Molon Labe! (79 page)

9)   Moral: Freedom is relative. If you are free where you live, then you are
free
, period. Wouldn't you rather live in a
laissez-faire
county or state with no undue interference in your life, than in a nation which is nothing more than a vast gilded cage?

10)   Although there is currently no libertarian enclave, there
could
be if a sufficient number of determined folks relocated and
made
one. All that is necessary is a plan, place, and subsequent action.

This Report will suggest plan, place, and action. But first, let us review how we came to be oppressed in America.

A REVIEW OF FEDERAL TYRANNY

The economic, political, and regulatory tyranny of the USG over the States and the People was achieved over a period of time spanning 200 years, comprising several succinct and hierarchial stages. As we will see, it was as carefully ordered and completed as any complicated gourmet recipe, which rules out accidental (yet constant) accretions throughout history.

The
first
stage was to institute a new central government with ascendant powers (both immediate and nascent) over the original 13 States. The unchallengeable authority of the
"United States"
over the States was gradually, albeit inexorably, knitted together by a series of key Supreme Court rulings, such as
Marbury v. Madison
(1803: Supreme Court has sole authority to decide constitutionality of USG's actions),
McCulloch v. Maryland
(1819: Congress has
"implied powers"
),
Gibbons v. Ogden
(1824: the term
"commerce"
stretched to mean that ultra-inclusive
"intercourse"
), and many others. Judicial building blocks for our prison.

This judicial infrastructure constructed, the
second
tier was social conditioning (so that the public would accept the next stage). In a classic Hegelian tactic of thesis/antithesis/synthesis, dissatisfaction was created with private banking, gold and silver money, and the lack of an income tax on the "fat cats." This was done from 1890-1913 by a series of contrived events (
e.g.,
artificial bank panics and recessions), which were fanned into roaring flames by key congressmen and media megaphones. By 1913, the public were ready, if not insistent, for sweeping changes in banking, currency, and tax law. As H.L. Mencken so keenly observed:

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins,
all of them imaginary.

A concurrent and continuing form of social conditioning was/is the usurpation of local education by a "public school" system, wherein America traded McGuffey's Readers for John Dewey's "progressive education." The result has been the most harebrained, ignorant populace in Western history.

The
third
stage was economic and financial. As Mayer Auselm Rothschild so aptly remarked:

Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.

In order to make war (foreign and domestic) it was paramount that the USG enjoyed funding independent of popular control. Such is the
sine qua non
of modern oppressive governments. To accomplish this requires three separate mechanisms: a central bank to monetize public debt, legal tender legislation, and a personal (not merely corporate or business) income tax based on payroll withholding. Two great monetary pumps work in tandem: one to inject intrinsically worthless "currency" into the economy, and the other to pump out "excess" liquidity by wage withholding. Naturally, the Supreme Court has done its duty in defending the so-called "Federal Reserve System," its "Federal Reserve Notes," and the "Internal Revenue Service."

The
fourth
stage was a dramatic increase in military personnel, technology, and equipment. WWII was clearly the watershed event here. Incredible advances in weaponry, aviation, communications, computer technology, encryption, and logistics were made during and after that global conflagration — followed by the "military/industrial complex" and the complete federalization of the state guards.

The
fifth
stage was intensive regulation to deproperty and disarm the citizenry. With almost total judicial sanction, Congress and the President have spewed forth laws, regulations, and executive orders encompassing nearly every activity and purchase. Such are, according to de Tocqueville, a form of social conditioning which
"compresses"
the people. Accompanying this was the militarization of state and local police (used to great effectiveness by the Nazis).

The
sixth
stage was, and is, active confiscation of people and property. The USG has the money and muscle, supported by the courts, to begin to really throw its weight around. And what can the people effectively do in response? Cut off federal funding? Challenge the FBI or IRS in court? Engage in combat with the US Army? All of these would be futile acts. We have been slyly led to a comfortably padded
corner
, from which there is little easy escape.

What we need is a wall to push
from.

A UNIQUE PLAN FOR LIBERTY

The exit can usually be found at the entrance.

If you become lost, retrace your steps and leave where you came in. If you have become enslaved (however comfortably and agreeably), simply retrace tyranny's steps. You may indeed find that you can leave via the same door through which oppression entered.

This is far too simple for most would-be revolutionaries, who prefer to blow a hole in the wall to escape. While the situation may one day require this kind of a dramatic solution, most Americans probably would not sympathize with such violence. Since we have determined that at least bland national support is critical to our success, we must very slowly and carefully slough off our restraints in nearly identical order to their imposition (
i.e.
, education, health, money). Hence, our exit will be found at the entrance.

Just as our oppression did not occur overnight, neither will our Liberty. We must win back our freedom through the same mechanism by which we originally lost it — by "gradualism." To steal a man's bread, one doesn't dare grab the entire loaf. It's done one
slice
at a time. We lost our lives one slice at a time because we did not go to war over slices, even though they have eventually totalled nearly the entire loaf.

It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment of our liberties.
We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens, and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freemen...did not wait til usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in
[legalistic]
precedents.
They saw all the consequences in the principle, and avoided the consequences by denying the principle.

— James Madison

Similarly, we will steal
back
our lives one slice at a time, as the USG also will not declare martial law over slices. By the time the USG realizes just how much of the loaf we've retaken, it will have lost too much of this previous advantage as we become emboldened with our success and newly protective of our recently won freedoms.

The platform for this retaking of our liberties will be one of the states, of which we have gained executive, legislative, and judicial control through a bloodless
coup
of election.

How is it possible to sweep a state's election? By choosing a sparsely populated state of staunch conservatives, and then convincing sufficient numbers of liberty-loving folks to move there. It's a simple matter of mathematics. After several years of a quiet mass relocation, we could swing an election
our
way. Remember, libertarians always will be far outnumbered in national elections — so why should we keep trying to win presidential and congressional elections?

With a libertarian governor and state legislators, we could at last begin to bring home our stolen freedoms from Washington, D.C. We could at last implement a true free-market economy and become the model for other states. We could finally create a society based on individual rights of property and conscience.

We could enjoy, finally, an oasis of reason and responsibility where honor, integrity, and intelligence are at the helm.

We could have — at long last — a
home
.

OUR STATE'S CRITERIA

Given the unprecedented nature of our plan's virtual
coup d'état
, combined with the geographical, political, and economic requirements of our target state, we initially doubted that even one state would offer anything remotely favorable to our needs.

We were quite surprised, however, that
six
states made it to the "semifinals" and three to the "finals." The hands-down winner was the same state which the concept's author had chosen as the likely best choice. Below are our criteria for the target state, and the progressive elimination of all contenders but one. (Figures are from the 1990 Census, the latest available in 1997 when this Report began. 2000 Census figures reflecting a 9% population increase do not alter in any way our conclusions.)

Total Population (must be ≤ 1,000,000)

Given that our plan absolutely requires a sparse population, this is the most important criterion for choosing our state.

Also included are the next five least populated states, even though they number over 1M people.

Population Density (must be ≤ 35/mile
²
)

There is ample evidence of philosophical and political mass psychosis when population density levels are great. Using the states' political recognition of the right to own and carry guns as a benchmark, the most densely populated states typically have the worst civil rights records regarding the 2nd Amendment.

For example, here are the ten worst and best RKBA states:

The 10 best gun-owning states have an average population density of only 47 people/mile5. The 10 worst states (including D.C.) have a density of 1,393, and if D.C. is excluded their density is still 494, which is over
10 times
that of the 10 best states. We suggest that there is a very high correlation of low population density to reason, responsibility, and political sanity.