A world without countries or governments

You can always choose to live outside the law. Of course, the same government that restricts your movements also restricts the movements of others who might act against you. Anarchy has a tendency to degenerate over time.

Webgear is in the armed forces. LOL. I have to agree, Webgear. If you're feeling a little "controlled" you might want to look at your work environment. [img]wink.gif" border="0[/img]

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Is it possible to be truly free?

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Webgear, we usually try to deal with issues with a little more meat on them, here. [img]wink.gif" border="0[/img]

It is the one of the great questions of all time.

If we skip a good many centuries of the history of how people have tried to answer it, we could answer it by saying it's an ongoing compromise between the interactions of your freedoms and everyone else's.

I don't know that anyone in the history of humanity has ever thought they were getting a fair, perfect deal. Except for perhaps William Selkirk for a few years. And he seemed to dislike his complete freedom.

In trying to come to grips with it, not just esoterically, but in how it all fits with you individually, I think you have to start your journey by trying to understand, warts and all, what we, as a species are, and what makes us tick. Of course, there are no perfect answers there, either. Our understanding is, well, incomplete.

I do not think there will ever be a world without countries or governments. But, our notions of countries and governments will certainly change.

[ 11 October 2008: Message edited by: Tommy_Paine ]

On a more pragmatic level, I think you have to really be in touch with what you want and what you need. (not as easy as it seems-- at least for me) If you understand that, then you can start to see where it fits and doesn't fit with the people around you, and how your juristiction is politically organized and how it promotes or thwarts your wants and needs.

Funny. I was just thinking the other day how much "freer" I might be now if I had enlisted in the Armed Forces instead of enlisting in the manufacturing sector. If I'd had stayed in the military as a "lifer" I'd be a retired NCO on an indexed pension, picking up odd jobs as it suited me.

Seems better--freer-- now, than wondering every day about if the plant will close before you get to your early retirement date.

I was just thinking the other day about how a legislative body would look if we just elected independant representatives. I stopped thinking though, when I ran into the paradox of the independant party....

Seriously though, it's a worthy idea that should be explored.

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Originally posted by Tommy_Paine:
[b]I was just thinking the other day about how a legislative body would look if we just elected independant representatives. I stopped thinking though, when I ran into the paradox of the independant party....

Seriously though, it's a worthy idea that should be explored.[/b]

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The detractors would almost certainly call such a body a single party state, where the state was in essence the party.

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Originally posted by Cueball:
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The detractors would almost certainly call such a body a single party state, where the state was in essence the party.[/b]

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I was imagining something along the lines of an organization that gave technical assistance to independant candidates. Of course, they'd have to be vetted for certain things in order to get assistance. But, it wouldn't be for political ideology-- unless things like mysogyny or racism can be called a political ideology. But, it would have to be basically non-partizan in nature.

I'm not sure how far the assitance could go before it legally ventured into the realm of an official "party".

You know, my ideal image of democracy does away with elections and replaces them with representatives chosen by lot.

Elections and democracy don't mix.

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Warning: a bit of a rant.

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Yes and no (there will always be property taxes).

What is freedom to you? I think it is subjective. But if you mean it in the way I think you mean it, then you can't be free of government, ever, if you can't be free of business. Government exists for business.

The evolution of legislation and regulation is to corral all of us into a contrived market place where all transactions are digital and take place between regulated consumer demand and protected corporate suppliers.

To be free of the government then, is to be as self-sufficient where one can, and trade in cash and/or barter where one can't.

In other words, one must be free of sanctioned trade to be free of corporate management of the economy and, finally, free of government.

Do you want to be that free?

[ 11 October 2008: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

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Originally posted by Webgear:
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Lately… I have been wondering if it is possible to live without having an individual or organization controlling my life.
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Yes. Find a suitable deserted island. Otherwise, you're kind of stuck with other people.

Yeah ...

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"Politics is the shadow cast on society by big business," concluded America's leading 20th century social philosopher John Dewey, and will remain so as long as power resides in "business for private profit through private control of banking, land, industry, reinforced by command of the press, press agents and other means of publicity and propaganda".

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[url=http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20992.htm]Chomsky[/url]

You can be free however freedom is not possible so long as private property exists.

Well, we can hardly ask, "can we be really free?" until we first ask, "what do we mean by freedom?" What do you mean when you use this word, Webgear? What sort of freedom are you after?

For instance, Taoists believe that true freedom is surrendering to "the way", the mystical patterns and forces that govern/compose all creation. In this way you are "free" from the confusions, desires, and insecurities of the human race. Of course, in the classical western sense of having unlimited powers and options, you wouldn't be "free" at all by this model, since all your actions would be in perfect integration with the Tao, and as such basically predetermined. Of course, you would still be choosing this path with every moment, but you see my point.

I suspect you're talking about the classical western sense of freedom, the freedom of the individual to make any choice available to them, without external coercion, and of course, as others have said, there's only one way to get this, which is total desertion of human society. There are still places on this planet, polluted and overindustrialised as it is, where a guy can eke out a bare subsistence from the land and disappear from the radar of nations, their laws, and their various bodies of enforcement. Of course, you would live an incredibly simple life, "free" from all the accomplishments of civilisation, or the rewards of human interaction. Perhaps it's a logical equation that by increasing our freedom to make the choices available to us, we must severely limit those available choices. The lone wilderness survivor has very few decisions to make, though all of them are "free" in the sense of involving no coercion.

