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Hi! Could someone be so kind and point to a source where Stefan talks about why state power is bad, like "you can't have moral government because it violates property rights and is robbing by being able to set a tax" and other arguments. Thank you!

Note: As I typed this out I quickly realized I wasn't typing out an argument so much as a rant. Therefore I decided to post in the Self Knowledge section since I'd rather steer this into something more personally fulfilling and inspiring as I can't see this as being something worth arguing on an objective level. I have a very simple question: Which do you, the reader of this post, prefer? Or, which is the better of two evils? Incoming Islam or existing Statism? On one hand my religion and culture will be annihilated and I will be forced into slavery if I do not convert and join the horde, on the other I will be a lifelong tax serf for the Welfare-War-State and an ungrateful 50% whom receive portions of the money looted from me. On one hand women are under a true patriarchy, which I'd say as a man is greatly preferred to the matriarchy of the Welfare-Warfare-State (which I will abbreviate as WWS for simplicity). Considering these factors I'm tempted to either throw up my hands and say "screw it--they both suck. I'd rather wait for the inevitable meltdown to occur and join the side most aligned with my self interest" or give preference to he Muslims since as a man I'd be better off with them than the WWS. Maybe I'm just salty because male slavery in the West has gotten me pissed off again, maybe I have a point in saying Islam is slightly better than the WWS, or maybe I'm completely overlooking the benefits of the WWS (like hobbies to escape reality and the ability to join the White Flight out of the ghetto)...but I know I have point in suggesting that as a man Islam is better than the WWS. I'm not arguing that Islam is better than the West because any idiot would know otherwise. The West is the Best. However the West had died decades ago. Now the Occident is some disgusting degenerate dystopia on the Slow Train to Nowhereland. Am I the only one tempted to grab a Koran and join the heathens? Am I missing something vital (like the likelihood of my decapitation by association? Which frankly isn't a big minus given how shit life is likely to be for me anyway)?

What's the best way to spread anarchy? Adversarial arguments? Explanations? Discussions? Socractic interrogation? Blogs? Burning trashcans through windows(j/k)? What kinds of arguments do you find most convincing? Pragmatic or moral?

I don't think anyone has said so, but Trump ain't the savior. People didn't really call Obama the savior either, but many have been criticized for thinking of him like that -- with arguably some justification. In my view, and in brief, Trump's a Reganite; Regan may have been a step in the right direction, and he articulated a better vision for the US, but look were we're at today. The deep state has a hold of the American people, and it seems the best we can hope for is a president who can frustrate the Feds for 8 years. I think was true in Regan's time and it's true today. I support Trump for president -- OBVIOUSLY, cuz Hillary is a crook! But I'm not an enthusiastic supporter. I was whenever I voted for Ron Paul. Even then, Stefan convinced me that not even Dr. Paul could really do much with the entrenched state. Trump or Hillary, we've got a MESS coming our way in the US. I think that mess, in the end, is what's best for the country because it will FORCE government to shrink -- another collapse of socialism. Would Trump end the Fed? Dept. of Ed? Dept. of Ag? I don't think he'd be quick to, although quicker than Hillary. This election cycle has been great, because more and more people are talking about what they should be talking about -- despite the MSM's controlling influence. Trump is the people's champion, but IMHO, people need to realize they need to do their best to be their own champion. That's what makes liberty work.

Wait, is that really a super "hero"?

In Stefans recent discussions with Bill whittle and his numerious videos on immigration and Donald Trump, he has said some things that seem me to be either appealing to those in the fence on the right or implisidly advocating for State programs or even Donald trump himself. Now correct if i am wrong, but he has said that "we are at war with them" and that "youre squandering what youre forefathers fough and died for". He seems to me to have become more and more willing to implisidly promote if not endorse trump and the ideas that "western society" is something were all part of like a tribe. Which is i disagree with. We are all induviduals and should be judged so and advocating implicibly for any state policies would make one not an ancap. Forgive me if my concerns and fears are unfounded but for the last few months Stefan has been talking more and more about western culture and scoiety instead about peaceful parenting, philosofical deeper problems WHY there is this influx of muslims and also starting humbly from principles and NOT pushing these seemingly nationalistic and collectivist ideas. Has anyone else gotten this Implisiveness from his videos? Are my concerns unfounded?

