The following are 17 important questions you may want to consider:

I encourage you to e-mail your answers to me.

1. Are there certain "powerful things," such that if about 1,000 freedom activists knew, understood, and did them, they would terminate (or render insignificant) most coercive political systems within a few decades? If so, what might these "powerful things" be?

2. What do freedom activists have to be persuaded to accept in order to maximize the probability that they will quickly bring about a quantum leap in the expansion of freedom and/or liberty?

3. What things do tyrants want their victims to do that will increase the power of tyrants while decreasing the freedom/liberty of victims?

4. What actions might victims take to increase their freedom/liberty -- and cease to be victims -- while reducing the power of tyrants?

5. What are the tyrants' "weak spots"; where are they most vulnerable?

6. What can freedom activists do to take advantage of the tyrants' "weak spots?"

7. What are the most common "weak spots" of freedom activists?

8. What do freedom activists have to do to strengthen these "weak spots?"

9. Which thinking skills could freedom activists acquire and/or improve that would make them more effective at expanding freedom/liberty?

10. What are the "strong points" of freedom activists; in what respects do they have most power?

11. How can these strong points be utilized to defeat the tyrants?

12. Consider the possibility that there are certain "powerful things" that many people who don't care about freedom or liberty might do that are obviously in their self-interest, and that, if done, would bring about a quantum leap in the expansion of freedom and/or liberty; if so, what has to be sold to them in order to persuade them to do these "powerful things?"

13. What combination of "killer applications" has the potential to sink the tyrants?

    (By "killer application" I mean an application that achieves wide acceptance and use -- a household product or service. Examples: telephone, wrist watch, automobile, radio, cinema, TV, personal computer, word-processing programs, spread-sheet programs, Internet, e-mail, world wide web, etc.)

14. What "killer applications" do tyrants use to progressively render their victims more and more helpless and dependent? -- compulsory "state education," licensing (in many forms), Federal Reserve System, income tax, "social security," "welfare" and subsidies (in many forms), business regulation, utility monopolies, "land management," "pollution control," control of the media, "war on drugs," victim disarmament (commonly called "gun control"), "war on dead-beat dads," "save the children," etc?

15. Can practical ways be developed for individuals to exit ("unsubscribe from") some of these "killer applications" in ways such that the reward/risk ratio is heavily in their favor?

16. What is the single biggest obstacle to freedom that practically every individual can effectively do something about by himself or herself?

17. What other questions should we ask?

Addendum
Toward the end of 1996, I wrote a subset of the above questions. I posted the original 12 questions to a few lists and got some interesting responses and debating from such notable people as Brad Barnhill, "Biophilos," Charles Curley, Jim Davidson, Tom Fosson, "Hobbit," Victor Milan, Tim Starr, and Rick White. Gail Lightfoot sent in a letter written by the late Karl Hess that "talks to the questions."

I predict that if we can persuade a few hundred freedom activists from across the wide spectrum of the freedom movement to answer such questions as mine above and Victor Milan's below, we will be able to develop a range of powerful strategies and tactics (including practical projects), such that if we can persuade of the order of 0.1% (or one in a thousand) of freedom activists to actively apply (or participate in), we will be able to greatly reduce the coercive power and influence of tyrants to the point that they will become largely irrelevant -- within a decade.

The compilation of the initial responses to the original 12 questions is provided in Quintessential Questions to Change the World - Part II. There I point out some potential killer applications for freedom activists to consider. Once you see my compilation of the most useful answers to the expanded 17 questions (to be done once I have enough feedback), I think you may agree that my prediction above has merit.

Victor Milan's Questions
This is a "summary" of some questions posed by Victor Milan in a series of five articles published in 'The Libertarian Enterprise' between August and October, 1996:

Questioning Authority - Victor Milan

1. Do you really want to be free?

2. Do you understand that a free society is vanishingly unlikely to be achieved without enormous hardship, turmoil, and danger, to you?

3. What services do you believe government provides?

4. What can you do to provide yourself those services without government?

5. What can you do to provide others with services the government claims to provide, and realize a profit doing so?

6. How do we get the message out that even people who fundamentally disagree with us will win if a free society is achieved?

Questioning Authority Too - Victor Milan

1) What about gas and electricity? 2) What about water? 3) How do we prevent "privatization" from being a shuck, i.e., transference of ownership from the overt government to what amounts to 'de facto' smaller governments? 4) What do we do to prevent our governors, county councils, or mayors from setting themselves up as dukes, counts, and barons and yelling, "Serf's up!"? Ours in NM would try, no question. Do you trust yours not to?

Questioning Authority Trey: But Is It Safe? - Victor Milan

Robert Edwards: 1) What has been stopping all the brilliant entrepreneurs of the world from doing this [competing with government] so far?

Bill Cox: 2) How do we introduce competition into situations where an actual physical monopoly exists?

Victor Milan: 3) Can we render the State irrelevant without breaking laws? 4) Is it safe? 5) How do we avoid the lashings of government's spiked tail? 6) Who feels bound to honor promises made to slaves?

Questioning Authority Four - Victor Milan

1) Does everybody have to become a libertarian for us to gain freedom?

Jackie Ralston (ralston@saber.udayton.edu): 2) "How viable an alternative to currency is the barter system?

Michael G. Boone (boone@tima.com): "A way out of the mess called the world situation can be found at http://www.kiva.net/~padanarm. Try it. You just might like it. It's called going to work and actually building a better world and letting the shit flush itself automatically."

Craig Goodrich: "Milan-type secessionist-anarchist" -- "secession, one person at a time."

Victor Milan: 3) If you don't free yourself, how are you going to gain freedom? 4) Do you actually expect the government to give you freedom?

Questioning Authority #5 - Victor Milan

1) When will the shit hit the fan? 2) Are we cowards for not being ready to fight right now? "Somebody has to take the first step..." 3)What if Libertarians took it upon themselves to "go where no other person has gone before?" Christine Krof Shock <bobshock@ix.netcom.com> suggests free-enterprise, libertarian-driven space colonization may be the only feasible route to freedom. 4) What would you do if it all fell to pieces tomorrow? 5) Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?

Click here to go to Part II

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