by Richard Cawte -- The Quest
"Que scais je?" (What do I know?) - Michel de Montaigne, 1576.
Some of you will already know that I worked for Scope International, one of the leading publishers of privacy information, for nearly five years. We had a good time thumbing our nose at the powers-that-be and spreading the PT philosophy of Bill Hill and a few other writers. As with just about everything that becomes a success, however, a sizeable organisation was spawned. And with most organisations, bureaucracy subsumes freedom of thought. The radical ideas that Hill expounded in his original volume of PT became watered down by the mediocrity of majority-perception and a lot of the original concepts were forgotten.
I should say at the outset that I agree with a lot of Hill's ideas. But I also think that there is now room to build on them and move into the next millennium with a new, fresh vision.
THE PT PHILOSOPHY IN BRIEF
Hill built on ideas developed by two famous "Harrys" - Shultz and Browne - each of whom had come up with their own formula for empowering the individual to break away from the tyranny of Big Brother governments and lead a more stress-free, fulfilling life. In PT he crystallised their thoughts and added his own inimitable brand of incisive thought and humour. The result was his Five Flag Theory.
The Five Flag Theory was an attempt to pinpoint exactly what someone who had amassed a reasonable amount of wealth (or who was planning to do so) could do to keep hold of that wealth whilst enjoying himself. Throughout the book, Hill stresses that he does not condone any illegal evasion of tax. He is careful to point out that if you want to do something that is illegal in one country, you should go to a place where it is not. As he rightly says, most things we might want to do are legal in some part of the world. So, instead of breaking the law in the jurisdiction you happen to reside in, take a trip to the place where you can do what you want to and relax at the same time, knowing you are abiding by local laws.
The five flags were;
The principle is that you do not spend long enough in any one jurisdiction to be regarded by the authorities there as being eligible to pay tax. You take on a new nationality and acquire an offshore address. Then you place your assets somewhere else, whilst you live in a different place and spend your leisure time somewhere different still. And it works. For people who have the guts to move out of their habitual environment. It works for those people who are wealthy and willing enough to be able to move to another country. It works for those of us who are happy to leave everything behind if need be. But would it work for you?
The ultimate idea behind PT was not to start a mass movement of ordinary people to stand up and fight governments everywhere. It was to open the eyes of all sorts of people to the possibilities that lie around us. Possibilities for travel, success, innovation. It was to give each person the sense of being truly international rather than parochial. Hill appealed to anyone who believed they had an ounce of talent to liberate his thought processes, to take a step sideways and look at his routine life from a new perspective. To shrug off the debilitating effects of education within a system that has its own agenda to follow. To break free from meek acceptance of regulation and the blinkered views of those who control the purse strings.
I agree with all of this.
Big Brother and his hoards of secret siblings are out there to make sure you don't get the information that can empower you to think for yourself.That is why Libertarians are persecuted.
It is not convenient for any government to have to account for its deception. Just as it is not convenient for them to allow the people they are elected by to have true freedom.
Think of the extended commerce and great merchant-network that used to exist throughout the world several centuries ago. The idea that the Egyptians who helped build Stonehenge should be turned back at the English coast because they were not carrying a valid passport is absurd. They would have laughed in disbelief.
The notion that we cannot put our own money where we want to when we want to would have been dismissed with derision by Marco Polo as he forged his way around the globe. Almost any man from almost any age would disregard any law forbidding him to bear arms. How else would he survive? Something we agree with from PT: "As PTs we are participating in and creating a better, happier world order. We are people who respect and promote individual freedom, the sanctity of private property, equality, opportunity, social justice, unlimited prosperity, vibrant good health.
Bringing freedom and happiness to everyone in the world starts with number one, you."
Something we disagree with: "Nothing could be sadder than the individual who has never traveled more than a few miles from the small town where he grew up."
