My name is Mark McCoy. I am no one spe­cial; I am just a man. I pub­lished this site for me and me alone. I do not know you. There was a time when I did not know myself. I have taken steps to rem­edy that defi­ciency. If you should find any­thing of value in my writ­ings, then you are wel­come to it. As I said, this site is for me. It is a cathar­sis. With these words I chron­i­cle the heal­ing and grow­ing process which hope­fully leads me to a place of peace and com­fort before I leave this world. I am thank­ful for hav­ing time to begin this jour­ney, or even to real­ize I must embark upon it. It is sad to think that some lives are spent with their minds bound in con­form­ing to the will of others.

I took some time for a self-assessment; look­ing at the things I pro­fessed or accepted as knowl­edge. I exam­ined the cor­re­spond­ing actions and who then ben­e­fited from my actions. The fright­en­ing, and like­wise enlight­en­ing, result of that assess­ment evinced a Mark McCoy in pos­ses­sion of a mind pol­luted with con­trivances, plat­i­tudes, rhetoric, con­for­mity, and fear. Lit­tle of what I actu­ally con­tributed to hav­ing expe­ri­enced the world was present and drawn upon in mak­ing deci­sions about myself. As an exer­cise, I began to refute and deny these pre­sump­tions, begin­ning with insignif­i­cant ones and apply­ing this method­ol­ogy to greater ones, even to the point of deny­ing myself and God, or my Cre­ator. When all was said and done, I was left sur­rounded with the rub­ble of prior beliefs at my feet. I could feel the assault on my senses from the out­side world as I took what was for­merly famil­iar expe­ri­ences and infor­ma­tion, and exam­ined them down to the cor­pus­cu­lar or quan­tum level. What, exactly, am I doing here? I did not cease to exist or fall ill. My heart still beat and my lungs filled with air. Joy and sor­row man­i­fested in phys­i­cal responses which could be invoked with mere thought. I per­sist in spite of all which demanded my obe­di­ence to per­sist. What liberation!

My goal in life is to come to know the truth. Some may argue the truth is sub­jec­tive. It is the con­clu­sion we reach after hav­ing expe­ri­enced some­thing through our senses and exam­ined through our rea­son and expe­ri­ence. Our expe­ri­ences are unique and rel­e­vant to our indi­vid­ual under­stand­ing. Two peo­ple expe­ri­enc­ing the same thing may later recite a mean­ing of truth gleaned from that expe­ri­ence. That does not make one or the other wrong, because to claim such would be to inval­i­date an individual’s author­ity to rea­son for them­selves. We are pre­sented with what some claim to be the truth, and we are free to either accept it or exam­ine it fur­ther for our own pur­poses. Noth­ing com­pels an indi­vid­ual to believe what they are told. I have come to real­ize that what was pre­vi­ously called truth, as pro­moted by those ben­e­fit­ing from those alle­ga­tions, is not a truth as I have come to know. Where the truth of an indi­vid­ual con­flicts with an alleged truth pro­mul­gated by a pre­sumed author­ity, I believe the truth of the indi­vid­ual must pre­vail. It is by that truth that they act and are there­fore account­able for. To live by the truth of oth­ers does not absolve us of the con­se­quences of our actions, even if the truth is in-fact a lie, but that we have sur­ren­dered our will to live, suf­fer, and die by our own dic­tates and instead opt to do so at the direc­tion of oth­ers. I choose to ben­e­fit or suf­fer by my own dic­tates, for what­ever ensues, belongs exclu­sively to me. There is noth­ing worse than liv­ing under the com­mands of others.

I have spent the major­ity of my adult life between Illi­nois and Mis­souri, notwith­stand­ing a few extended sojourns within the respec­tive bor­ders of this country’s other for­mer republics, now fed­eral munic­i­pal­i­ties. I have trav­eled and met many peo­ple from many lands. There are truly some won­der­ful souls around us. Amer­i­cans are not supe­rior. No nation is supe­rior. I find that Amer­i­cans are greatly loathed abroad. They are dis­trusted and sus­pect. A great deal of injus­tice and atroc­i­ties are assigned to Amer­i­cans by those out­side of Amer­ica. After shar­ing some time and phi­los­o­phy with peo­ple from other lands, I received the great­est of com­pli­ments, “I can­not believe you are from the United States.”  I believe that, in many ways, peo­ple in other coun­tries, espe­cially “under devel­oped” ones, have a bet­ter grasp on how the world and life work. Hav­ing been for­tu­nate enough to share a moment with chil­dren in one of the poor­est places with no crea­ture com­forts, I met with inno­cence and love. It was a poignant expe­ri­ence to look into the eyes of those chil­dren and see how they per­ceive peo­ple, with­out agen­das or motives. Like­wise, it sad­dened me to think that their way of life was threat­ened by the “pow­ers” of the world, pri­mar­ily the United States, because such a lifestyle afforded lit­tle oppor­tu­nity for exploita­tion and profit. One day, they will be courted by cap­i­tal­ists bear­ing gifts of progress and con­ve­nience in exchange for their abdi­ca­tion of nature, thereby putting more water on the smol­der­ing ember that once sus­tained the fire of autonomous and sov­er­eign peo­ple. I wanted to tell them of the impend­ing assault and plead with them not to be seduced. They would not under­stand and if they did, why deny them what lit­tle time of inno­cent plea­sure they still enjoy?