Introduction/rant: I'm going to start off by assuming that everyone who is a member of this forum would like to see the ideas portrayed here by the community propagate.. Probably naively, but I digress. My question is, why if our ideology of freedom is logically superior in all ways to a state, (provided you are moral) then it seems as if the only solution to this question, is that either the vast majority of people on earth are evil, or we as a worldwide distributed net of freedom minded peoples, all of them, have failed to purvey the argument to such a degree that it is not understandable by the public? Stefan for example talks a lot about how your parents growing up with an abusive parent doesn't give them an excuse to abuse as well.. Would this simple principle not expand to people using rational philosophy? It seems the dichotomy above must be true.. If we accept that the majority of people are evil, then we are a subject of deep nihilism for the future of humanity, neglecting some polar random shift in morality. This bleak future for our children is especially magnified if K reproduction strategists are really thriving. Since nihilism is no fun, (yes, that's my entire argument against it, deal with it) I'm going to suppose that the majority of people are NOT evil, and we simply do not lack the motivation, knowledge, or technology to reach the masses effectively. Therefore, we surely must fundamentally transform the way we do things if we ever want any kind of future. If you're losing against an enemy, the first thing you should do is analyze their tactics. (Thanks, Crysis) We usually refer to statists as using the initiation of force to control their subjects. While this is true at it's root level, like a fractal geometric equation, the result at the end user level after thousands of years/iterations of honing of said tactics is that to the average "citizen" the initiation of force does not even exist in the equation. If you debate a statist, they will not even know they are being stolen from on a daily basis! How can this be so effective? They use FREEDOM as the cover for their arguments! How can we let them use our own argument to discredit itself when the real deal is infinitely better and more moral? My actual Idea: People mostly talk about political action in the sense of protests, voting, or austricism. This community also includes child raising as a great way to forward the cause of freedom and philosophy. Those are great, especially the latter; but there's a problem: We are trying to get out of a master-slave relationship from the state, by acting as a slave. This will never, ever work. Genocide is just waiting in the mist of the future, for all of us anarchists slowly protesting an ever growing state, and this is not my opinion, this is historical fact. To end this quickly and righteously, I propose that we put ourselves on level playing fields with the masters, instead of attempting to pull the masters down to us. I mean EVERYONE. There is VERY LITTLE capitol left floating around in the free market, and people are getting less and less spending power by the day. The individual has less money than ever to devote to the cause of freedom, as I'm sure the owners of this site know too well. Can you stop for a second and imagine the amount of raw capitol currently being misallocated by states? Evil people at high levels of government will tolerate this huge reduction in economic output, in exchange for psychopathic power over military conquest and their own peoples.. However, greedy capitalists will not. Greedy capitalists just want another yacht, another ferrari, etc, even if we follow the main stream narrative here for a second.. You usually think about anarchic politics as bad for business.. BUT If people like Donald Trump can profit from stock going DOWN or businesses FAILING, WHY are no greedy capitalists tapping into this wealth the public sector is destroying? Why are there not lobbying groups to END public roads, funded by the largest construction companies ready to do the job? Why are there not armed protection agencies lobbying for reduced policing costs in order for communities to be able to pay for improved security and response time with private DROs? I'll tell you why: The majority of us are still partially in a slave mindset. We don't want to take responsibility for actually doing anything about freedom today.. How many of you actually own or operate within a business with freedom as an incentive? Even just scrap the above questions, why do we not fund a for profit joint stock company which exclusively lobbies to end government intervention in industries in order to privatize them and reap royalties from companies who take over? (The companies chosen freely by road consumers, not the lobby agency of course) This kind of freedom creates incentive for growth in sectors previously halted by state regulation from progression for centuries.. IE the road/car paradigm. It would put us on par with the slave owners of society finally, and start a self sustaining industry of profit from deregulation. Surely with guys like peter shiff, stefan molyneux, etc, around, there are people with the know how to do this, and we the people have the capitol. In addition, it's a sure business model because once the public sector is no longer in charge of the task, IE buildings roads, there will be huge vacuum in that sector of the economy for new road construction companies, since the state paid monopolies rarely do the job in a satisfactory way, and I think every american knows that. Lobbyists are a minimal cost for return on investment, as the private sector shows today.. Imagine the economic boom from ANARCHY LLC! Why are we not funding this?

