The Absurdity of the System

The level of corruption in governments around the world (both State and Federal) is reaching a boiling point.  This isn't the first time, and it certainly won't be the last.  Unless, that is, we decide we've had enough.  And I don't mean enough of the current team in power, I mean the government-by-force paradigm in its entirety.

While their intentions may (or may not) have been noble, the Framers of the Constitution created the potential that has led to the absurdity we see today.  The only thing worse than being made into a criminal for owning a previously legal high capacity magazine is being made into a criminal for refusing to purchase health insurance.  As if to add insult to injury, President Obama is showing his true colors by celebrating his great "victory" of forcing millions of people at the barrel of a gun to buy health insurance.  This kind of celebratory behavior is what you might expect from a dictator looking down on those he has subjugated.  Then again, if you consider how Obama crassly jokes about murdering people with predator drones, this type of celebration seems right in line with his personality.

Only in a system as absurd as this do hundreds of millions of dollars per year get funneled into combating a drug which has never killed anyone in all of Human history while the pharmaceutical industry produces one pill after another that regularly kill over 38,000 people per year in the US alone.  In fact, roughly 50% of people in our overloaded prison system (which is largely private and for-profit) are there for non-violent drug related offenses.  Related: The legal alcohol and tobacco industry kill a cumulative 518,000 people per year in the US.

Only in a system as nonsensically absurd as this does the government spend untold billions on fighting a faceless "War on Terror" while leaving the Southern border of the country wide open to potential terrorists and illegal immigrants.  Mind you, I don't have any problem at all with people freely traveling this planet, so long as they do so in peace.  What is absurd is that the United States government would have you terrified of some shadowy threat they can't really define so that they can keep taking your money and limiting your growth.  In short, so that you never have time to stop and question the validity of their claims, or the validity of the fact that they exist at all in the capacity in which you think they do.

Only in a system as patently absurd as ours does Congress abdicate its responsibility to create money to a private bank, then borrow from that bank at interest.  The debt our government owes to the Federal Reserve has grown so far out of control that virtually every penny of your Federal income taxes go directly to paying the interest alone.  That's right: Your income taxes do not pay for the services you expect.  Instead, they pay for the interest on a debt our government only owes because it gave up its duty to create its own money.

Only in a system as absurdly corrupt as this do the same people creating genetically modified foods also get to set the safety regulations for those foods.  These same people are also authoring legislation that prevents any sort of cease-and-desist order being filed against them even if it is found that their "foods" are causing harm to humans or the environment.

Only in a system as ridiculously absurd as America's can you be sent to prison for not paying taxes - where you can't earn more to pay off your "obligations" even while costing taxpayer money for your stay - without absolving you of your tax debt.  If tax collection were about revenue generation, the last thing the government would do is lock you in a cage at the expense of tax dollars.  But taxation isn't about revenue.  It's about control at the barrel of a gun.  The situation is literally no different than when a common street thug holds a gun to your head and demands "Your money or your life."  The number of thugs and caliber of the gun being held is of no relevance to this scenario - they are identical.

While we are on this topic, it is worth revisiting a heavily self-evident fact: The initiation of aggression is inherently illegitimate.  Even if you believe your friend should behave a certain way, you know it is unacceptable for you to threaten violence against them to illicit the behavior you want.  You also know that if you choose to initiate violence anyway, your friend is fully justified in using violence against you in their own self-defense.  You live by this Non-Aggression Principle every day you interact with others without harming them.  If this is the standard applied to individual people, should it not also be applied to governing bodies?  Anything that must be done at the barrel of a gun - taxation, drug law enforcement, Obamacare - should be seen by all as inherently illegitimate because it removes the element of voluntary interaction.

It's time for everyone to see government for what it is - a concentration of force which uses threats of violence and ultimately the promise of death to obtain compliance.  Having "slightly less stealing and threats of violence" isn't good enough.  If Liberty is truly to thrive, we must remove the ability of any single person to legalize whatever brand of aggression they see fit.

Reading words like these might make you feel uncomfortable.  They seem to be calling you out to you directly to change some subtle thing in your life, something you know would work towards making our existence what it could be.  And I wonder - will you answer this call?  Or will you continue to live your life as if there is nothing wrong?  Because as Grant says in The Iron Web, "Some of us are done trying to help you.  If you crave servitude and can't live without it, by all means, keep it.  But leave us the hell alone."

"When the government's boot is on your throat, whether it is a left boot or a right boot is of no consequence."