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#TL02B: SUGGESTIONS FOR TERRA LIBRA DISTRIBUTORS

by Frederick Mann

Introduction
Many freedom-lovers think there is little or nothing they can do to increase either their personal freedom or freedom in general. Many have concluded that it is a hopeless task. Their hopelessness has become so strong that it pervades and colors their perception and thinking.

Recently I sent a few of the basic Build Freedom reports to a Libertarian friend. One of the reports included this paragraph: "We are naturally free. This is the freedom spark that will ignite a freedom explosion around the world. I have developed chain-reaction marketing methods that are unstoppable. Our freedom messages will rapidly grow to achieve critical mass and explode around the world." The report continued to describe freedom technology.

My friend wrote back to me: "Reading your material I guess you have come to the same conclusion I have: it is not possible to reform society or government. Western civilization is declining and inevitably will destroy itself. With the passage of time, possibly centuries, a new civilization will emerge."

At one time my friend was an ardent freedom-activist. He even wrote a book on liberty and succeeded in getting it published by a major publisher. I speculate that he thinks his book made no difference and that little or nothing can be done to make a difference. This is the essence of helplessness. Many dillusioned former freedom-activists share this helplessness.

The purpose of this report is to persuade you that a great deal can be done to make a difference, that huge differences can be made within a few years, and that you can make a fortune by playing your part in making the differences.

As a Build Freedom Distributor, you introduce new people to Build Freedom. You get paid a commission on sales - including future sales - of Build Freedom products and services to the customers you introduce.

Understanding the Potential
Microsoft is a computer company that sells software to make computers more effective and efficient. We could regard Microsoft's products as "computer success programs." At the time Microsoft was founded, its potential could have been measured by the difference between how effective and efficient computers were at that time and how much more effective and efficient they could become. Another measure of Microsoft's potential was the number of new computers that would be bought because they would become cheaper, more effective, and more efficient. Capitalizing on this potential enabled Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, to become a billionaire and the richest man in America.

Build Freedom is in the business of identifying, developing, marketing, and implementing "human success programs" - programs that enable humans to operate more effectively and efficiently. The potential for Build Freedom vastly exceeds that for Microsoft when it was founded. Practically all humans suffer from debilitating "human failure programs" in some areas of their lives. As measured by certain social statistics, such as rates of crime, suicide, drug addiction, divorce, personal income, etc., western civilization is gradually declining or collapsing. In other words, human failure programs are gradually defeating human success programs.

The other side of the coin is that the decline of western civilization represents an increasing potential for Build Freedom and for you personally. The worse it gets, the greater our potential!

Of course, you and I - and everybody else - suffer from human failure programs that prevent or restrain us from fully capitalizing on the potential. Improving our own programs is the highest priority. How? Study the Build Freedom reports!

Understanding the Market
The Arizona Republic of February 15, 1993 published an article by Mitchell Zuckoff (The Boston Globe) under the heading, "Underground economy costs nation billions":

"Doctors who ask patients to pay cash. Flea-market vendors, housecleaners, moonlighting carpenters, farmers, fishermen, waiters and, of course, nannies. Retailers who keep two sets of books and big corporations that inflate their tax deductions.

Even after a recent uproar over off-the-books domestic workers, most people think that the underground economy is the dark world of prostitutes and drug dealers or the black market for cigarettes and jeans in Third World countries.

But in the United States, where by some estimates $450 billion of economic activity is buried each year out of the reach of tax collectors, only a fraction of the problem can be blamed on career criminals or black marketeers.

Most tax cheats are average people in otherwise-legitimate lines of work - everyone from attorneys in ritzy suburbs and blue-collar workers in urban triple-deckers to unemployed laborers carrying signs that read, "Will work for food."

A University of Michigan study indicates that eight of 10 U.S. households admit to spending money off the books. Nannies are just one piece of the problem.

In fact, scholars say the illicit economy of drugs and other blatantly illegal activities is only one-third the size of what may be called the legal underground economy, activities that are legitimate if carried out in compliance with tax laws.