The actions of the state are immoral. However, it is not necessarily immoral to work for the state. Let's say that the state expects to do X evil per year. If there is a job advertised by the state, then someone will get the job and the state should succeed in doing X evil that year. That someone then has to be exactly as productive as the employer expects them to be. If they are more productive, then the state will do X + x evil (where x is the unexpected contribution) that year. If they are less productive, then they will be replaced by someone who might be more productive than expected and, again, the state will do X + x evil that year. Alternatively, that someone could work their way up the ladder and fight the state from a position of power within the state, Ron Swanson style. If someone creates a job within the state, then they require the state to mug even more money from the people and they contribute +x evil that year. So if you work exactly as well as you are expected to or if you work your way up the ladder with the intention of fighting it from the top, then it is not wrong to work for the state. However, I don't think I could bring myself to do it. I'd feel too sick, especially if I was hands-on stealing/kidnapping/assaulting/killing for the state. This is just a comment. Any thoughts on what I said?

Hi everyone! This is my first thread on FDR. Firstly, I hope this is the right place to address the topic of art in a free society. Art is, after all, educational. Many enter a gallery or museum without considering how everything got there. See, I find it difficult to enjoy art if it's acquired through force (or, with tax-payer funds, if you like). Logically, anything within the gallery's walls, or state-funded in its creation anywhere, becomes affiliated with the state: its implication changes and it becomes a political tool. This isn't obvious until the whole state concept is unpacked. It should be remembered that art directors are bought, like teachers. And a fantastic way to silence an artist is to own their work. For example, I find it hideously ironic that a Leon Golub should exist in a government's pocket. Now, some artists today play with these themes, but here I'm addressing the general practice. It seems to me that people criticizing the private galleries and "vanity spaces" forget or simply ignore the hypocrisy in their claims. A state collection, really, is hardly cleaner than a private one. Many artists would kill to have their work purchased by a state gallery. The consensus is that you're not historical or "permanent" otherwise. But think on it: would you want your work, with all of its concepts, to be attached to the oldest platform of evil, however glamorous? I've read literally no essays or crits on these issues (save for this). Any links or books definitely would be welcome! If I've made any mistakes on this subject, please excuse my naivete and do correct me.

I am going to make a case here that state and its justification are debunked in its propositation. States existance is usualyl justified that without one X would not be provided or that state is moral neccesity. However principles behind these "justification" are debunked as soon as the description of the state is laid bare, namely that state is in fact a: Group/Organization made out of induviduals whom have the right and oblication to initiate force trough laws, taxes and regulation. All and any justifications that statist or truly anyoner can think of are debunked as soon as this defination is accepted. For in initiating force the state destroys its justification from the stand point of protection from criminals and other potential "armies" (aka other states and large rogue groups). Taxes, debunks the notion that state is needed to help with theft or with income equality. Regulation, debunks the notion that state is needed for preserving freedoms that under anarchy wouldnt exist or be supressed. Laws (from the state), debunks the notion of being fair and just for anyone using the voting system may simply chance the face of the state's actions and preferances thus the state becomes simply organization that enforces everyone else to follow majority opinion. Thus the "law is an opinion with a gun" phrase comes in. With dept, the state invalidates the economic justification of stabilising capitalism and economy due to sending falso signals trough the fed. Now all these debunking could be argued againts with simply that "we need to tweak the system" or "No taxation/laws/regulation is ok because theyre neccery for society to function". And these are clearly false since: - The state can iniate force whether you agree or disagree, thus "we need to tweak the sytem" would simply replace the current ineffiency for YOUR ineffiency unless you can PROVE that waht you suggest would work. This means that UNLESS the stateist is wiling to "tweak" iniation of force away along with non disagreeable regulation and taxes. - If neccesity is the principle here then we must ask the statist, neccecity to whom? Him, me or everyone? This principle fails because it arbiterily assigns neccesity without evidency for such neccesity nor does it justify that neccecity for 1 or the same for the other. "It is neccery for me agree and support the ste whether i want to or not but it is NOT neccesity for him to respect my willingness to NOT suppport the state." In other words here is where the "agaitns me arguement" coems into play. I know this is really bare bones understanding of the arguements surrounding the state and statists. Any critique is welcome and if you think theres already summery like this somewhere that would be good and/or better. This was written to better my own understang of the case againts stateism besides the obviousl EPIC moral failure of stateism. This is to highligh other logical failings of stateism.