But then, that's not really true either, is it? You would be free from human coercion, but far more subject to the dictates of nature than a person who chose to stay in society and fly under the radar in their own way, say by taking a low-responsibility job and having few ambitions. In fact, you'd spend pretty much all your time negotiating with your environment for simple survival. All your actions would be determined by this, while part-time video store clerks would have to put in their twenty hours a week or so, but could do as they like with the rest of their time, within the limits of their meager paycheques.

My point is that there's no such thing as absolute freedom, and if there was it would probably be a nightmare. If life was like a holo-deck where we got everything we wanted instantly, it would quickly lose all meaning. Life is all about a compromise of freedoms. This is the basis of all interaction. Hell, the reason animal life exists on earth is because certain simple cells formed a symbiotic relationship with other cells to create more complex cells. It locked them into an arrangement that they couldn't get out of, but it made them a more powerful unit, and hence a more successful organism.

So to my mind, hankering after "freedom", as some abstract notion makes no sense. You have to intelligently negotiate with the freedoms you possess, to achieve the freedoms that you're after. Discern what it is you want, what you're willing to give up, and make society an offer. No doubt it will be rejected, as first offers often are, and society will make a counteroffer, etc. I think happy people are people who can accept this reality and manage to create a tolerable truce of freedoms within the structure they are part of. We're lucky enough to live in a vaguely diverse and democratic society, which is more than most people get, so a fair amount of negotiation is open to us, and most people, if not too outrageous in their ambitions, can find such a truce if they work at achieving it.

..this was posted in feb but feel it's worth a read in a time where vision is desperately needed.

A Vision of Change

I had a vision. I kept it to myself for a while, then shared it in little moments on Facebook, on Twitter.

 But it’s time to share it, as undeveloped as it may be, I feel that it’s right. And there’s something in me that won’t allow me to stay silent about it any longer. Take it or leave it, I’m releasing it now.

In my vision I saw something new. Something like government but unlike it completely.  I saw true representation for The People of Turtle Island, starting right here in Kanata.

I saw three levels of governance: The Elders Circle; The Congress of Spokespeople; The Youth Assembly

I saw the Youth give the dreams and the vision: the hope and the energy.

I saw the Elders give the wisdom and perspective: the guidance and calm.

I saw the Congress of Spokespeople combine these things into action, carrying out the will of the people.

Where did they come from? They didn’t run for office or position, they were nominated by their regions, their communities. In fact, attempting to campaign for a position immediately disqualified the person.

They were asked to serve and they served. It was all volunteer, no money paid. They served for one year. There was equal representation by the sexes, whether one spirit or two-spirit.

Who was a member?  Anyone who claimed the smallest drop of Indigenous blood. No blood quantum discrimination. You could be 1/64th for all it mattered. But you had to claim it. Stand up and say, “Yes. I am one of The People.”

And you had to give precedence to Indigenous Ways of Knowing, Honouring, and Sharing. Ceremony and smudge, discussion rather than heated debate.

There were only three directions to follow:

• Promote the well being of the earth, water, sky
• Promote the well being of communities
• Promote education & peaceful relations

Anyone who went against these directions disqualified themselves from having a voice, as there were those who wanted to subvert the process, to act for other parties with special interests. The only special interest here was the Common Good....

Russell Brand and the resonance of revolution

That this epic interview went viral speaks volumes about the desire for radical change that still simmers just below the surface of our everyday normalcy.

So Russell Brand predicted a revolution on BBC Newsnight. With a rapid spitfire of cunning rhetoric he reduced Jeremy Paxman — the establishment’s private pitbull — to a cowering heap of journalistic fluff. The video instantly went viral. My newsfeed lit up with activists waxing poetics about the coming insurrection. All the major social movement pages implored their sleepy audiences to rise from their slumber like lions and reactivate that unshaken belief we all seemed to share just two years ago: that revolution is nigh. Paul Mason of Channel 4 weighed in that “Russell is right about the prospect of a revolution”, and Gawker even exclaimed that “Russell Brand may have started a revolution last night”.

I doubt it. The extreme joy with which the left (from liberals to Marxists to anarchists) seems to have embraced Russell Brand as a spokesman for the revolution is, in the first place, an indictment of our own failure. We are just so happy to see our concerns, criticisms and claims reflected in the mainstream media by a charming, articulate and — frankly speaking — slightly crazy hobo, that it briefly sent us back to that euphoric time when we first occupied everything in 2011. But at the same time, the very resonance of the interview speaks volumes about the revolutionary desire that still simmers just below the surface of our everyday normalcy. The fact is that millions of young people around the world actually agree with Russell: yes! we do need a revolution!

Of course Russell’s vision itself is not without its problems. For all his revolutionary and extra-parliamentary antics, Brand — under quite a bit of pressure from Paxman — still ended up (unwittingly, I hope) exhuming the corpse of Marxism-Leninism by calling for a centralized system of “government” control. Well, let’s just give him the benefit of the doubt and presume he meant “federated” self-governance. Also, in his otherwise excellent essay for the revolution-themed issue of The New Statesman that he guest-edited, Russell risks going slightly over the top with his New-Agey insistence upon the spiritual. As the bourgeois-bohemian vogue in Hollywood and Soho amply shows, the line between “spiritual revolution” and capitalist narcissism easily gets blurred.....

http://roarmag.org/2013/10/russell-brand-resonance-revolution/