Critique: Out of Step: The Autobiography of an Individualist (1962)

from: http://www.lewrockwell.com/chodorov/chodorov20.1.html
( If We Quit Voting, by Frank Chodorov)

Note: The article has been parsed into paragraphs, starting
at the fifth paragraph, with opinion inserted after each,
throughout the rest of the article)

Article:

"It is this transference of power from voter to elected agents
that is the crux of republicanism. The transference is well-
nigh absolute. Even the constitutional limitations are
not so in fact, since they can be circumvented by legal
devices in the hands of the agents."

Reaction:

Constitutional limitations should be circumvented, and
especially in the case of a republic run amok with the
*******ization of new, cheap, clean, and abundant energy
technology, with an associated massive earth-to-orbit
industry for its citizens, with absolutely no regard towards
any respective media endorsement (without completely
dumbing down private innovation without endorsing an
invasive liberal political spin), for the welfare of a majority
of its citizens.

Article:

"Except for the tenuous process of impeachment, the
mandate is irrevocable. For the abuse or misuse of the
mandate the only recourse left to the principals, the people,
is to oust the agents at the next election. But when we
oust the rascals, do we not, as a matter of course,
invite a new crowd? It all adds up to the fact that by
voting them out of power, the people put the running of
their community life into the hands of a separate group,
upon whose wisdom and integrity the fate of the
community rests."

Reaction:

With no information available to the voter about a
candidate's vote record, it's just too late to decide on
a preferred electorate above 50/50, which remains in
favor of the majority - add to this the slanted view that
most liberal media contend what is their own truth,
and as a worst case scenario, the public's soap-
opera ability to believe everything put in front of them,
not only because it looks pretty, but it sounds just
as beautiful as it looks. Those politicians who are
actually doing the work for the majority should not
have to be as hollywood as the liberal media would
like to make them out to be.

Article:

"All this would change if we quit voting. Such abstinence
would be tantamount to this notice to politicians: since
we as individuals have decided to look after our affairs,
your services are no longer needed. Having assumed
social power we must, as individuals, assume social
responsibility – provided, of course, the politicians
accept their discharge. The job of running the community
would fall on each and all of us. We might hire an expert
to tell us about the most improved firefighting apparatus,
or a manager to look after cleaning the streets, or an
engineer to build us a bridge; but the final decision,
particularly in the matter of raising funds to defray costs,
would rest with the townhall meeting. The hired
specialists would have no authority other than that
necessary for the performance of their contractual duties;
coercive power, which is the essence of political
authority, would be exercised, if necessary, only by
the committee of the whole."

Reaction:

What is the limit to the size of a community? Will they
all become like little "Americas"? What about roads
through the communities used to deliver goods and
services? Will there be any air traffic? Is communication
by telephone/internet/television bounded strictly by
geographical location? Who will protect the community
from outside invasion? As the population of the
community increases, how should its borders expand?

The idea here is that if a community of this sort were to
expand horizontally, there would have to be "growing
pains" associated with inter-community rules and
regulations/conflicts of interest, etc., but this would
only be a symptom of "horizontal" growth. On the other
hand, "vertical" growth means that either one rises
skyward, or goes underground, without inhibiting the
growth of either its neighbors or inter-community rivals.

Article:

"There is some warrant for the belief that a better
social order would ensue when the individual is
responsible for it and, therefore, responsive to its
needs. He no longer has the law or the lawmakers
to cover his sins of omission; need of the neighbors'
good opinion will be sufficient compulsion for jury
duty and no loopholes in a draft law, no recourse to
"political pull" will be possible when danger to his
community calls him to arms. In his private affairs,
the now-sovereign individual will have to meet the
dictum of the marketplace: produce or you do
not eat; no law will help you. In his public behavior
he must be decent or suffer the sentence of social
ostracism, with no recourse to legal exoneration.
From a law-abiding citizen he will be transmuted
into a self-respecting man."