From the perspective of the relation between economics and health. I would love to see a rebuttal to this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeEfXseXdC0

Google has been buying up robotics companies, including military robotics producer Boston Dynamics. I've always found it interesting that the corporate motto for google is: "Don't Be Evil"

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152144338807452&fref=nf

https://www.change.org/petitions/president-barack-obama-end-police-brutality#share

Hi! I'd like to share with everyone something I'm working on This is a project in which I’ll lay out the case about how and why governments were formed in the first place and why it generates most of the problems that exists in our society today, all in comics format I'm working on the language and the narrative so any feedback is apreciated Its in the top 4 pages in my Tumblr, there's also some other stuff of mine there too if you want to check out http://rockbarcellos.tumblr.com/ I also plan to put it in my own personal website, I'd love to make partnership with anyone interested in helping in anyway Thanks

What are the arguments for privatisation and deregulation in depth? Privatisation: So the argument against goes: "Health care, water and *insert utilitiy/'essential service* are there to help people not make a profit! A state monopoly can provide a service at cost and a business will provide it at a higher cost (cost + profit). Business will shaft the consumer and more importantly the poor" What are the practical arguments for privatisation? We tend to here things along the lines of: "governments have a horrible decision making progress and this makes them inefficient and always lagging behind business. Competition drives down prices and increases efficiency!" Then it just goes back and forth about X was privatized in Y country and now they're better off but X was also privatized in Z country and the state had to intervene. I guess what I'm asking is what is the logic behind the above, that makes a cost + profit business' better then a "cost only" state mandated monopoly on an essential service? We have the initial argument and evidence/counter evidence but what is the logic that explains it? Deregulation: What makes deregulating something cheaper? How does it allow for more business and more employment? Obviously people have less licensing and paperwork to worry about but what is the actual cost of regulation VS a self regulating market? Is it that business currently pays lawyers/accountants/auditors? Is it the cost of complying with government agencies that check products? (in that case is the only argument that a competitive market for agencies to check products/services cheaper/more efficient) Is it all about barriers erected for small business or the self employed? What barriers exactly? Just licensing?

Hello all:I have been searching for an answer to a basic question but I have yet to find one. This is a serious question. This is causing me great distress. My life is filled with guilt because of it.If we see nature as things that we can and should use (I mean past basic survival and comfort), what is stopping us from viewing vulnerable or 'weak" humans in the same light?For example: if someone buys land and clears it (let's assume it's forest), lots of plants and animals are going to be displaced or die. Let's also assume that person clears the land for a golf course or some other luxury purpose.Obviously, we are beyond Descarte, so we can agree that animals feel pain and emotional distress. When the land owner destroys their habitat, it will affect them.There is also some fledgling science that plants also react to negative circumstances: http://www.jperla.com/blog/post/plant-sufferingMany deny that plants and animals feel pain and/or suffer like humans, which I think it a little short-sighted.For this, let's assume they do feel pain. Some animals especially are very intelligent and have incredibly sophisticated ways of communication, structures, etc.We would never allow a land developer to displace or kill a severely mentally retarded human. It would violate the non-aggression principle.Assuming there are very intelligent animals and some mentally handicapped humans, one can assume that we cannot simply discard animals because they are not intelligent.Is it just because they are not human? What are the credentials to determine suffering?I feel like "strong" humans dominating and destroying animals and plants for luxury would lead down a slippery slope. How can we teach our children to not bully or harm when we do it to animals, plants, and the land for things beyond our basic survival?Further, since government has the guns, they dominate and oppress "normal" humans because they see us as livestock--lower than them. Well, WE see livestock as livestock--lower than us. The answer couldn't possibly be because they're not human. How can we reconcile exploiting nature because we can as acceptable, yet rail against the state for doing the same to us because they can? Thank you.

