We Are Not Alone

Captain Ranty's blog has been gaining a huge amount of momentum of late. He has almost installed himself as a guest contributor at Old Holborn's place.

For one good reason. He writes superb stuff, and (shhh, secret) I knew this before he started blogging. In fact, I knew it before I started this blog, which is why the moment he began writing in earnest, he was instantly added to my blogroll. I didn't need to know what he would be writing about as I didn't care. His pedigree was unquestionable, his prose a dream, and boy has he delivered in spades.

The Captain recently posted an article on how to severely piss off authority in our country. We're not allowed to be involved in government decision-making anymore so the last resort is to just make it very irritating to implement whichever rot law they force upon us. The Captain suggested 198 different ways to do so which has been widely disseminated.

Now, that's all well and good, but in case you believed Captain, or anyone else who believes in real freedoms instead of those that this government deigns to allow us, was over-reacting, may I point out a simple truth here.

This is not a little Englander mentality. It is a worldwide phenomenon. Here, for example, is the same sentiment being expressed from the US, via an applauding libertarian from New Zealand (emphasis mine).

In my opinion the best way to change the laws, in practical terms, is through counter-institution building and through counter-economic activity outside the state’s control: in other words, to render the laws so irrelevant and unenforceable, by our efforts outside the state, that even the state must make concessions to reality.

Yes.

It seems to me that statism will ultimately end, not as the result of any sudden and dramatic failure, but as the cumulative effect of a long series of little things. The costs of enculturing individuals to the state’s view of the world, and of dissuading a large enough majority of people from disobeying when they’re pretty sure they’re not being watched, will result in a death of a thousand cuts. More and more of the state’s activities, from the perspective of those running things, will just cost more (in terms not only of money but of just plain mental aggravation) than they’re worth. IOW, the decay of ideological hegemony and the decreased feasibility of enforcement will do to the state what file-sharing is doing to the RIAA.

Yes!

The most cost-effective “political” effort is simply making people understand that they don’t need anyone’s permission to be free. Start telling them right now that the law is unenforceable, and disseminating knowledge as widely as possible on the most effective ways of breaking it. Publicize examples of ways we can live our lives the way we want, with institutions of our own making, under the radar of the state’s enforcement apparatus.

We're not alone here. And what's more, the US and NZ generally look on the UK as a nanny state to end all nanny states.

The rest of the world laugh at us. No, I'm serious. Go look at global news aggregator sites such as Reddit, Digg or Fark and you will see the ridicule that this country suffers because of our government.

These states are nowhere near as dictatorial as ours yet their libertarian movement has kicked in strongly already. We are well beyond what other countries would accept as palatable. It really is time that something was done.

Our government won't listen to us, so why on earth should we meekly follow their absurd rules? Join in the global rejection of overarching authoritarianism and annoy some clipboard-wielding prodnose today. Then do it again tomorrow. In fact, make it a way of life.

Our politicians don't deserve respect anymore. They have forgotten who should be in charge in a democracy and need reminding.