Reaction:

The team spirit that was once the glue between
employees in large industries was a kind of balance
between tightening and slackening the easy yoke
of responsibility, as it should be. Smaller industries
in smaller communities might have tighter reins, unless
there is more respect for the individual w/family, as
well as respect for the "family type of atmosphere"
for others in the workplace.

Since sovereignity for the masses can never become
effective instantaneously, everyone's privacy in matters
of what or what is not personal prejudice will come
into conflict with just about anyone who attempts to
maintain their own innocence, despite overwhelming
evidence to the populist's contrary - yet throughout
history it has been the ostracised, the outcast, the
strange, the rejected, that have been both the
innovators in the marketplace, as well as the
societal revolutionaries.

Article:

"Would chaos result? No, there would be order,
without law to disturb it."

Reaction:

Order that ends at the beginning of one's personal
space that surrounds themselves in the workplace,
or at the beginning of one's personal or private
property is no longer safe from things that affect
one's thoughts or well-being because it is invisible -
electromagnetic or otherwise - so it is, that there
is a need for the appropriate filters and detection
apparatus to recognize what the visible, as well as
the invisible threats are, from our local, as well
as our regional surroundings might be.

Article:

"But, let us define chaos. Is it not disharmony
resulting from social friction? When we trace social
friction to its source do we not find that it seminates
in a feeling of unwarranted hurt, or injustice? Then
chaos is a social condition in which injustice obtains."

Reaction:

One might say that anything that cannot blend in
with its background, is a "disturbing" element - but
who is to decide what, where, when, and how is
something "disturbing"? Perhaps the "what" is more
important than the "how", or the "where" is more
important than the "when". In fact, there are exactly
24 combinations of possibilities which have to be
ascertained before a reliable enough conclusion
as to what may "seem" more chaotic than
"harmonious" is made, and all according to the
universality of (the one perpetrator's) most
interchangable, sensory inputs.

Article:

"Now, when one man may take, by law, what
another man has put his labor into, we have injustice
of the keenest kind, for the denial of a man's right
to possess and enjoy what he produces is akin to
a denial of life."

Reaction:

How to apply this principle to both tangible and
intangible goods - such as ideas, patents, original
designs, innovations, suggestions, and/or just plain
common sense as the "oil" that makes things work,
would require an army of trial lawyers, not to mention
a bevy of Judge Roy Beans at your disposal, for
effecting the fines, warrants, or payments due.

Article:

"Yet the power to confiscate property is the first
business of politics. We see how this is so in the
matter of taxation; but greater by far is the amount
of property confiscated by monopolies, all of which
are founded in law."

Reaction:

The lackluster performance of protecting what becomes
"intellectual property" as well as "patent protection"
is rooted in negative law practice, and in particular,
political agendas supporting monopolistic markets.

Article:

"While this economic basis of injustice has been
lost in our adjustment to it, the resulting friction is
quite evident. Most of us are poor in spite of our.."

Reaction:

Easy enough to say, but there never seems to be
any discussion of what a "common ground" might
consist of, given things like edible nano-paper money:

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.s...877f525e?hl=en

or even a few shreds of intellectual capital directed
at the development of cheap and reliable replacement
for "foreign" energy resources.

Article:

"..constant effort and known ability to produce an
abundance; the incongruity is aggravated by a
feeling of hopelessness. But the keenest hurt.."

Reaction:

Energy "abundance" is where the nail becomes
driven into the coffin of energy co-dependency -
with foreign oil, with the ban on American
offshore/onshore drilling, and with the ban on
cost-competitive revolutionary abundant energy
replacement technology.

Article:

"..arises from the thought that the wealth we see
about us is somehow ours by right of labor, but
is not ours by right of law. Resentment, intensified
by bewilderment, stirs up a reckless urge to do
something about it. We demand justice; we have
friction. We have strikes and crimes and bankruptcy
and mental unbalances. And we cheat our neighbors,
and each seeks for himself a legal privilege to live
by another's labor. And we have war. Is this a
condition of harmony or of chaos?"