I’ve held many jobs. I never stopped edu­cat­ing myself and pick­ing the mind of every bril­liant per­son whose path I crossed. Of all the jobs I’ve had, I can hon­estly say that entre­pre­neur­ship was the most sat­is­fy­ing, although not the most prof­itable. I love law, phi­los­o­phy, read­ing, and work­ing to under­stand the human con­di­tion. I presently work in infor­ma­tion tech­nol­ogy (net­work­ing, web host­ing, con­sult­ing…), legal research and pri­vate assis­tance of coun­sel (research legal mat­ters, write briefs, brief cases, appear in court as legal coun­sel but not rep­re­sen­ta­tive), as well as edu­ca­tion and gen­eral study. I am cer­ti­fied in hyp­nother­apy. The mind is a mar­velous thing. I pre­fer to think of myself as a per­sonal trainer or col­lab­o­ra­tor for those who want to tap the resources of their sub­con­scious. I don’t use per­sua­sion, or even sug­ges­tion as most con­sider hyp­no­sis to be, but rather a facil­i­ta­tor who takes the wishes of the client and frames self-talk in a way that cuts through the dis­in­for­ma­tion, con­fu­sion, fear, and con­flicts we absorb in a myr­iad of ways, and presents then a clear and hon­est mes­sage back to the self.

My out­side inter­ests at this time include serv­ing as the Illi­nois State Con­tact for the Fully Informed Jury Asso­ci­a­tion (FIJA.org), legal researcher (many caffeine-laden hours at St. Louis Uni­ver­sity Law Library), pub­lic speak­ing, pri­vate assis­tance of coun­sel, IT pro­fes­sional, not to men­tion con­sum­mate sedi­tion­ist and bom­bas­tic icon­o­clast. I have assisted peo­ple with their appear­ances in court when fac­ing mainly misdemeanor/traffic issues. I have had judges attempt to engage me when I was not a party to the case at bar, but per­son­ally and pri­vately assist­ing the indi­vid­ual who requested my assis­tance in pre­sent­ing them­selves in court and prepar­ing plead­ings and motions. I’ve been threat­ened with con­tempt of court and jail for stand­ing beside the indi­vid­ual request­ing my assis­tance. I have never been fined, jailed, or suf­fered any other penalty as a result. The judges have backed down every time. All they have on their side is intim­i­da­tion, deceit, threats, and unjust force. When chal­lenged, they are left with either show­ing their tyranny for all to see, or retreat­ing back to a posi­tion of hos­tile acquiescence.

If I am to assign a label to myself; one that is iden­ti­fi­able by the masses, albeit not under­stood, it would be that I am an Anar­chist; where some would say I am also an Agorist or Vol­un­tary­ist. No, I do not pro­mote destruc­tion of prop­erty, capri­cious acts which result in harm to oth­ers. I am busy defin­ing my own Anar­chis­tic phi­los­o­phy. The basic tenets of my phi­los­o­phy are that there is no exter­nal author­ity supe­rior to the indi­vid­ual. Each indi­vid­ual is in full con­trol of doing what they please, even if such actions result in harm to them­selves. There can be no exter­nal restraint or com­pul­sion which acts in a way con­trary to the con­science of the indi­vid­ual upon which it is exer­cised. For this con­di­tion to exist, sev­eral pre­con­di­tions must be met. As with the absence of exter­nal author­ity, the Anar­chist can­not advo­cate or exer­cise such force. The state of Anar­chy must exist in an equi­table state where being sub­ject to no exter­nal author­ity also binds them to not exer­cise author­ity over oth­ers. Every indi­vid­ual is pre­sumed to be in full pos­ses­sion of their nat­ural rights by virtue of their Cre­ator. Whether they aver to such a Cre­ator is incon­se­quen­tial, for the pre­sump­tion acts only upon the penum­bra of a higher author­ity which can­not be breached by the Anar­chist. The beliefs of the Anar­chist pre­clude him from act­ing con­trar­ily against other individuals.