"It cuts across all lines of society," says Bruce Wiegand, a sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

"It's not like the 1929 collapse of the system. It's a cancer, eating away at the system from the inside. And it has become so big that we are approaching Third World notions of civil order."

Funds could cut deficit
The cost to the Treasury is staggering. The Internal Revenue Service says collecting taxes from off-the-books businesses would wipe out more than one-third of the federal deficit. The IRS recovers about 15 percent of the tax gap through enforcement actions, but the job has become bigger and tougher as the economy has stumbled.

"In a better economy, people are more willing to pay their fair share," says Kenneth Claunch, chief of the IRS criminal-investigation division in Massachusetts and northern New England.

"In a worse economy, you see more underground activity because people are trying to save as much money as they can for their own needs or to keep their businesses afloat."

People in all walks of life engage in underground activity, Claunch says. "We've had cases involving dentists, attorneys, bus drivers, you name it," he says.

On a single day in 1988, Claunch announced tax-cheating indictments against a certified public accountant, a business professor, a fishing-boat captain, an employment-placement counselor, an electronics technician and a travel agent.

IRS studies indicate that much of the tax gap comes from underreporting of income by individuals, partnerships and businesses. More than $20 billion is estimated to come from off-the-books wages for domestic help, tradespeople and others...

'Economy of last resort'
"This is an economy of last resort," says Ann White, an economics professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts who has written extensively on the underground economy.

"They are jobs that are often dirty and unpleasant, or they are jobs without benefits. You are generally forced there, and when you get a chance, you surface into the above-ground economy."

At the same time, workers who do pay their taxes bear a disproportionate burden. Moreover, honest employers and workers in industries in which the underground economy flourishes live in danger of being undercut by competitors who don't pay taxes, benefits or other costs of doing business legitimately.

In a less tangible way, the underground economy also is blamed for taking a subtle, insidious toll on society.

"People rationalize to the point where they believe they aren't doing anything wrong. That's the real danger," says Wiegand, who authored a study called "Off the Books."

"One of the rationalizations is, 'I only cheat by small amounts. I'm not a fat cat.' There's a changing ethic out there. The basic social and cultural order disintegrates with that hypocrisy."

IRS studies indicate that individuals are responsible for about 75 percent of tax cheating and corporations 25 percent.

Tax-form cheating common
People who don't bother to file taxes contribute to the problem, but they are overshadowed by those who fudge on their returns. More than 50 percent of people who file federal tax returns underreport income, according to the IRS.

The most creative accounting methods are used by sole proprietorships, such as doctors, lawyers and operators of cottage industries, the IRS says. Hot-dog vendors, flea-market operators and other informal suppliers are next.

Then, there are businesses large and small that overstate their deductions and wealthy individuals who understate their capital gains. The best compliance is among employees whose income is reported directly to the IRS on annual W-2 forms.

The underground economy is largely a 20th-century phenomenon, said Witte, the economics professor, because this century marked the onset of broad-based income taxes.

Prohibition, the Depression and World War II gave underground entrepreneurs the opportunity to make huge sums of money by taking advantage of shortages or, in the case of Prohibition, supplying contraband, scholars say.

In the late 1940s, the underground economy became the domain of entrepreneurial urban blacks and other ghetto dwellers, who created their own trading systems after finding themselves shut out of the white business mainstream, Wiegand says... " [emphasis added

The Three Economic Sectors
We can distinguish three economic sectors: the public sector, the private sector, and the free-market sector. The public sector is what the terrocrats (coercive government agents or terrorist bureaucrats) do. It includes government post offices, government telephone companies, and other nationalized industries. The public sector consists of coercive monopolies. Anyone who tries to muscle in on the action is taken care of with violent means.

The private sector consists of privately owned businesses that in general kowtow to the terrocrats. They pay terrocrat taxes. Some depend on terrocrat contracts and other terrocrat favors such as licensing and special-interest legislation. Generally, private sector entrepreneurs are in league with terrocrats.

