A commentary on the delusion of independence

I had promised myself that I would not send a mes­sage to this list on Inde­pen­dence Day due to the fact that I find myself in low spir­its when reflect­ing on the state of our nation, but I did not promise that I would not send a mes­sage AFTER Inde­pen­dence Day, which I pre­fer to call co-dependence day. I pre­sume many of you were some­what upbeat and happy for hav­ing a three-day week­end. Some of you prob­a­bly “ooh” and “ah” to fire­works dis­plays, gorge your­selves on bar­beque, and numb your wits with copi­ous liba­tions. The braver amongst you risked repet­i­tive stress injury by fla­gel­lat­ing Old Glory on-a-stick with such vigor that the aggre­gated breeze gen­er­ated can actu­ally affect the jet stream.
I, how­ever, found that day to be a painful reminder of how we have digressed since the inde­pen­dence of the Amer­i­can inhab­i­tants was won by way of trea­son and mur­der. Men, imper­fect though they were, came to adopt uni­ver­sal prin­ci­ples per­tain­ing to the recog­ni­tion of nat­ural rights pro­mul­gated by an author whose author­ity is beyond the reach of the manip­u­lat­ing hand of man. Through philo­soph­i­cal affir­ma­tion of unalien­able rights these men posited a sys­tem of gov­er­nance where a hier­ar­chy of jus­tice founded upon the rights of the indi­vid­ual would be secured. As a result, peo­ple would be per­mit­ted to pur­sue hap­pi­ness unfet­tered, with the state being a silent guardian of the com­mon lib­erty.
In the early years of this coun­try, the com­mon man, how­ever igno­rant or une­d­u­cated he may have appeared, rec­og­nized, under­stood, and cher­ished the free­dom he pos­sessed. He under­stood the pur­pose and lim­its of the new gov­ern­ment. He lived his life with no prior restraint on his actions. His labor, fire­side, trav­els, and fam­ily were sacro­sanct. The audac­ity of gov­ern­ment to inspect the pri­vate actions of a free man had not yet man­i­fested in leg­is­la­tion or admin­is­tra­tive acts. Agreed, the com­mon man was not a paragon of virtue; with­out fault or vices. He was free to live and make all the mis­takes prop­erly befit­ting imper­fect men. He was not yet placed under the yoke fash­ioned by other imper­fect men in sat­is­fy­ing their own avarice and greed.
Today, there is vir­tu­ally no aspect of our lives beyond the domain of gov­ern­men­tal inter­fer­ence. The atti­tudes of the major­ity reflect an inher­ent dis­trust in human nature. Rea­son and con­science have been replaced with myr­iad statutes, ordi­nances, poli­cies, and reg­u­la­tions. The State has assumed, under the doc­trine of parens patriae, to deem us all incom­pe­tent, thereby jus­ti­fy­ing its intru­sions into our lives. I find it curi­ous that we cel­e­brate the inde­pen­dence won by the colonies from Eng­land, but we sel­dom, if ever, con­tem­plate our per­sonal inde­pen­dence.
I, per­son­ally, find lit­tle value in our present form of gov­ern­ment. As an Anar­chist, I fail to rec­og­nize the legit­i­macy of gov­ern­ment as it may per­tain to those who do not con­sent to such a sys­tem. There is lit­tle doubt that any argu­ment which claims our cur­rent gov­ern­ment reflects the will of the peo­ple who first formed it would quickly fail. And if the argu­ment is then that it reflects the will of the peo­ple today, then it is even more dis­turb­ing to see reflected in our polit­i­cal con­scious­ness a belief that free­dom should be medi­ated by a cen­tral author­ity; and the needs and neces­si­ties of life are best left to cen­tral plan­ners and admin­is­tra­tors.
We, as a nation, are at a cross­roads. We will either capit­u­late to being gov­erned into reg­u­la­tory com­pli­ance, or come to revere the nat­ural rights of indi­vid­u­als. A rev­o­lu­tion is both long over­due and nec­es­sary. Whether it will be a rev­o­lu­tion borne of blood or mind has yet to be deter­mined. Almost assuredly, the tak­ing of live is unavoid­able. Gov­ern­ment sys­tem­at­i­cally engages in the capri­cious tak­ing of inno­cent life. Thou­sands of peo­ple are maimed and killed by police action. Review of such atroc­i­ties is mea­sured by “depart­men­tal pol­icy” as opposed to stan­dards of con­duct applied equally to all, and based upon well-founded and estab­lished legal stan­dards devel­oped over thou­sands of years. To harm another, in what­ever way and absent an immi­nent and demon­stra­ble threat to the lib­erty or life another or one’s self while act­ing under the author­ity of the peo­ple pur­ported to be pro­tected is a trea­son per­pe­trated upon mankind itself.
The only cel­e­bra­tion I par­took of that day was that of my own claim of inde­pen­dence and sov­er­eignty. I came to real­ize that I could no longer par­tic­i­pate in the cha­rade of lib­erty we are indoc­tri­nated with by inces­sant incan­ta­tions of so-called patri­ots. I am like­wise nau­se­ated by those I loosely refer to as my “coun­try­men” who excuse and dis­sem­ble; hid­ing behind their reli­gion and God in jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for pros­trat­ing them­selves before other men. Such peo­ple either wor­ship a God who is a cow­ard and despot; or they hon­estly have no faith in any­thing other than a fear of death and truth. I refuse to acknowl­edge a God, who would pre­fer those crea­tures which he cre­ated with a capac­ity for rea­son and hope for free­dom, to serve as polit­i­cal sodomites for their earthly rulers.
I have made my inten­tions clear by way of my Dec­la­ra­tion. I have sworn to live, die, and if need-be defend to the death those prin­ci­ples. Free­dom can­not be pur­chased on bended knee and out­stretched palm. It is pur­chased through strug­gle, pain, and blood. The rewards are far grander than the cost. I will will­ingly lay down my life for what I have come to accept as truth. I will be damned before I allow another man to frighten me into com­pli­ance. Let us see how the gov­ern­ment responds to some­one who exer­cises their nat­ural right and sov­er­eign pre­rog­a­tive to refuse to con­sent.
Peo­ple speak as if the object of life is to live as eas­ily and com­fort­ably as pos­si­ble with lit­tle out­side inter­fer­ence. Tell me, how do you rec­on­cile with your con­science when it con­fronts you with the dis­par­ity between your beliefs and your actions? How will you reflect back on your life, lying on your death bed and hop­ing for what­ever eter­nal exis­tence awaits, when you have sub­mit­ted your­self to sub­ju­ga­tion and arbi­trary rule in vio­la­tion of your con­science?
The pur­pose of life is not to amass as many trips around the sun as pos­si­ble; it is to spend those trips liv­ing a life we have come to under­stand through inquiry and dis­cov­ery. How in God’s name can any­one act in a way that is in vio­la­tion of their con­science? I under­stand there is a aspect of fear for doing so, but that fear is often self-imposed, based on the pre­tenses pro­jected to us through media, soci­ety, and igno­rance.
At the end of this essay I find my spir­its now ele­vated. Despite what the world may con­front me with, or what men may seek to impose upon me, I pos­sess free will and the courage to exer­cise it as I see fit. The enu­mer­ated, licensed, reg­u­lated, deceived, and fear­ful can do what they will with this world. Cel­e­brate your delu­sion of free­dom and wear your chains duti­fully. Even though I hope to enjoy my time in this life, I have not so endeared myself with its trap­pings that I will deny my nature for it. I am free. That is my cel­e­bra­tion; Inde­pen­dence of self and spirit. You should try it.