So recently I got into a debate with a family member over taxation & welfare. I told him that taxation is theft & presented him with a comparison of a thief & government. He then kept saying that there is a difference between the two to which I replied no there isn't & he kept saying yes. While that family member has shown their highly irrational thought process what are some other approaches I could take in regards to convincing someone that taxation is theft.

I just learned about an interesting political philosophy that was created by Paul Émile de Puydt & as you may have guessed it is called Panarchism. "Panarchism is a political philosophy emphasizing each individual's right to freely join and leave the jurisdiction of any governments they choose, without being forced to move from their current locale." -https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panarchism There is close suggestion to this that was created by a Swiss Economist called Functional Overlapping Competing Jurisdictions (FOCJ) but to me that conception sounds like pre-Thirty Years War Germany honestly. I think this is viable & was wondering what everyone else thought? BTW I will now call myself a Panarcho-Capitalist Edit: It was a joke because they are contradictions of each other, like I have said many times my jokes aren't great. Edit 2: Here are some articles I read on Panarchism that explain it better than the Wikipedia article, please if your going to comment with something regarding it please read a few of these before you do. http://www.panarchy.org/zube/gospel.1986.html http://www.panarchy.org/zube/aphthonius.2005.html http://www.panarchy.org/rozeff/panarchism.html http://www.panarchy.org/knott/principles.html http://www.panarchy.org/debellis/onpanarchy.html

I did it. I had the conversation for the first time in my life. ''Do you support the use of violence against me if I decide to disagree?'' After 3 hours, with a lot of distracting topics (who'd build the roads and such), to finally have him say ''Yes, I value your friendship more then my ideas of state''. Words cannot describe how uncomfortable that conversation was. A few times, I thought that this was it. This is where I will end this relationship. Damn. But it seems to have ended on a pillar of security. It was really uncomfortable and scary. But so worth it.

I got through 'The State and the Family' podcasts and 'God, the State, and the Family' podcasts and I get it. "All unprocessed trauma must find a root somewhere if it doesn't find a root in the truth, which it almost never will if it is unprocessed, that is the very definition of unprocessed, it will find its root in mythology." My sister and I have never really had much of a relationship. I feel she always verbally terrorized me basically and still does to some degree. There was always this understanding gap the width of the grand canyon I always felt between us. Her behavior, to me, seemed totally erratic and baseless. I always went to my parents when she verbally abused me. I never really thought and don't think I was the instigator of a majority of the mostly verbal abuse between us. Listening and watching so many of Stefan's videos on parenting I started to realize and now know my parents were a major factor in the way my sister treated me. The degree to which the abuses in the family were re-directed towards her, just to fuel her abusive vanity, which unfortunately now seems to have transformed her into a quasi-self-hating egocentric sociopath, was completely exaggerated because I didn't see my parents as the cause of her behavior and their depiction for me of her as the stilts to raise them above her (and me). I feel deep sympathy and empathy for her. I am uncovering some harsh bits of the truth of my own parenting. I am just getting started, but it is kind of hard to bring up those memories of them and stay in contact with them at the same time while living away from them with my relatives and feeling so codependent still. My direct family is more statist, but my relatives I am living with are more religious. I've been understanding more and more the shared paradigm of the two dichotomies of statism and religion, but the effects that parenting and childhood have on these two things really smacked me in the face. The blind narcissisticaly self-assured frauds who say they understand ethics when all they are doing is enabling the systems they despise to continue by not caring for children. They are anti-human; they say they know how to live. Only because they were brought up to think they know. You really hit it home. Anyway, just my thoughts after the epic God, the State, and the Family podcasts. Thanks Stefan