Reaction:

Positive law is being currently discouraged, while
most TORT prosecutions are being designed to
drain most R&D from large, potential upstarts, given
a host of attorneys most suited for the new EPA
doctrine, and taxing the citizens to boot.

The legal machines for deconstruction become
self-perpetuating, especially when large, profitable
companies can afford to bribe and/or payoff both
the EPA regulators and the industrial contractors
for the important work that they must accomplish.

Article:

"In the frontier days of our country there was little
law, but much order, for the affairs of the community
were in the hands of the citizenry. Although fiction
may give an opposite impression, it is a fact that
there was less per capita crime to take care of then
than there is now when law pervades every turn
and minute of our lives. What gave the West its
wild and woolly reputation was the glamorous
drama of intense community life. Everybody was
keenly interested in the hanging of a cattle rustler;
it was not done in the calculated quiet of a prison,
with the dispatch of a mechanical system. The
railriding of a violator of townhall dicta had to be
the business of the town prosecutor, who
was everybody."

Reaction:

The "noise" around the individual was much, much
less and a great deal more "filtered" than it is today.
During the olden days of the move out west, people
were more interested in living off the land. That has
been replaced by the industrial revolution - farm
machinery has reduced the required harvest and
storage time by nearly a thousand fold.

The agrarian society has all but disappeared with
the suburban cosmopolitan society - however we
have not forgotten who our Creator is and was:
we remember our need to remain attached to the
soil, as well as to the time and the place that we
were birthed into - we recognize that it was a gift
of God with divine purpose and meaning, and our
lives are based upon bringing the Lord of our
spiritual harvest back to our habitation as a
witness to future generations of mankind.

Article:

"Though the citizen's private musket was seldom
used for the protection of life and property, its
presence promised swift and positive justice,
from which no legal chicanery offered escape, and
its loud report announced the dignity of decency."

Reaction:

Given the background of most being hunters at
the time, there can be no doubt that without a
reliable witness available, the legal council
became attached to one's moral relativity in
the case of "who could draw faster" rather than
"who was doing the right thing".

Although everyone's "guilty before proven innocent"
may have been right most of the time and after
the fact, hearings where locals knew most
everybody in town would probably decide in
the town's best interest before anything else.

Article:

"Every crime was committed against the public,
not the law, and therefore the public made an
ado about it. Mistakes were made, to be sure,
for human judgment is ever fallible; but, until the
politician came, there was no deliberate malfeasance
or misfeasance; until laws came, there were no
violations, and the code of human decency made
for order."

Reaction:

When the church was at the center of the community,
life was much simpler - but it was also physically
tougher - as the agrarian society began to disappear,
people had more leisure time, and therefore involved
themselves in harmless distractions - reading,
writing, and the arts. With reading came
additional comprehension, and with the additional
comprehension came the trial lawyers. Unfortunately,
women, children, and basically those who do a lot
less "grunting" for a living, are affected more by
how others express themselves with acting and
gesturing, rather than with pointing and shouting.
We love to imagine the impossible, and so we
become enamoured with every possible scenario
that could possibly exist except the most
truthful one - inevitably those with the tears are
the most convincing to us, because it reminds us
of our own frailty - and that is what advances our
species - the recognition of an honest frailty in
others that may require our attention.

Article:

"So, if we should quit voting for parties and
candidates, we would individually reassume
responsibility for our acts and, therefore,
responsibility for the common good. There would.."

Reaction:

But only if we forgot to recognize the reason for
either the party and/or the candidate's platform in
the first place, which was not supposed to either
subvert our rights as participants in the arena
of ideas, or continue to perpetuate monopolizing
our infrastructure as though we were only prisoners.

