How to Live Freer Now

 

MISSION:

The mission of the Liberty Round Table is to eradicate institutionalized aggression.

 

CONSIDERATIONS:

1] LRT urges all peoples everywhere to refuse to cooperate with institutionalized aggression. One of the most effective ways to do this, and perhaps the only known way to get rid of coercive agencies other than violent revolution, is non-cooperation. Boycotting state-run (non-voluntary) services enables people to live in greater freedom and sleep with cleaner conscience. It also de-legitimizes such agencies and can lead to their disappearance through atrophy.


2] Living free is not only intrinsically desirable and moral, it also enables people to teach freedom without appearing to be hypocrites. It enables us to teach by example and is the ultimate answer to, “Well, that sounds nice in theory…”.

3] Strategy and information on how to increase their ability to exercise their freedom and rights are among the benefits we offer to those who involve themselves in LRT.

 

SPECIFICS:

As previously discussed, there are ways of organizing one’s life so as to reduce the amount of aggression one is subject to. Here are some places to start:

1] AVOID USING THE US POST OFFICE. Granted, there are some bills we have to pay via checks in the mail, but if everyone would simply cut their use of the post office in half, it would devastate their budget and possibly lead to its privatization or elimination. E-mail is an excellent alternative for most letter writing. Encourage everyone you know to get e-mail and stop giving business to an organization that only stays in business through acts of violence that occur every time a paycheck is cut. E-mail is available for free from many companies. UPS and FedEx can take care of most things that don’t go to a PO Box, if you can afford to use them more frequently.


2] USE PRIVATE ARBITRATION. You may find yourself hauled into a government court, but don’t go there voluntarily. Try to do business only with people who will sign a Consent to Arbitration, and then use arbiters to resolve disputes. Find out about the American Arbitration Association. The argument that the need for sound courts justifies state coercion is one we can show to be untrue, but only by example.


3] LEARN SOME FORM OF SELF-DEFENSE, BUY A GUN, AND ASSUME RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN WELL-BEING. Like the courts, the “obvious need” for police services is often used as an argument for justifying the organized plunder we call taxation. By refusing to partake in the police protection racket and living happy lives as safe and free as anyone’s can be, we show–again, in the only way possible–that this argument is false. Self defense, like any other right, slips away from a people who do not exercise it. Self defense has the additional benefit of being the only thing that can actually stop a crime. The best the police can do is to try to apprehend a criminal after a crime has occurred, and they cannot guarantee that our teetering “justice” system will see that any justice is done at all. You may love guns, you may hate them, but accept responsibility for your own safety and refuse to play the role of permanent victim. For anyone who has not yet done this, you will be amazed at how much more peaceful your life becomes and how much more real that freedom which is yours feels. With all the encroachments on the 2nd amendment these days, it’s also worth it to support an uncompromising pro-gun organization that actually defends RKBA, too.


4] DO NOT PARTICIPATE IN THE SOCIAL SECURITY SCAM. If you are younger, realize that the money being taken from you is being spent on older folks now and you will never see it again. Try to provide for your own retirement because Social (In)Security won’t exist (nor will it be any more moral) when you reach “entitlement” age. If you are older, realize that you were deceived, and, if you can afford it, do not take the blood money. It is not money you have saved (that money was spent long ago), it is money taken by force from non-consenting individuals. If you cannot afford to give it up, dedicate yourself to putting an end to this destructive inter-generational theft machine. There are ways of privatizing Social Security and repaying you for what was taken from you in your turn–ways which do not require you to bleed the well-being of your children and grandchildren.


5] DON’T GIVE OUT YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER. (or socialist insecurity number, which is a more accurate label). Although many businesses use it as identification, it is not illegal to refuse its use, and doing so helps ensure retaining more of your quickly-vanishing privacy.


6] DO NOT PARTICIPATE IN THE UNEMPLOYMENT SCAM. The arguments are similar to those above. Provide for yourself, if you can. If you fall upon hard times, call upon your family and friends for help, but only after you have exhausted every means possible of handling things yourself.


7] INCREASE THE COST OF TAX COLLECTION. Help gum up the gears of aggression. Don’t use the 1040EZ–itemize if you can–make it harder for them. Don’t do your taxes online! Contrary to their propaganda, diminishing the cash flow of tyrants does hurt them, more than just about anything else. History is full of examples of tyrants brought down, essentially, by banks.


8] REDUCE THE AMOUNT OF TAXES PAID. Take advantage of every loophole, every deduction. It’s your money in the first place, and in the second place, you won’t like most of what they do with it. Try to find ways to increase your quality of life while decreasing your taxable income. Again, the pocketbook is where tyrants are most vulnerable; they command little loyalty and quickly lose support of their minions when they cannot pay them.


9] MOVE TO A LOW-TAX HAVEN. In these days of the virtual office, and the switch to the service and information-based economy, it is increasingly easy for people to work wherever they happen to be. If you can move to a low or no-tax region, you vote with your feet (coercing no one, which is very different from voting for a ruler), and show the world what works. You also leave the would-be rulers with a diminishing tax-base and fewer subjects.