I created this thread: http://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/38170-the-future-of-bitcoin/ and I was somewhat disappointed with the response, and in revisiting the thread I think I realized I wasn't addressing the topic in the right way and asking questions. Thus, I decided to revisit the topic, but re-vamp and address things from a slightly different angle, which should make a higher quality post and, hopefully, provide a better discussion around bitcoin's future. The Money Regulation Algorithm Bitcoin has produced an amazing thing by creating a system that eliminates the idea of state inflation and money regulation. Money instead is regulated by math. Math tells you that 2 + 2 = 4 every time. A politician tells you that, “If you vote for me, for 2 + 2, I can get you 5” but he doesn’t tell you that in order to get 5, you have to pay 2 more later in the year, and your progeny will owe 5 in debt. A banker tells you, “I can tell you what 2 + 2 equals and let you use it, for a fee.” When you can create an algorithm that replaces a function, you get a ton of resources that are freed up and a lot of savings in money as the old system becomes obsolete. Altcoins and Metacoins Based on bitcoin, there are several things that are being practiced. Altcoins are cryptocurrencies that are somewhat based on bitcoin that try to provide a different service of some kind. Litecoin allows faster transaction times and would be great for buying a candy bar where waiting around for several minutes for a transaction to confirm would be arduous. Namecoin can help to create an internet that is resilient to censorship and outages by using new domain name creation. There are many types of altcoins. Some of them are not going to stick around because they are just pump-and-dump (the creators mine a bunch, then tell people, then cash out on the hype) or they have great features where if they are successful, they will just integrate them into bitcoin. However, some make changes that bitcoin cannot replicate without creating an entirely new system in itself. Metacoins are coin apps that users can create on top of the bitcoin application. I will be able to use a Mastercoin-like service to create the WesleyMetaCoin. These coins can be used in any way that I want them to be used, whether it is shares for a company, or “I owe you’s” for people, or investors in a project where the coins are a badge of honor, or even a donation certificate given to supporters of a charity. Further Replacement Thus, I have talked about before how these coins could be used to replace contract law. Ownership and contracts are determined by mathematical hashes rather than any state-run arbitrator. Ownership can be simply determined by a private key, and contracts can be signed in a similar fashion. This would provide further obsolescence of the state as a complex service that can be simply replaced by an algorithm. Experimentation I want to see even more experimentation with this. Why don’t people try to come up with a coin that has built-in welfare allocation that allows these social programs to become obsolete. Maybe bitcoin in itself already allows this as a per-unit gift in USD vs Bitcoin has a large efficiency gap. Why don’t people create inflationary currencies in which the inflation goes to provide some service to the user. Even voting can be done using “coins” that can be allocated in a certain way and would provide better features and accountability than any system that the state may run. Results and Questions Thus, the state no longer would exist as it currently does. Slowly, more and more gets replaced by math, computers, and entrepreneurs rather than the arbitrary cloud of opacity surrounding the hero-worship of arbitrary words and theory. Welfare and charity can be done in a voluntary and transparent way and a million different solutions can be tried until a solution is decided upon by enough people as to become the standard. Maybe with all of these other "services" being replaced, welfare wouldn't even be necessary in the long run. People can choose what coins to use, and it becomes a simple protocol that is open-source and voluntary in nature. What other “state-run services” can be replaced by bitcoin? Or, more importantly, do you think that anything can’t be replaced by bitcocin? Why not? If you think there is something that can't be replaced, maybe someone else can come up with a way that it can be. Slowly, bitcoin will wear away at bits of the state and become more popular while entrepreneurs are creating more features and more solutions in the background. Maybe the DRO gets replaced entirely by math? Maybe it can't be, but so many of the services we currently view as state services can be that the DRO becomes a much smaller entity than was previously thought, with much aid from bitcoin, altcoins, and metacoins so that they operate in a much more efficient manner. It is certain that the future of bitcoin will make major impact on how we view rules and laws, bringing them from the government into voluntary rules that are driven by math which is always consistent. The implications are intriguing.