Article:

"..be no way of dodging the verdict of the marketplace;
we would take back only in proportion to our
contribution. Any attempt to profit at the expense
of a neighbor or the community would be quickly
spotted and as quickly squelched, for everybody
would recognize a threat to himself in the
slightest indulgence of injustice. Since nobody
would have the power to enforce monopoly
conditions, none would obtain. Order would be
maintained by the rules of existence, the natural
laws of economics. That is, if the politicians would
permit themselves to be thus ousted from their
positions of power and privilege."

Reaction:

A monopoly can only exist when the "perpetrator"
does not share in his innovativeness. The laws of
the bureaucracy in which they operate become
inert unless they exist to protect the safety and
welfare of its citizenry; although God is no respector
of persons, it should be the government's perogative
to allow certain respects, as well as enforcements of
those respects, to be granted to all citizens within
the community.

Politicians would become like little gods, exercising
the perogatives of whole sectors of communities,
and seeing to it that the needs of the most pressing
problems between groups of communities become
resolved in a timely manner.

Article:

"I doubt it."

Reaction:

That should be the reason why all politicians
assume power - it was granted to them by all of
the communities-at-large, in order to resolve
questions regarding the communities' present
and future development.

Article:

"Remember that the proposal to quit voting is
basically revolutionary; it amounts to a shifting
of power from one group to another, which is
the essence of revolution. As soon as the nonvoting
movement got up steam, the politicians would
most assuredly start a counterrevolution. Measures
to enforce voting would be instituted; fines would
be imposed for violations, and prison sentences
would be meted out to repeaters."

Reaction:

Which is why it will never happen - as long as
the politicians continue to do the job that they were
sent there to do - they will represent the needs of the
people in the region, for both the present needs, and
the future of what is defined as "success" for the region.

Article:

"It is a necessity for political power, no matter how
gained, to have the moral support of public approval,
and suffrage is the most efficient scheme for
registering it; notice how Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin
insisted on having ballots cast. In any republican
government, even ours, only a fraction of
the populace votes for the successful candidate,
but that fraction is quantitatively impressive; it is
this appearance of overwhelming sanction that
supports him in the exercise of political power.
Without it he would be lost."

Reaction:

Why are elections too close to all when it is both
candidates seem almost identical in their passions -
it is, in fact, a characteristic of the imitator verses
the imitated - yet it is the one who most truthfully
imitates what God would do that usually gets labeled
as the most self-righteous, the most "religious-minded",
and the most "bigoted", in contrast to the one who
can "get the job done".

Sometimes everything should not continue on as
it always has, but the public is forced into making
a decision that is based more upon convenience
than necessity. There is nothing "smooth" about
following God, yet the option is on the table for
any person willing to go the distance, in order to
have a better solution that puts more of God's
people first than the electorate. Sometimes it IS
a matter between good and evil, IMHO.

Article:

"Propaganda, too, would bombard this passive
resistance to statism; not only that put out by the
politicians of all parties – the coalition would be
as complete as it would be spontaneous – but also
the more effective kind emanating from seemingly
disinterested sources. All the monopolists, all the
coupon-clipping foundations, all the tax-exempt
eleemosynary institutions – in short, all the
"respectables" – would join in a howling defense
of the status quo."

Reaction:

Man can never "own" the status quo, because man
never "created" all the living, breathing, beings that
comprise the status quo - sure, all the statists would
howl in unison, but is that not out of their own
insecurity for relinquishing their co-dependency with
their tax base, rather than with the intellectual
capital of those attempting to be represented in a
more open-minded and honest manner? The truth is,
that the statists can spin their webs of deceit as long
as there are willing cacoons for caterpillars - but
there seems to be just as many butterflies
available - so why the excessive micromanagement
and taxation?

Article:

"We would be told most emphatically that unless
we keep on voting away our power to responsible
persons, it would be grabbed by irresponsible ones;
tyranny would result."

