have to admit though…bicycle cops? When I’m out on a weekend bender sometimes I can’t help but point and laugh at these brave Hawaii 5-0 rejects…they’re just such…dorks.
Yup. Joel’s exactly right about what happened to my yurt. The yurt was designed to withstand winds of 100 mph. But it ended up being hit with freak winds way beyond its design capacity, and those winds went on and on and on for two days.
I also agree with Joel: house is better. The yurt was wonderfully atmospheric and certainly “lite” on the budget. But it was rarely the right temperature, and every sound from the outside was not just hearable within; the structure of the yurt actually magnified sound. It was like being inside a drum. That’s okay when it’s birdies singing. Not so okay when it’s logging trucks going up the road at 3:00 a.m.
“But if any or all of those people had decided a long, obscure life in America beat a very short life followed by a great Wikipedia entry and some memorials in Germany, I wouldn’t have had a thing to say in rebuttal. Because it’s the sort of thing only the individual can decide for himself.”
Maybe they thought, mmmm, New Jersey….let’s just stay and take our chances with the Nazis.
I agree with your assessment, and at least potentially, they had a choice. However, there is no longer an America in which to find refuge, and the authorities everywhere are unlikely to tolerate anyone living an obscure life.
Thank you for the reply.