Hello fellow freedom lovers, It seems like an eternity since I was last on this site. I don't know what the 'topic' really is for what I want to say, but I would like to share my recent experiences with some relatively like minded people. The world can be a lonely place for an anarchist. So, in October I got married. I am super happy about my relationship with my wife. She is the best. And she herself is not the problem. The problem is that I committed the cardinal sin of marrying a rival gang member. You see, my wife is American, and I am Scottish. Not the original West Side Story, but you get the idea. To cut a long story short, the visa process in the UK is now extremely convoluted, expensive, and deliberately confusing. After months of reading the forums, reading the small print reading the forms, we started to make our application. Then as far as I can tell, the UK Border Agency changed a few details and forms. So we made our application online for a marriage visa. This would allow my wife to come and stay in the UK for 6 months so that we could be married, and then once she was here we would apply for her temporary residence status for 2 years. In theory that would allow her to live and work in the UK as my spouse. So this was always known as a 'fiancee' visa. It is now known as a marriage Visa. We didn't know that there are two types of Marriage Visa. They are stamped as 'Marriage', or 'Marriage-Visitor'. So we filled out the paperwork, made our appointments, paid our £1000 ($1600 USD) appointment fee, to make the application in person. So, we went to a prison style detention centre in Glasgow. It is literally crawling with thug like security guards, and all of the immigration officers were behind bullet proof glass, for obvious reasons. The incompetence of the guards was the first omen that struck me. We went through the pat down and metal detector just like at an airport. Except this guard who searched my bag removed a leatherman multi tool/knife from my bag. I thought 'great, here we go'. But to my astonishement, the guard said, 'oh wow, thats a nice tool, etc, and started showing to the other guards, before handing it back to me on the other side of the gate 'Great Leatherman Pal'. Unbelievable. Anyway, we were shoved from window, to window to be interrogated by various thug-aucrats. Nobody really cared about our marriage certificate (We had a beautiful god-free marriage, but we were forced to at least have a city registrar do our ceremony in Edinburgh. It hurt deeply for me, to ask any kind of permission to marry. Let alone, only be allowed to marry in 'city approved locations'. But I had no choice but to play the statist game.) Instead, they were more interested in me proving my income is greater than the 'legal minimum required to sponsor a spouse as a resident'. This is a recent requirement in the UK. In any case, I was not worrried because our marriage was legitimate in the eyes of the state, and my income is double the minimum requirement even after tax. So I brought my contracts of employment, and salary statements for the past 18 months as proof. But that wasn't enough. I had to leave the immigration centre, and run around town for an hour to get bank statement s for the last 2 years, stamped as authentic by the bank. Of course my question was 'why didn't you tell us that requirement on the form or on the website?'. She looked at me, like I was an idiot. Her reply was 'How else do I know that your payslips actually mean you are recieving money?'. Anyway, after an epic run around town, and coming back through security, they sat us down and told us, that because our fiance visa had one little word extra on it, my wife had to leave the country. We replied, 'but the fiance visa no longer exists. This is a marriage visit visa. Now we're married, she's applying to stay'. Imagine a Big 'Game-Show sty;e noise of incorrectness'. They started trying to explain to us like we were idiot children that 'you got the same visitor visa that madonna got when she visited Scotland for her wedding, what you need is the other one'. Rage building. So, what do we do now? Well, you leave the country and apply again. Which form do we fill out? The same one you have in your hand now. Right. How long does that take? Oh, nobody knows. What? Yeah, 2 months, up to 8 months, no guarantees. OK. So we have no way to appeal this? Here's an email address where you can complain, but the error was yours, so it's unlikely you have a valid complaint. Excuse me? Yes. OK, but your website specifically says 'we cannot tell you which form to fill out'. So how were we supposed to know? I'm sorry, thats all I can tell you. (THIS WAS THE MOST GALLING BIT:) "If it's any consolation, the marriage visa used to be the easiest one to get until quite recently, but now they're cracking down on dole (welfare) cheats" Right. So I said, 'but my wife has £12k in her checking acct, I have £6k, and my salary more than double meets your requirements. You are telling me that she will be kidnapped and forced away from her husband for getting one word wrong on a form, that you guys invented. So she and I have no right to be together, and even a government sponsored marriage certificate means nothing any more. 