Reaction:

There should never be, in any advanced society,
a contest between the values that intellectual
capitalists hold, verses the values of those that
simply move around financial capital without
understanding the complete futility and consequences
of their actions - case in point: the short selling
of stocks by hedge fund investors in order to
drive stocks down for profit. - nothing innovative
here - just pure greed at the expense of investors.

Article:

"That is probably true, seeing how since the
beginning of time men have sought to acquire
property without laboring for it."

Reaction:

Labor can be mental as well as physical - many
ideas that had their origins on the drafting board,
now have them on computer screens. Computer
screens are divided into those used for entertainment,
and those used for work - beware of the huge memory,
high speed computer - they are one-eyed monsters
that are even more brain-sucking than television sets.

Article:

"The answer lies, as it always has, in the judicious
use of private artillery. On this point a story,
apocryphal no doubt, is worth telling. When Napoleon's
conquerors were considering what to do with him,
a buck-skinned American allowed that a fellow of
such parts might be handy in this new country and
ought to be invited to come over. As for the possibility
of a Napoleonic regime being started in America,
the recent revolutionist dismissed it with the
remark that the musket with which he shot
rabbits could also kill tyrants. There is no
substitute for human dignity."

Reaction:

If "There is no forgiveness without the shedding
of blood" (Hebrews 9:22), then the buck-skinned
American ought to forgive himself for carrying his
own musket, if it were not used for the same purpose
that God had intended it for - in fact, if Almighty
God had his way with this man's life, Napoleon's men
would never have even met him, for he would be
vanished in the wilderness of peace, rather than
in the man-centered artifice of strategy. His dignity
would then rest with the Lord of the Harvest, rather
than with the man of war.

Article:

"But the argument is rather specious in the light
of the fact that every election is a seizure of power.
The balloting system has been defined as a battle
between opposing forces, each armed with
proposals for the public good, for a grant of power
to put these proposals into practice. As far as
it goes, this definition is correct; but when the
successful contestant acquires the grant of power
toward what end does he use it – not theoretically
but practically? Does he not, with an eye to the
next campaign, and with the citizens' money, go
in for purchasing support from pressure groups?
Whether it is by catering to a monopoly interest
whose campaign contribution is necessary to his
purpose, or to a privilege-seeking labor group, or
to a hungry army of unemployed or of veterans,
the over-the-barrel method of seizing and
maintaining political power is standard practice."

Reaction:

Elections can only hire actors after-the-fact, in order
to carry out the deeds of their purchasers. Either the
voting public has been duped, or they understand the
responsibility that they have in obliging the system
of taxes for reducing their paychecks. The same can
be said of tithing - except that in the case of a pastor,
priest, reverend, or rabbi, the duping mechanism is
a much more serious accusation. These people are
trained not to lie to God - politicians are born liars,
stuffed shirts full of promises, and basically hollow
souls waiting for a new agenda to follow. Politicians
do not respect the Christian's year of jubilee, in
which every seven years, all debts are forgiven -
banks don't either, for that matter. Simply put,
the establishment no longer trusts the citizens
that comprise the state, because many of the
citizens themselves have become corrupted by
liberal elites, who would rather twist the law in favor
of someone's own situational ethic, than a biblical
commandment or good faith action.

Article:

"This is not, however, an indictment of our election
system. It is rather a description of our adjustment
to conquest. Going back to beginnings – although
the process is still in vogue, as in Manchuria, or
more recently in the Baltic states – when a band of
freebooters developed an appetite for other people's
property they went after it with vim and vigor.
Repeated visitations of this nature left the victims
breathless, if not lifeless, and propertyless to boot.
So, as men do when they have no other choice,
they made a compromise. They hired one gang of
thieves to protect them from other gangs, and in
time the price paid for such protection came to be
known as taxation. The tax gatherers settled down
in the conquered communities, possibly to make
collections certain and regular, and as the years
rolled on a blend of cultures and of bloods made
of the two classes one nation. But the system of
taxation remained after it had lost its original
significance; lawyers and professors of economics,
by deft circumlocution, turned tribute into "fiscal
policy" and clothed it with social good."

