Is it time yet? Freedom = I won’t

As the “reality” of a corrupt, fraudulent, “social-justice warrior” federal administration grows closer and closer, it is once again time to ask a couple of critical questions:

1. How can we, to quote Harry Browne, live free in an unfree world?
2. Is it, to restate Claire Wolfe’s question, time to shoot them?

One answer to Browne’s question is found in an “ancient” short story and novel. The Great Explosion is a satirical science fiction novel by English writer Eric Frank Russell, first published in 1962. The story is divided into three sections. The final section is based on Russell’s 1951 short story “…And Then There Were None”. Twenty-three years after the novel was published, it won a Prometheus Hall of Fame Award.

An idea, as formally expressed in Eric Frank Russell‘s short story “And Then There Were None“, that in a truly free society NO ONE may coerce another person in any manner. At any point, a person may simply say, “I won’t” and that answer must be accepted as valid. Russell’s tale describes a planet of people who have taken to this concept wholeheartedly. They trade their goods and services through a system of “obs” – obligations – that they “plant” on each other and then pay off.

For instance, by providing groceries to the firefighters, the grocer plants an ob on the firemen, ensuring that if his store ever catches fire that they’ll come. Following this philosophy (Freedom = I won’t), only the recipient of the ob can say when he has paid it back, not the planter.

Russell briefly touches on how various services are provided that shows this is not just a primitive barter system. For example, businesses that don’t have goods or services that the firefighters use can “buy” firefighter obs from businesses that do. In essence, this becomes a form of insurance. If you start a much-needed (and wanted) business in a town, the business owners can plant a “functional ob” on the entire town. This, negotiated directly with the people of the town or through some organization (like various homeowners groups or merchants association), helps the new business get going.

Now Russell’s story was written before anything but the very beginning of the computer age: his system works in small towns where recordkeeping is simple and people know one another. It might not work as well in huge urban areas. (Cheating and skipping town to avoid paying off your obs comes to mind.) But with modern communications and recordkeeping, there are fewer problems with deadbeats and lost opportunities.

His society is clearly one with a very high level of social trust: even though there are punishments (“I won’t do business with you,” and such) for those who constantly scam people, it is taken for granted that virtually all persons will honor their obligations.

But what it clearly does is totally disarm government – emasculates it. To the Karens, the nannies, the Twitter trolls, AND government agents of all types: even military organizations, “I won’t” requires a nearly immediate appeal to aggressive force. “I’ll make you do it, or I will [choose one] steal from you, beat you, kill you.”

People will scream this is anarchism. (Yes, so?) Many WILL try to force people to do something, and therein lies the greatest difficulty in implementing such a system: you have to get most (not all) people in a community to agree to do so. But it still can work very well against government IF enough people in a jurisdiction tell the thugs (jack-booted or not), “I won’t.” And even a little bit more “I won’t” can certainly help us and our community.

As to Claire’s question? Well, I think that ties in directly with Russell’s. IF others refuse to accept your refusal to do what they tell you to do, and try to force you to do so, you have a right (given by GOD) to defend yourself. And others who are also saying “I won’t.” Give them a personal, specific warning, of course. (Not that Harry and Claire haven’t been warning them for decades.)

And then, indeed, it IS time to shoot them. And depending on how things are going on around you, it might be necessary to “shoot, shovel, and shut up.” OR it may be time to take the effort necessary to use them (well, their cadaver) as a warning to others who won’t back off. Whether it is a nice mounded grave in front of the Courthouse or City Hall, with an appropriate tombstone to explain, or even the nasty Islamist custom of cutting off their heads and putting them on spiked fences (or t-posts) along the street, such warnings can be very effective. In the right circumstances, of course.

Are we at that point? As the illustration is meant to demonstrate, we are getting closer and closer. Time is running out…

PS: You may read Russell’s story online at: http://www.abelard.org/e-f-russell.htm