{"id":6452,"date":"2011-07-19T15:01:36","date_gmt":"2011-07-19T22:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/?p=6452"},"modified":"2011-07-19T15:01:36","modified_gmt":"2011-07-19T22:01:36","slug":"responsibilities-of-a-resident-of-the-police-state-part-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2011\/07\/19\/responsibilities-of-a-resident-of-the-police-state-part-iii\/","title":{"rendered":"Responsibilities of a resident of the police state, part III"},"content":{"rendered":"

Moving beyond misconceptions<\/b><\/p>\n

Comment threads on part I<\/a> and part II<\/a> were full of interesting insights. Well, comments around here nearly always are. But these were interesting for the mix of wisdom and folly they contained — both held with equal passion.<\/p>\n

When I challenged people (sarcastically, I admit) to point me toward a single local government that consistently and reliably obeyed the law, respected individuals, and kept within its bounds, people responded with exactly the sort of examples that proved my point. Yes, you can demonstrate that when local governments become sufficiently corrupt and abusive, angry voters will rise up and kick ass. But I already acknowledged that. <\/p>\n

Nobody came up with a single example of true “good government” even at what ought<\/i> to be the most easily managed level. <\/p>\n

Matt did point out, correctly, that if good government did exist, it might not get much media attention; botched SWAT raids and politicians caught in the act of bribe-taking do make better press. <\/p>\n

Nevertheless, if voting and vigilance create good government, there’d be hundreds, if not thousands, of examples to point to. There aren’t any<\/i>. At best, you get slightly more tolerable versions of tyranny, slightly less corrupt oligarchies, slightly more favorable forms of favoritism, out of the vigilance-and-voting arrangement. That’s all you’ll ever get — and in most cases not even that much.<\/p>\n

The moment you set up an organization that’s empowered to take other people’s money and boss other people around, the word “good” simply can’t apply.<\/p>\n

Joel sums things up pretty well<\/a>. You can vote out all the rascals in the world, but you’re still stuck with a system that attracts rascals and bullies and corrupts the rare good people who dare enter it.<\/p>\n

The saddest thing is that despite centuries of evidence, so many people hold voting as some holy ritual, some magic rite. “If enough people would just vote, all would be well.” When it doesn’t work, it’s because the people failed to vote diligently enough.<\/p>\n

No, that’s not the saddest thing. The saddest thing is that so many have been conditioned to believe that our only<\/i> choices are the two “Vs” — a) voting or b) violence. “We must<\/i> make the magic rite of voting work. If we can’t, blood will run in the streets.”<\/p>\n

Now that’s a heck of a choice.<\/p>\n

Is the universe really that limited? Nonsense!<\/p>\n

We could get into some philosophical meander here and point out that voting is a form of violence, as is government itself. But let’s leave that for the philosophical types. For the rest of us, it’s a matter of doing what works to increase the amount of freedom — in the<\/i> world and in our<\/i> worlds. And right now, at this moment, for We the People who’ve watched a police state (albeit a kinder, gentler one) rise up around us, neither voting nor violence is an effective option if our aim is to live free.<\/p>\n

—-<\/p>\n

“But what do we do instead<\/i>?” There’s the eternal cry. And what’s strange is that all manner of people (including me, including lots of commentors, including legions of creative bloggers) offer answers to that question every day. For years<\/i> we’ve been tossing out alternatives.<\/p>\n

Few want to hear. Because of course the answers aren’t as easy-peasy as spending five minutes of bi-annual or quad-annual (is that even a word?) v*ting (and getting righteous over news stories in between). Nor is it as dramatic (and pleasantly distant) as the image of we, our heroic selves, (someday) taking up arms and blasting in Rambo-esque glory at The Tyrant’s Legions — after somebody else starts the revolution we’re so adamant to have.<\/p>\n

The real answers take 10,000 forms and involve (as one commentor scorned) everybody “doing their own thing” (“Hippies,” he snorted).<\/p>\n

The real answers involve individual responsibility. Ugh. How dreary. How tedious. How unheroic. How very unfashionable. <\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

I want to clear up another misconception. A couple of comments noted (rightly) that nobody has any responsibility to<\/i> a police state. True. But that’s never been my point. It’s not about performing any duties to<\/i> the state. It’s about duties we feel toward ourselves, our families, our communities, our civilization, our principles, and our fellow man when we’re stuck living within<\/i> a police state.<\/p>\n

Now, if you don’t feel any of those, fine. Go your own way. (In fact, you probably already have gone your own way; I doubt that many consciousless, conscienceless folk have read this far.)<\/p>\n

So this is about responsibilities we personally believe we should undertake — to create change within whatever sphere we adopt as our own. It’s about the responsibility to keep the tyrant from kicking our<\/i> door down by preempting it from kicking down the doors of other innocent people (or punishing it when it does). It’s about the responsibility to ensure our own freedoms by kicking back when others’ freedoms get trampled. It’s about blowing the miasma of tyranny away from frightened, discouraged souls.<\/p>\n

It’s about the long haul. <\/p>\n

But. Here’s the good part. Responsibility doesn’t have to be dreary or tedious. Nor does revolution (if and when it comes) have to be bloody.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

Stay tuned for more.<\/p>\n

And thank you to everybody who’s heard all this before — and maybe even said all this before. It needs to be said again periodically, and in different words, so that new people can hear and discouraged people can mine old concepts for new courage.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Moving beyond misconceptions Comment threads on part I and part II were full of interesting insights. Well, comments around here nearly always are. But these were interesting for the mix of wisdom and folly they contained — both held with equal passion. When I challenged people (sarcastically, I admit) to point me toward a single local government that consistently and reliably obeyed the law, respected individuals, and kept within its bounds, people responded with exactly the sort of examples that proved my point. Yes, you can demonstrate that when local governments become sufficiently corrupt and abusive, angry voters will rise…<\/p>\n

Continue readingResponsibilities of a resident of the police state, part III<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,18,25,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-mind-and-spirit","category-poly-ticks","category-resistance","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6452\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}