'I'm sorry, that's the rules', was the predictable reply. My wife was in tears, and I was shaking at this point. Rather than take someone hostage with my trusty Leatherman, as I apparently DID have the right to do, we dragged our Non-Aggressive arses off out the door. It was at this point my wife told me, that whilst I was running between banks trying to get evidence for my 'Application-Not-To-Be-Kidnapped' form, that a South African (White) woman was sitting in the window next to us explaining 'why she had been arrested so many times whilst she was here on a student visa'. Literally, her response was 'It wasnt my fault, they just came into my house and set me up. My wife was shaking and crying and saying 'I don't understand? If they government gives out welfare, but they don't want me to take welfare, then WHY DONT THEY JUST 'NOT GIVE ME WELFARE'? Exactly. And here is kind of my tralking point in this post. This was as clear an epiffany as I have ever had. They create all these bullshit departments, so that when they do something bad that causes you pain, they can call it 'Immigration'. When they do something you like, that gives you relief when you're in another form of pain, they call it 'The National Health Service', or 'Welfare', or 'Free Shit'. Just like Zeus blames Thor when it rains, or whatever. You get all these little subdivisions of government departments, to obfuscate the concept of 'Government / Governance by force'. Just like the bible bashers say, well I like this little bit of the bible, but ignore the rest of it, so I cannot question the concept. And none of it made any sense. My wife literally had her dream job, lined up and waiting for her in Edinburgh, managing a bridal store. There is some tax-paying economic value they are missing out on right now, because of their retarded policy. Anyway, I work offshore in North Sea Oil. This all happened on the Thursday of that week. I was due to go back to Sea on the Monday. My wife had to book a flight home for the sunday night. I had to strip down our apartment, and move everything into my folks house for storage. At the same time all weekend I had to look into a green card application for me to go the US now, since it is the only way my wife and I can both continue to work and earn money. She had abstained from working for over 12 months, so she could be with me in the UK. The stress of moving out of my apartment, and preparing to go back to Sea, in the middle of a North Sea winter, was so much for me, I had my first panic attack. I went to hospital, in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. A prestigious looking building, until you get inside the emergency room of this Socialised healthcare hell-hole, and find bloody bandages under your seat in the waiting room, the hallways FULL of people in beds with no ward to go to, folk in wheelchairs pissing and shitting all over the floor, and the sound beeps turning to solid tones all around you. Truly, a bad fucking weekend for us. Get one word wrong on a form, and god help you. Anyway, my free market god-send of an employer is very kindly now paying for my flights to the US every month. I have the lofty privilege of 'Visitng' my wife, for up to three months at a time now, under the US Visa Waiver Program. Last week I sent in my application for a Green Card, and my wife has kindly spent half of her savings setting us up in a lovely apartment in Charleston. So now, I'm living without the right to 'work' in the same land as my wife. This obviously adds all kind of risks and stresses to our plans on having a baby at the moment. (Yes, Charleston, SC. My father btw is an Alex Jones fan, and even after knowing that I'd been hospitalised the night before with a strong panic attack, spent our last few hours together as we gutted my Scottish apartment, telling me exactly how, if I make it through the airport without being irradiated in the US, then I'm just gonna get Nuked in Charleston. Way to show some empathy Dad ) The upside of all of this trauma, is simply this: My wife officially posted on FB 'I'm now an Anarchist'. So that is my story. Here is my question. To what extent do our 'statist priestly class', use the ideals/tricks of polytheism, to manipulate our emotional attachments to government? And how does epistomology help us deal with this trauma, of threats of violence inflicted upon us at every turn in modern society? I think seeing violence and tax farming for what it truly is, has really helped salvage the first year of my marriage, and helped reassure my wife that we are not 'deserving' of such treatment. Knowing for sure, that injustice has been done to us, and what caused it all, was very little to do with our own actions, has truly, truly helped our emotional survival. Does Philosophy help you survive?

Todays topic - stateless vs statist societies explained in less that 5 minutes using a real historical example!

In this program I explore how the forging of empires left a binary legal system with oppressive laws for the conquered peoples and immunity from prosecution for the conquerors. Does that sound familiar?