The difficulty is that in order to work each of the five flags, you need to be mobile all the time. You have to be able to travel from one place to another, making sure you do not overstay your welcome, or your time-allowance in terms of tax, in any one of them. As a result, you need to leave the country in which you were born, or in which you have been living as a legal resident and earning your money. Which is fine as long as you do not like living there.
Could YOU live out of a suitcase?
But how many of us could live life out of a suitcase, going from one country to the next, often staying in hotels -- and always looking over our shoulder for fear of the long arm of the law grabbing us by the collar when we are not watching? I know people like this and it's definitely not as glamorous as the good doctor would have us believe.
The theories behind Hill's writing are fascinating and often brilliant, but in practice they are difficult to sustain. Why? Because most of us actually need to put roots down somewhere. Most of us need to have a sense of belonging. We don't really want to be the shadowy figure from an old gangster movie who lives life only in silhouette.
Being an outcast on an island through choice, with sharks circling in the surrounding seas is not much better than being incarcerated by force. After a while the heat takes its toll. The beautiful mangoes and papayas start to taste sickly and the gorgeous girls look ordinary. That's the way life is.
HABIT IS A GREAT DEADENER, EVEN IF THE HABIT IS PERPETUAL CHANGE.
As a friend of mine said to me recently, "We always think the grass is greener on the other side, but it's not -- it's just different." PT put into practice leaves you circumferenced by isolation. Just as people doing ordinary jobs feel restricted by their routine, the real life PT has little true freedom. He will not be able to see his family very often, unless he uproots them each time he moves. He will not be able to revisit his old country of residence, except under a new name. (US citizens remember; if you leave your country for tax reasons, you will never again be issued with an entry visa to the US).
Only by telling no one in the world who he really is will he be able to survive. Invisibility is his shield. So, every time he moves on, he has to keep a wall up against everyone, as though he lives in a portable castle that he packs up and takes wherever he goes. No one can get in through the castle walls. But he cannot afford to let the drawbridge down and ride out into the sun.
It is my guess that most of us would not be able to do this for long. We measure success by our achievements. We like to feel that we are contributing to other people's well-being. We need the reciprocity of sharing in that success with people we love or respect. Hill would call this inertia and lack of adventure. I disagree. I have known a lot of PTs over the last few years. And few of them have been happy.
For some reason, PTs rarely follow Hill's advice. Most break the law, often more than once, and become refugees from justice who live on their nerves. I don't know why this is. Perhaps it is the result of following what is essentially a selfish ethic. Perhaps, the temptation is just too great.
There is no point having limitless wealth if we are not healthy. If we are not happy, we will not be as healthy as we should be. Shadows will start to fall across our minds as we wonder whether we might be happier somewhere else. Hill's solution is to move, then move again, and again ad infinitum (or is that ad nauseam?). Which may suit a small minority. A very small minority.
For most people perpetual displacement from all roots is a strange and undesirable state.
Too often it leads to fear and paranoia. Too often it leaves the individual perpetually reaching out for something else - something intangible and probably non-existent. Being free as a bird is exhilarating, but being totally unsettled year after year is destabilising. Soon the eyes take on a pinched look and the body language is defensive. Most people I have talked to about this over the year's say, "Yeah, well, the PT thing is OK as far as it goes. But I really want to stay where I am." Hill would deride these people as inadequate. And that is where he and I part company.
Hill believes it is impossible for really talented people to be static. Moving around is a prerequisite for him. If you don't do that, you are not one of the People with Talent. Which is rubbish. It's an insult to all those people who don't move around all the time (not to mention those who can't), but who are still very talented. Movement is not in itself significant. Stillness sometimes offers greater insight. Ask Buddha about that one.
You cannot say that only by travel will the true genius of inspiration be given wings on which to fly. Did Mother Theresa have to travel all the time to be inspiring to millions of others? Did Bell need to be a perpetual tourist to create the telephone? And what about Isaac Newton, Wren, Adam Smith or any of the other great figures from pre-jet engine history?