I have learned many things, through self-directed inquiry, that con­tra­dict much of what I was taught in com­pul­sory pub­lic insti­tu­tions of indoc­tri­na­tion. There seemed to be an under­ly­ing, per­va­sive theme that spoke to the Peo­ple, the sup­posed supreme author­ity of power in gov­ern­ing them­selves being some­how sub­jected to a pro­lif­er­a­tion of more and more rules, reg­u­la­tions, laws, incon­ve­nience, author­ity…. and less and less free­dom, rights, safety, secu­rity, and respon­si­bil­ity. I aim to rem­edy this jux­ta­po­si­tion of power and open the gates of infor­ma­tion, knowl­edge, and account­abil­ity of government.

Per­son­ally, I hate pol­i­tics. I abhor games, roles, per­sonas… I have lim­ited and valu­able gray mat­ter for devot­ing to issues more wor­thy of my fac­ul­ties, rather than com­part­men­tal­iz­ing any num­ber of “iden­ti­ties” to accom­mo­date oth­ers who pre­fer pomp over sub­stance. I am not given to pre­ten­sions or facades. My begin­nings are of that from a blue-collar, working-class, sub­ur­ban, parochial/public school envi­ron­ment. I have always chal­lenged, ques­tioned, scru­ti­nized and disobeyed.

I love my fam­ily. They are gifts from above, and I would lay my life down for any of them. My child­hood was great. I know what it is like to play out­side when the tem­per­a­ture is breach­ing 100 degrees with­out a “warn­ing” to sequester indoors for fear of secret­ing per­spi­ra­tion. I mowed grass for my own money, played sports, had a dog that lived out­side in a dog house, dis­obeyed my par­ents, spent a lot of time grounded in my room, and fin­ished every­thing on my plate. I com­mit­ted so many vio­la­tions of law that if I were appre­hended today I would spend the rest of my life in jail. What were the offenses, you ask? I rode most of my life with­out a seat-belt, rode in the back of a pickup truck, did not pay taxes on my snow shov­el­ing or grass cut­ting money, rode my bike with­out a hel­met, built tree houses in vio­la­tion of zon­ing and build­ing codes, took a sip of beer or wine when I had the chance, rode my dirt bike on the street with no license or plates….. I was a pre­co­cious scofflaw from the begin­ning. Thank good­ness gov­ern­ment has got­ten wiser than years of liv­ing and now can dic­tate how to live.

In many respects, I didn’t grow up until later in life. I had no rea­son to. My whole life was laid down before me. The paths to suc­cess and secu­rity were well trod­den by the mil­lions of other sub­ur­ban, middle-class, blue-collar kids before me. I knew what I was taught, and learned what I was told. It was all second-hand con­ven­tional wis­dom and hearsay. Look­ing upon that path I saw dust, ruts, lit­ter and graf­fiti etched into trees lin­ing the way. I saw myself with the lim­ited knowl­edge I had acquired from other gen­er­a­tions who had long for­got­ten how to ven­ture out in explo­ration of new paths. I yearned to be one of the dar­ing who trod head­long into the bri­ary thicket. The path was too obvi­ous, con­ve­nient, and pur­pose­ful. I began to ques­tion, won­der and search.

I have always treated oth­ers with respect, unless cir­cum­stances demanded oth­er­wise. Don’t act sur­prised. Once the secu­rity and dis­sem­blance of child­hood gives way to the pur­suit of pecu­niary acqui­si­tion we are as one with our mate­r­ial trap­pings. Such is the way of the world, I guess. It hap­pened to me.

The point is, who makes the rules for all of this? Who is in con­trol? From child­hood, it is obvi­ous that we are not. Our par­ents, teach­ers, and milk money seek­ing thugs in the lunch line are. We acqui­esce to the pre­sump­tion of author­ity. We are con­di­tioned to accept the issuance of com­mands upon our actions. If one ques­tions author­ity or refutes the pre­sump­tion of exter­nal con­trol then what hap­pens when we act autonomously? Try it today and find out.