10] PATRONIZE ALTERNATIVE MARKETS. Use barter. Pay for things in cash. Do as much shopping as you can at garage sales, tag sales, and auctions. Gummint’s money-grubbing fingers don’t collect taxes at such sales by individuals (in most states, this is the case; taxes are collected in many states at flea markets and the like), and negotiating price helps ensure both parties see the transaction as value for value.


11] USE ENCRYPTION WHENEVER POSSIBLE. This establishes the principle of privacy in cyberspace and makes it harder for the spooks to snoop into one’s private life. Read Phil Zimerman’s essay on why he created PGP. Learn about PGP. Use it. If you’re having trouble learning PGP, try using a GUI with it. If you’d like to get in touch with a friend or Knight of LRT and want to have privacy, visit our Public Keyserver to get the desired key(s). For more information on encryption and other privacy/security tools, visit our McWilliams Security Pages [under construction]


12] RESIST EVERY ATTEMPT AT REGIMENTATION THROUGH “POLITICALLY CORRECT” POLICIES. Refuse to ignore merit and reward stupidity for PC reasons. Be open-minded and give opportunities to deserving individuals, regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation, as long as the person is right for the opportunity: show that coercion is not necessary to ensure that deserving people get their chance. Fight affirmative action. Fight quotas. Fight bigotry as well as reverse discrimination. By “doing it right” we can show that force is not the answer.


13] PRACTICE SELF-RELIANCE. Become as self-reliant as you can and encourage others to become self-reliant as well. By this I do not mean that we should all go start self-contained farms… But for those who like the lifestyle, it’s a great way to live with a minimum of interaction with the institutions of aggression.



14] AMASS WEALTH. Become as rich as you can by moral means. Yes, this
 means paying more taxes, and is at odds with #13 just above, but wealth is moral power, in that it enables you to incent people to do things voluntarily. And of course, the more wealth resources that can be put to defending and expanding liberty, the better.


15] AVOID HUNTING AND FISHING LICENSES. There are lots of places to go where they aren’t needed, such as private land/lakes, or international waters.


16] CHOOSE PRIVATE SCHOOLS OR HOME-SCHOOLING. The latter is a popular alternative especially among those who can’t afford private school tuition rates. Raising a generation of free beings is also a sure way to help the spread of these ideas. Choose private universities over public institutions; they typically offer a lot of financial support, but try to stick with private scholarships (there are lots of these, if you look). Check into and support the Separation of School and State Alliance.


17] DON’T PATRONIZE INSTITUTIONS BUILT ON TAX DOLLARS. This means coliseums, theatres, libraries, and the like. There are private alternatives available (Yes, even for libraries! Patronize secondhand bookstores; many offer credit if you return books, and you can ask yours to institute that policy if they don’t offer it.), even for sports.


18] AVOID TAX-FUNDED MASS TRANSIT.

19] AVOID DEBT. Debt is a form of voluntary servitude. Avoid using credit cards–use cash, checks or ATM cards instead


20] PROTECT YOUR PRIVACY. Keep personal information private. This can be difficult, with SS#s being asked for so frequently, but in many cases you can refuse to give it. Privacy on the ‘Net is a big concern, too… our security section offers a lot of information and advice.

The most powerful way to spread this healthy influence is to be as independent as one can, and to besuccessful in life doing so. This disproves the notion–rarely admitted but widely accepted–that one has to cheat and misuse others in order to get ahead. It also provides an example to others; when one asks how you became so successful, upon hearing your answer that person has all the knowledge and motivation needed to begin growing as well.

For those inclined towards the lower-budget, self-reliance route, an excellent resource for reading materials on many aspects of living freer is Loompanics Unlimited. Self-described as “publishers of unusual books”, many of their offerings address issues important to the individualist, including privacy, self-defense, self-reliance, “dropping out”, anarchism, and egoism. By linking to them we are not recommending all of their offerings–some of them are pretty bizarre–but if you’re looking for practical information, Loompanics is the best place we’ve found to date. If you know of other resources, please share with us!

For those inclined towards financial independence we recommend the books of the well-known anarchist/millionaire/investment guru Doug Casey as a great starting point. Please Note: DLT and Doug have been friends for years and have business dealings. If you subscribe to any current Casey publications, it is possible that DLT may benefit financially. That is not why we recommend Casey – he’s simply the best and most philosophically sound investment adviser out there – but DLT wanted these facts disclosed.

If you know about or have expertise in any of these areas, please let us know. We would like to make your knowledge available to all friends of LRT. We could connect interested persons with firearms instructors, martial arts teachers, tax experts, arbiters, or just simple “How To” information. We can share ideas on where one can find the least intrusive governments. We can share stories of strategies that worked, and others that didn’t. Send your information or ideas or questions to coordinator@libertyroundtable.org.

If the institutions of aggression are to disappear without recourse to violence, we must begin to de-fund, de-legitimize, and simply disuse them. THE CHANGE MUST BEGIN SOMEWHERE–LET IT BEGIN WITH US!

“Nobody can be saved from anything, unless they save themselves.” Merlyn, The Book of Merlyn

DLT

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