Hill took this idea from Harry Shultz, who is quoted in PT saying that he,"feels sorry for the 95% of the population who never leave the area in which they were born." Mm, this smacks of condescension to me. Is it not as hard for the international traveller to understand a sedentary life as it is for the city dweller to understand the countryman? (Remembering the maxim that judgements say more about the pronouncer than about the object or person being judged.)
Perhaps the reason for their particular brand of dismissiveness was that both Hill and Shultz were non-indigenous North Americans, all of whom feel some displacement from their roots -- and a resulting insecurity -- because they colonised the USA so recently. It is no coincidence that so many Americans travel back to Europe in search of their history. Most Americans, by definition, are already displaced.
This feeling of displacement needs to be looked at. Whereas Hill and Shultz see it as a bonus that keeps you young and alert, I see it as one of the biggest causes of our problems in the West. You will not find me telling you to ditch all friends, relatives and loved ones. You will not find me telling you to forget your history. To me, isolation and dislocation are the prime reasons for the disintegration of the fabric of so many societies.
(In the next issue of The Q, I shall be looking at the specific arguments for Americans to renounce their citizenship and move out of the country that has forsaken the principles of its Founding Fathers so abjectly. Of all the Western cultures, the US has become more like a police state than any other. The systematic removal of all rights to privacy and freedom that can be charted over the last two decades is appalling. But there are too many cases to examine here.)
INTEGRATION IS THE KEY.
One ethnic group displaced from its origin, clashes with another because neither is secure enough to co-exist. Perceived threats become phobias, which in turn lead to aggression. Witness the recent killing in Texas where three white supremacists tied a disabled black man to the back of a truck and dragged him three miles through the streets.
With no sense of belonging in a particular place, its inhabitants abscond any sense of responsibility. They rely on state handouts to clean the street and often ignore the neighbours even when they are in desperate trouble. Witness the extraordinary scenes in Brixton, London recently when a girl, who had been raped and then had her throat slit, escaped her attacker and ran out, naked and bleeding, on to the busy high street - only to be ignored by everyone for twenty minutes.
People interviewed afterwards said they thought she was mad. They did not want to get involved. I can understand that fear, but my point is that such ignorance and apathy is the result of living next to thousands of people, none of whom care a damn about each other. And the reason why they don't is because they have been removed from anything which might bond them together.
The PT has to leave everything behind. So, the PT actually encourages the further break up of social fabric. Hill says that it is up to each man to live by his own moral code. I could not agree more. It is also up to each and every one of us to respect the codes of all others. Adam Smith knew that if we were all left to get on with it alone, the world would find its own way of making progress. Which is absolutely right. Unfortunately, there are now just too many of us for this to be possible. So, another solution has to be offered. A solution that goes well beyond PT.
THE GREAT NEWS IS THAT IT IS NOW POSSIBLE TO EAT OUR CAKE AND HAVE IT.
The Internet, virtual addresses, anonymous telephones, ecash and computer encryption have all been developed since Hill, Schultz and Browne wrote their books. All these enable the ordinary man -- the ordinary thinking man -- to break away from the shackles of Big Brother in a much more complete way than was possible ten years ago.
You can have the benefits of low-tax jurisdictions without needing to move to a hell-hole to keep a hold of your cash. You can enjoy freedom in a much more profound way without needing to leave behind everything that has given you significance. With a laptop computer, a mobile telephone, a modem and an encryption programme you can be where you want all the time. You can earn money where you find the opportunity, place it somewhere out of harm's way and have easy access to it. And you can do all this whilst still remaining in whichever country you choose.
If you have parents you want to look after; you can stay where they live. If you have a lover who lives on the other side of the world, you can join her without disrupting your income. If you just hate the climate where you currently reside, you can go to a warmer, drier, colder, wetter place -- the choice is yours. As long as you have access to an electrical power point so that you can recharge the all-important batteries in your equipment, you can be where you like.
Times have changed. It is now possible to achieve the financial benefits of The Five Flags, but also to enjoy the stability of life within whichever tradition you feel you belong. And this is an essential element in choosing where you live.