Reaction:

That is the twist that originally started in the book
of Job - Job argued with his accusers - among them,
the local Satrap being the only protector of property
"seen" when God's evidence of Job's success had
disappeared from his life - 5,000 camel, 3,000 sheep,
and 3,000 head of oxen - not to mention his wife,
seven sons, and seven daughters. The same spirit of
hiring thieves to protect one's belongings may have been
rejected by Job, and so Job became tested by Satan.
The same spirit of Satan tried testing Christ in the
wilderness, and received to following reply, "Begone
Satan! for it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord
your God and him only shall you serve.' Should this
same test be applied to those entering the new
frontier of space travel? (Not unless these pioneers
can be identified with the search and seizure of
newfound, orbital territory for building infrastructure,
and the satraps - who are the aforementioned lawyers
and professors of economics become identified with
the fallen angels - who choose to remain behind!
Should they subvert my God-given supernatural in-
stinct to survive the elements by handing my soul
over to some completely man-centered civilization?
Not a chance! Neither will I be taken into captivity,
or be required to become like bricks instead of
cornerstones!

Article:

"Nevertheless, the social effect of the system was
to keep the citizenry divided into two economic
groups: payers and receivers. Those who lived
without producing became traditionalized as
"servants of the people," and thus gained ideological
support. They further entrenched themselves by
acquiring sub-tax-collecting allies; that is, some
of their group became landowners, whose collection
of rent rested on the law-enforcement powers of
the ruling clique, and others were granted subsidies,
tariffs, franchises, patent rights, monopoly privileges
of one sort or another. This division of spoils
between those who wield power and those whose
privileges depend on it is succinctly described in
the expression, "the state within the state."

Reaction:

It would seem to be that "payers" and receivers"
are synonymous with "givers" and "takers", as long
as the federal reserve notes remain "promissory".
The "ideological support" that exists for being a
"servant of the people" can only assist to the extent
that they are actually helping, and not hindering,
those people who are the "givers", gain advantage
for free market support, and are doing this against
any "competition" that might appear on the horizon.
However, by their virtue of being further "entrenched"
through the acquisition of sub-tax-collecting allies,
they have cross-diluted their idealization against
their originally touted idealizations against the
"giver", and the "giver" is thus compromised both
intellectually and bureaucracy-wise against their
own "takers". Land-owners cannot replace designers
of orbital infrastructure, and earth-based rent
enforcement cannot replace the practice of pedis
possessio, or "ownership by occupation". The
state has its child in the form of subsidies, tariffs,
franchises, patent rights, and monopoly privileges
of one sort or another - Almighty YHWH draws all
men unto himself - some having gifts of the spirit, and
some having fruits of the spirit. "Gifts" and "fruit" are
not the same thing - one is a brainstormer and the
other is a works generator. Both are NOT controls on
overall growth in infrastructure, but are free gifts of
the eternal spirit of God. With God, there are no
limits to growth - as long as the receiver of spiritual
truth can self-organize within a hierarchy of needs-
based ascendency, all who can agree to uphold the
positive law will never become stalled in their growth
while examining there own accomplishments
for deficiency, and the best examples for the right
kind of growth will end up being the most prosperous.

Article:

"Thus, when we trace our political system to its
origin, we come to conquest. Tradition, law, and
custom have obscured its true nature, but no
metamorphosis has taken place; its claws and
fangs are still sharp, its appetite as voracious as
ever. In the light of history it is not a figure of
speech to define politics as the art of seizing
power; and its present purpose, as of old,
is economic.There is no doubt that men of high
purpose will always give of their talents for the
common welfare, with no thought of recompense
other than the goodwill of the community. But so
long as our taxation system remains, so long
as the political means for acquiring economic
goods is available, just so long will the spirit of
conquest assert itself; for men always seek to
satisfy their desires with the least effort. It is
interesting to speculate on the kind of campaigns
and the type of candidates we would have if
taxation were abolished and if, also, the power
to dispense privilege vanished. Who would run
for office if there were nothing in it?"

