by Frederick Mann
[This article originally appeared as a post on the Advanced Freedom Solutions list.]
The post by codehead@ix.netcom.com below represents a superb example of thinking at "freedom level 2." See '#TL074: Peme-theory - Basic, Intermediate & Advanced' for more information on the three levels of freedom.
I distinguish three freedom levels:
At the basic freedom level, people typically complain about "the system" and try to "change the system," e.g., through "electoral politics." People at level 1 tend to believe that they can only be free if the system is changed.
At the intermediate freedom level, people typically think in terms of "beating the system." And, as they become more sophisticated, understanding "the system" better, they think more in terms of "beating" specific terrocrats. They think in terms of "routing" around, over, underneath, etc. the few terrocrats who pose potential risks to them.
Ideally, freedom lovers at level 2 want to become financially free, so they don't have to work as "slaves in the system." Note that people in the "private sector" (who support the "terrocrat sector" through obedience and taxes) work as "slaves in the system."
In my opinion, at this time, our emphasis on this list should be to assist as many people as possible to become more effective freedom level 2 practitioners.
(Freedom level 3 is beyond the scope of this article. See also Respecting Levels of Freedom.)
At 07:12 PM 5/3/98, codehead@ix.netcom.com wrote:
You've obviously based your interpretation on whether it was "legal" for U.S. citizens to keep gold from 1933 - 1974 on a particular person's interpretation of a particular law and a couple of executive orders.This misses the point entirely.
You can argue until the end of the universe that some law isn't interpreted to your liking, but the people who make and attempt to enforce those laws are not going to adopt your interpretation. In this case, they clearly believed that there should be no gold in private hands.
Why won't the terrorcrats accept your interpretations? Because they've set up the game to maximize their theft of your goods. When you have to rely on them to reinterpret their rules so as not to steal quite as much from you, you are playing their game, not your own.
Their rules are set up to prevent you from winning no matter what you do. Even if you win a small skirmish, you will lose the war, as long as you play by those rules.
The *point* of knowing the rules and understanding the rules by which other people are playing is part of what any intelligent, knowledgeable player will learn. All that I did in the post that you completely "snipped" is demonstrate the stated rules of a particular game. The *intelligent* player will go on to find holes in the rules that he/she can exploit (re my example about using gold to defeat currency export regulation), or will route around the rules, say by using IBCs and offshore bank accounts to avoid being sucked into the game at all, or will find other ways to exploit and/or avoid the game as appropriate. A *freedom-oriented* intelligent player may even find profitable ways, such as WTC is doing, for like-minded players to bypass the terrorcratic game.
The energy that the Patriot movement and many of my Libertarian brethren sink into playing an unwinnable game is amazing. This type of head-on confrontation is a trap that drains away life, fiscal and emotional resources, and any real initiative to change one's circumstances. Instead of turning that energy into rather high levels of freedom, most end up as pathetic whiners deeper in slavery than when they started bashing their heads into the chimerical barrier blocking their path to freedom.
It doesn't really matter much what some repealed law said 65 years ago. It *is* important to understand the environment in which you operate _now_. Gold is now technically "legal" to own in the U.S. if you want to buy it there today. If it isn't tomorrow, and you really want to own gold, buy it somewhere else!!! If you must absolutely accept terrorcratic constraints, you forge your own exquisitely crafted chains.
What really matters is what you are actively doing to create your own freedom. Complaining about how some law (or the Constitution, or a court opinion, or blah, blah, blah...) was misinterpreted doesn't accomplish anything. If anything, it so counterproductively creates a general feeling of helplessness among those who have the most potential to establish freedom-oriented lifestyles and institutions, and does nothing but help the terrorcrats anxious to hold onto their franchise to steal. Worse yet, it strengthens the hand of the terrorcrats by acknowledging that they *are* relevant. Such activity actually creates more of a demand for their "services."
To rephrase John Gilmore's famous quote: "A free individual interprets law as damage and routes around it."
If you really want freedom, start routing.
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