A good many people are conducting What-if scenarios about the outcome of Election 2020, drawn irresistibly to salvation by politics as moths are to flames.According to many, including President Trump, if Biden wins it’s the end of America as we know it — really, this time for sure, because the tidal wave of corruption and evil his election will release cannot be undone politically.
Biden - Harris policies will temporarily favor the have-nots whose numbers have increased dramatically since the lockdowns and thus will be entrenched until the government’s checks bounce. And then the have-nots will truly not have. Do you think a Republican Senate would have the guts to oppose a Biden basic income package? If Trump hangs on for a second term, we have at most a four-year grace period to decide how to achieve freedom in our lives.
Freedom? What presidential candidate talks of creating a free society? The Libertarian Party candidate? It can’t be done politically. A libertarian political party is a contradiction in terms. If libertarians stand for anything it’s the Non-Aggression Principle. If they ever win a presidential election the winning candidate could only take office if every adult American voted for him or her, otherwise a victory would mean forcing some people to be free. And immediately upon taking office they would have to dissolve the State, their one and only plank of their party platform.
If you have a hard time picturing this happening you’re not alone.
So, what should people do if they want to be free from state coercion?
Start by telling yourself you want to be free from state coercion. Go ahead and say it, I’ll wait.
If you don’t admit that freedom is what you want, you won’t know what it is you’re after.
Is it scary to contemplate life without the Great God State? Can a state-free economic system provide everything we need? What if it could? What about other concerns, such as virus threats? Don’t we need a state to tell us what to do?
What if we don’t?
What if the State is unnecessary for governing a free society?
What if the State is incompatible with a free society?
What if the State’s elections, regardless of the candidates, make a free society impossible?
What if, as Murray Rothbard has written, the government we have, called a State, is nothing more than a criminal gang, regardless of which party is in power?
What if the estimated $14 billion spent on getting politicians elected in 2020 could instead be invested by the owners of the money to provide capital for economic growth?
What if people were free to judge for themselves whether a virus was a threat to their health?
Aside from property owners, what if no one had the power to enforce mandates of any kind, including lockdowns and masks?
What if a free society, which is based on property rights, includes the necessary incentives to govern itself?
What if a free society is the best means of defending the country from foreign attack?
State control of money and banking
What if a free society provides a safe medium of exchange?
What if the government we have criminalizes the market’s choice of money, which has historically been gold and silver coins, so that it can expand control over our lives?
What if the government we have criminalizes society’s choice of money so that it can reward preferred constituencies through central bank inflation?
What if central banks cannot exist in a free market but require government support for their operation?
What if “government support” amounts to prohibiting through force any competition to the central bank or the money it issues?
What if peace and prosperity are the hallmarks of a market-selected money, as shown in the last half of the 19th century?
What if the 19th century Robber Baron episode was a result of government favors rather than an indictment of the free market?
What if war, debt, and money devaluation are the hallmarks of the central bank’s fiat money?
What if banking crises result from the practice of fractional reserve banking?
What if fractional reserve banking satisfies the definition of embezzlement but is not regarded as such legally?
What if banks that practiced fractional reserve banking could be criminally prosecuted?
What if banks that practiced fractional reserve banking turned to the government to establish a central bank for protection?
State control of education
What if the government takes control of the country’s educational institutions?
What if people are taught from day one that their government exists to defend their natural rights as human beings?
What if events unfavorable to government are vetted or excluded from its recorded history?
What if adults accept the idea that government-as-we-know-it is a naturally evolving social phenomenon that strives to serve our best interests?
What if the closed-door Constitutional Convention was not a step in the direction of freedom but a revolt against freedom?
What if the Constitution provides for the expansion of government power through ambiguous clauses that the government itself interprets?
What if “emergencies” render the Constitution null and void with the rationale that it is not a suicide pact?
What if government-as-we-know-it evolved from a raiding party on a peaceful society? What if the raiding party used their superior force to settle among the conquered and institute a protection racket? What if the protection racket is known today under more acceptable labels such as “the nation” or “our country”?
What if Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Money, and other Big Influences derive their power from favors bestowed by the State?
In conclusion
What if enough people make known their wish for a state-free existence?What if they make known the inestimable advantages of a state-free society? What if, as a result of these, the State begins to weaken through attrition in its ranks?
What if the people under control of a weakening State demand the State dissolve itself completely, perhaps by refusing to pay taxes?
What if people surrender victimhood and begin to take full responsibility for their lives?
George Ford Smith is the author of nine books, includingDo Not Consent: Think OUTSIDE the voting booth,The Flight of the Barbarous Relic,Eyes of Fire: Thomas Paine and the American Revolution, andThe Fall of Tyranny, the Rise of Liberty. He is also a filmmaker whose latest work bears the same title as his most recent book, Do Not Consent. PLEASE WATCH IT AND VOTE!