You see, I love the land on which I live. Not because the government has whipped me into some form of manic jingoism. Nor because I have swallowed any of the subtle (and not so subtle) propaganda regularly churned out by politicians and faceless officials. Dulce et Decorum est Pro Patria Mori.
No, there is not one of those lily-livered, self-seeking hypocrites that I would follow into battle, or consider voting for. They are not leaders. Nor do they understand the concept of leadership. True leaders are those who serve their people, not their own bank balance.
I love the land on which I live because it holds centuries of myths and legends beneath its surface. I love it because it holds the spirit that makes those of us who live here what we are.
We do not own land. It accepts us. We are not born into this world. We are born from it.
I'm asking you to take a leap here -- a leap into an illogical realm, because what destroys the PT philosophy is that it is purely based on logic. Hill applies everything to scientific formulae in order to arrive at his conclusions. So have most of those who have followed his lead -- the so-called "Little Hills" who are coat-tailing on his genius with nothing new of their own to add to the pot. But the truth is that there is an entirely illogical, unquantifiable element to every thought that we ever have.
There is something in us that contradicts fact and supplants it with truth. Call it intuition or instinct. It is the central core of the being that reaches out, as children do, to touch and interact with everything. It is the knowledge that we live in a feeling world -- a world of sense -- not a world of concrete and steel. It is the understanding that there is a greater spirit of some sort out there than any words can describe.
Often we do not acknowledge it, but it is always there, demanding involvement not displacement.
It is up to us, the few who continue to recognise truth above fact to stand strong on this. It is up to us to ensure that we hold out a firm hand of guidance to the brainwashed majority. But we must not shout too loud. That way lies chaos and disorder.
HE WHO WHISPERS DOWN A WELL....
What has happened to governments in the so-called civilised world is that they have not had any real challenge to their status quo. By riding roughshod over the rulebooks created by better men, they show their disrespect for each and every one of us every day.
But this does not mean we should shout at the tops of our voices and create such a noise that too much attention is attracted. Better by far to quietly get on with the real business of helping each other achieve some of the fundamental rights that were taken for granted until the last century. Better to gently spread the word and offer the hand of assistance to people who really need it than to be jailed by people too ignorant to understand why they are so far from the mark. We must work from within, re-educating children with old knowledge now seen as defunct. We must grasp the nettle of technological advancement and use it to good effect.
Above all, we must act with an awareness of common good rather than purely for ourselves. If we don't, who else will?
That is the crucial difference between the new vision and the old. PT was a fascinating and useful theory for a lot of people across the world. It helped many hundreds of readers to break out from the rut in which they lived, to perceive the world with new eyes and become more confident. But it also left many others feeling frustrated and inadequate. It excluded people because of its insistence on perpetual movement. Now is the time for a wider vision -- a vision that encompasses more than it excludes. A vision that includes and involves.
We aim to give you the strong defence of that life within castle walls. But we want you to be free to let down the drawbridge and set forth on whatever adventure you wish, whenever you want to, without fear of repercussion. We won't be labelling our readers as members of a particular club or society. Memberships invariably lead to some sort of suppression simply because there is a new set of rules to follow. Conformity is required.
True freedom is our goal. Freedom that comes from an inner ordering of the mind which in turn allows for endless exploration. King Arthur's knights often returned home after long adventure and great trial, still believing they were no nearer to finding the Holy Grail. They missed the point, the truth that the Grail was not a material object to be sought and coveted. It was a part of each and every one of them already, coursing through the blood in their veins, vibrant in every cell of their bodies.
The more we rush about frenetically searching for a non-existent Utopia, the less likely are we to find the balance that will help us achieve. The starting point is to return to the level of the child who, with pride intact, asks questions, questions and then more questions still! If you can humbly start to ask, "What do I know?" you will begin the quest to know how to be yourself. And that is a quest that has to be worth embarking upon?
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