Peo­ple are rebel­lious by nature. Like­wise, they are equally com­pli­ant. Yet, rebel­lion and com­pli­ance are in rela­tion to some­thing, either an antag­o­nist, or a provider. We, as a Peo­ple, are com­pli­ant. What has not yet been pro­vided for us by gov­ern­ment is on the draw­ing boards of politi­cians today. Free­dom is still around us. It oozes from select indi­vid­u­als, most often at times incon­ve­nient for those in power. It is often vil­i­fied, processed through a con­trolled media, and snuffed out. There are many prob­lems fac­ing us today. Gov­ern­ment is not the answer to them. Peo­ple are the answer. Peo­ple can work together with­out a gov­ern­ment spon­ta­neously gen­er­at­ing around them, usurp­ing all of their power and then tax­ing, reg­u­lat­ing and incar­cer­at­ing them into submission.

My biggest pet peeve is igno­rance. I believe peo­ple are thirsty. Knowl­edge is the intox­i­cat­ing nec­tar of aware­ness and power that calms the anx­ious, soothes the skep­tic, and com­forts the inquis­i­tive. Instead, today, we are pro­vided with boot­leg, rot-gut, fer­ment­ing in gov­ern­ment stills that numbs our wits and befud­dles the senses. A friend of mine once cited a quote, I don’t know if it was his, but he dis­agreed that “knowl­edge is power”. He instead clar­i­fied that “applied knowl­edge is power”. Knowl­edge not put to use is as point­less as a library encased in con­crete. I hope to share what I’ve learned. I hope oth­ers will ques­tion the sta­tus quo. I hope we get tired of the same old prob­lems and work towards solu­tions, together, with­out government.

It has been said, that the def­i­n­i­tion of insan­ity is doing the same thing over and over and expect­ing dif­fer­ent results. I agree. Let’s stop the insan­ity. We still have free­dom. We are just accus­tomed to trad­ing it for the scraps off the government’s table. We must exer­cise our con­trol over our own lives and stop reg­u­lat­ing oth­ers. Be free to choose the bri­ary thicket. Ven­ture off the beaten path. Be free to find your own way, a bet­ter way. Get gov­ern­ment off of your back so you are again morally mobile, unen­cum­bered, and sovereign.

I owe noth­ing to any­one.  I owe no alle­giance or duty to any­thing. I deny all which is not of my doing, or that which I do not vol­un­tar­ily sub­mit myself to be bound. My first alle­giance is to myself. I am the most self­ish per­son you could hope to meet. I am num­ber one; and why not? Should we all not be num­ber one? If you are not in this life for your­self, who then are you in if for? There is no shame in being you. Even when I am char­i­ta­ble or sac­ri­fic­ing I do it for me. Sure, other peo­ple ben­e­fit from my actions, but the impe­tus begins with me. If I lay down my life for another I do it because of me. I choose how to spend the cap­i­tal of my exis­tence, even if in the ser­vice of oth­ers, but it is a lie and disin­gen­u­ous to think that I get noth­ing from that deed. There is no such thing as a self­less act. The point is, it is I who will choose to ben­e­fit from my efforts. My duty is not to obey the will of men sit­ting in a fan­tas­ti­cal delu­sion of a leg­is­la­ture. The State is a phan­tom. I owe it noth­ing. These are fan­tasies cre­ated by men, imposed upon the unthink­ing or unknow­ing, and their machi­na­tions there­with used to exact obe­di­ence and wealth for their own pur­poses; many of which are wielded at home and abroad result­ing in pain, suf­fer­ing, and death. To hell with that sys­tem! I say NO to its demands. I care not about what­ever argu­ment is cast in retort about the ben­e­fits found amongst the ashes of vio­lent deeds. The ben­e­fi­cial claim does not off­set the chaos.

I feel that I have a pur­pose and a gift; every­one does. Know­ing some­thing, yet act­ing con­trar­ily to that knowl­edge, to the detri­ment of oth­ers who are sub­jected to the per­ils of not hav­ing access to such knowl­edge, is a crime against human­ity. I have made a solemn pledge to a much higher author­ity. I owe my awak­en­ing, as well as the impe­tus and abil­ity to use it for good, to a higher author­ity. I am duty bound to help oth­ers. With what time may be avail­able on this earth and with such facil­i­ties at-hand, I have cho­sen this venue with which to make my con­tri­bu­tion. I will do my absolute best to treat every­one with fair­ness and hon­esty. I will respect the lib­erty and rights of oth­ers regard­less how out of favor they may be with my par­tic­u­lar sen­si­bil­i­ties, morals, or ideals. I will be tol­er­ant. I will honor my Cre­ator, be bound by my word, be account­able for my actions, be com­pas­sion­ate, hon­est and respect­ful. I have set high stan­dards for myself. I know I will fall short at times. I will never cease try­ing to be bet­ter than I am.