Reaction:

Men of the most power and stature - men of the
ruling class - understand that when there are those
who will rob, kill, and steal without cause against
those who are the most self-organized - that even
the meaning of "organization" will take on a new
meaning. A lion will stalk and devour his prey
through brute force. 1 Peter 5:8 says, "Be sober,
be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a
roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he
may devour". They key to being vigilantly "organised"
is maintained by having the most precise recall,
when it comes to designing a legal model that not
only enamours others into participating, but attracts
spectators and those wishing to duplicate (its)
success. What is the "legal model" for being
"vigilantly organized"? Guarding one's supply lines,
operations, maintenance, and security are at the
top of the list.

Article:

"Why should a self-respecting citizen endorse an
institution grounded in thievery? For that is what
one does when one votes. If it be argued that we
must let bygones be bygones, see what we can
do toward cleaning up the institution so that it can
be used for the maintenance of an orderly existence,
the answer is that it cannot be done; we have been
voting for one "good government" after another,
and what have we got? Perhaps the silliest
argument, and yet the one invariably advanced when
this succession of failures is pointed out, is that
"we must choose the lesser of two evils." Under
what compulsion are we to make such a choice?
Why not pass up both of them?"

Reaction:

While maintaining a moderation or slowing of the
route to complete partisan self-destruction, the two-
party system has lately too easily become ideal for
"shifting the blame" to the other party, mostly until
third party observers begin to recognize the shameful
and disgusting representation that was falsely
representing the time, energy, and talent of the
willful taxpayer. America, apart from the politicians,
is a good country. It's people, apart from the politicians,
are more charitable than those who legislate
authority by fiated capital. There needs to be a
counter-balance to rule-by-fiat with newly minted
coin - coin that does not require the precious
metals, sub-prime, short sell hedge fund markets
as its handlers. There must be a new market that
becomes redefined outside of the current
monopolistic market of world banks, or world
currencies - and it must be a market that can
protect itself from the "political bands that have
connected them with another, and to assume among
the powers of the earth, the separate and equal
station to which the Laws of Nature and of
Nature's God entitle them" (First paragraph of
the Declaration of Independence).

Article:

"To effectuate the suggested revolution all that is
necessary is to stay away from the polls. Unlike
other revolutions, it calls for no organization, no
violence, no war fund, no leader to sell it out. In the
quiet of his conscience each citizen pledges
himself, to himself, not to give moral support to
an unmoral institution, and on election day he
remains at home. That's all. I started my revolution
25 years ago and the country is none the
worse for it."

Reaction:

Ignorance of the issues that are being ignored are
part of the vigilance that is necessary for creating
the perspective for "at what time and place" both
parties have decided to put the interest of the
establishment/entitlement candidates (of both parties)
ahead of the "I am independent" interests of the
sovereign voter. One's independence from "collectives"
also means one's independence from technology that
collectives (and eventual collectives) hide behind:
pork-barrel projects, green agendas, economic
transnationalism, TORT law, short term profit,
squelched R&D, and defunded exploration initiatives.

American

"Equality is a slogan based on envy. It signifies in the
heart of every republican: "Nobody is going to occupy
a place higher than I."

- Conversation with Nassau William Senior, 22 May
1850 Nassau, p. 94

"I think that democratic communities have a natural
taste for freedom: left to themselves, they will seek it,
cherish it, and view any privation of it with regret.
But for equality, their passion is ardent, insatiable,
incessant, invincible: they call for equality in freedom;
and if they cannot obtain that, they still call for
equality in slavery."

- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America,
Volume II (1840), Book Two, Chapter I