Libertarianism
J.McLaughlin Homepage
Throughout the known human history, there has been a continuous and intense struggle between freedom and coercion. Freedom is the most basic natural right, and as soon as a child starts walking, they start striving for freedom. The initial phase of this ambition is often termed as terrible twos. This is when an intense curiosity and exploration gets coupled with a deep desire for freedom. The more intelligent the child is, the more problems are created for the parents. Superactive children want to explore and learn as much as possible and quickly. That is why they never tire of moving, studying, and learning. This, of course, becomes a challenge for parents, especially moms, the primary caretakers.
The primary concern for the parents is that the child has not acquired the necessary knowledge and experience to take care of affairs without harming themselves. As the child grows, both the child and parents gain more confidence in the growing person’s capabilities, which leads to increasingly more freedom for the child. Some children, especially girls, grow faster and acquire wisdom faster. Others might be slower. In the same way, some parents are more protective than others. Most children ultimately grow into responsible and wise individuals, and at some point, parents have to let them go and take charge of their own lives.
In most cases, the parents’ responsibility keeps decreasing. Still, in many cases, the kids’ dependence on parents never completely disappears, even just about babysitting the grandkids. Some individuals may take longer to become financially independent, others may take longer to move out, others may pursue higher educational endeavors, and others may take longer to find and establish a solid career path. Some may have more social skills than others. Some may not be able to keep a job in the beginning. But in a good and strong family setup with loving, intelligent, and kind members, everyone ultimately ends up better. In strong families, this holds even when the equation changes and parents get old. Now, grown-up and independent kids help parents maintain a good quality of life.
Strong, moral families also make their members competitive and cooperative and do not harm anyone. Once grown up, every family member wants to and likes to have complete autonomy in their life, as long as they are not harming anyone. Good family people, while guiding, helping, and teaching, respect the autonomy and freedom of other family members. This makes everyone happy, successful, and wealthy.
Unfortunately, this is not the whole story of life. As individuals grow up and strive to have freedom with responsibility, they realize that there exists a group of gangsters that would never treat them as grown-ups and will always coerce them into this or that. This group does not trust and respect the autonomy of individuals and always comes up with excuses to rub the lives of individuals: religious restrictions, patriotism, collective, implicit consent, safety and security, defense and protection, you name it. These ganged-up masters will make up anything and everything to put hands in your pocket, to chain your hands and feet, to tape your mouth, to control your thoughts and preferences, to restrict your activities and behavior, to throw you in a cage.
You try to free yourself and get away with this coercion, only to find out that this monster keeps growing and takes more and more control of your life primarily because with the help of widespread indoctrination, corporate media propaganda, public school education, sold out academia, hired experts and gurus, and so-called discretionary authority of various types, has scared the shit out of lots of people. It has made them think that without masters, they cannot survive. These people have supposedly grown up, but in reality, they are still little children who cannot move around without holding the finger of the nanny state. These people participate in a drama every two, four, or five years, giving them the illusion of “electing” their masters. Elections and Democracy complete the loop of slavery and keep them tied forever.
Again, many seemingly beautiful and deceptive terminologies, such as “Civic Duty,” were invented to assure compliance and make dissenters look bad. The religion of Atheism has taken the same path as the theistic religions, with deceptive titles and designations. The only difference is that in one case, it is for a made-up unseen God, and in another, it is for a fictional God, the government. The basic modus operandi is still the same: comply or burn in hell. The hell in this case are heavy fines, sentencing in jail, smearing, destroying careers, damaging reputation, and even death or capital punishment. The bottom line message is the same: “Kids, you can never be fully grown-up independent individuals.” Presumably, some people have grown up more than others; they have privileges you cannot even imagine; their job is to control and punish the unruly and disobedient kids. So, make sure that you comply with the commands of privileged grown-ups or else.
Whether you are in your bedroom, dining table, living room, grocery store, car, or office, nothing matters. You are never too far away from the reach of your masters. Your eyes are not your eyes; your ears are not your ears; your tongue is not your tongue; your brain is not your brain; your home is not your home; and your hands are not your hands. You cannot use anything you think is yours in violation of the commands and commandments of your masters. You must also pay ransom on everything you buy, rent, own, use, gift, or exchange. You must be thankful to your masters for allowing you to go from point A to point B in your car. Hence, you must pay tribute to them.
An adult and free life is impossible as long as the government exists. Yet the delusional thinking and fantasies persist: Only if we can make them follow the constitution that they have violated for two and a half centuries.