The free-market sector consists of economic activities outside terrocrat control. It is real, true, or pure free enterprise. Some people call it the "underground economy" or "black market." The above article indicates the size of the free-market sector and the willingness of people to shift some or all of their economic activities into the free market.

Many people conduct some of their activities in the private sector and some in the free-market sector. Freedom technology enables people to legally and elegantly shift economic activities into the free-market sector.

The above article also tells us that as we create free-market institutions (such as private currencies and financial service organizations), people will gladly use them if they provide significant benefits at minimal risk.

The Power of the Public Sector
The public sector is like a parasite that lives off the private sector. Reports #TL06: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude and #TL07: The Constitution of No Authority explain in detail why the power of the public sector is tenuous (fragile and of little substance). Public-sector terrocrat power is based on lies and private sector victims believing those lies.

Advocates of freedom often tell us that, in general, the public sector is ineffective and inefficient. At the same time, most freedom-advocates believe that the public-sector terrocrats are so powerful that it is difficult for freedom-lovers to operate in the free-market sector. The above article tells us that large numbers of free-market operators believe they can outwit the terrocrats, and that they do so successfully.

Unwarranted fear (a human failure program) prevents many freedom-lovers from operating in the free-market sector. My "guesstimate" is that most freedom-lovers overestimate terrocrat power by a factor of 10 to 100! In other words, they believe the terrocrats are 10 to 100 times as capable of preventing freedom as they really are.

Freedom technology - the knowledge, methods, and skills for living free - greatly reduces terrocrat power to prevent freedom. The accomplished freedom-technology practitioner is, of course, a careful calculator of risk.

The Achilles Heel of the U.S. Terrocrats
The U.S.A. is probably unique in the world as a country where the constitution severely limits the power of government officials, while at the same time they blatantly violate the constitutional limitations. Practically everything government officials do in performing their jobs, at all levels of government, is unconstitutional, illegal, and criminal. Government officials are supposed to swear an oath to uphold the Constitution. Most don't swear the required oaths; therefore, everything they do in their jobs (including collecting pay) is fraudulent.

The judicial methods to bring these criminal terrocrats to account are being developed and tested around the country. During the next few years a sufficient number of Professional Liberators will coordinate their knowledge, methods and skills to routinely defeat criminal terrocrats. I expect that Alfred Adask and his magazine AntiShyster will play a central role in this activity. (AntiShyster, PO Box 540786, Dallas, TX 75354-0786 - (214) 559-7957 - annual subscription $25.) The terrocrats are finished. R.I.P.

Priorities for Distributors
The first priority of Build Freedom Distributors is to increase their own power and to shift some or all of their economic activities into the free-market sector. This involves learning and applying freedom technology. The second priority is to become an example for others. The third priority is to tell others.

Appealing to Minds or Pockets?
I have often asked the question, "If freedom is so good and slavery so bad, and for centuries some of our greatest minds have advocated freedom, then why is there so little freedom and so much slavery?" I believe that part of the answer is that practically all freedom-advocates have appealed mainly to people's minds.

The appeal to the pocket is, in my opinion, much more powerful than the appeal to the mind. The above article claims "that eight of 10 U.S. households admit to spending money off the books." When the pocket motivates, people will readily shift economic activities into the free-market sector if they think the risk is small.

So, a vital function of Build Freedomns is to provide the means that enable individuals to easily shift economic activities into the free-market sector with minimal risk. The means include the knowledge on how to legally reduce taxes, instruments such as Trusts to increase privacy and protect assets, institutions such as private currencies and financial services, private barter organizations, and methods of self-protection against terrocrats.

As the terrocrat institutions continue to decline and collapse, and they increase their taxes, it becomes easier and easier to persuade people to shift into the free-market sector. Accelerating this shift is a most effective strategy for blowing away the bogus power of terrocrats.

It is much easier to sell information on how to legally reduce taxes, than it is to sell an idealistic freedom-philosophy. Freedom technology provides immediate benefits. And once people experience the benefits, they are more likely to listen to the philosophy.

Values and Results
New-age people like to say: "If you continue to do what you did, you will continue to get what you got." I propose a corollary: "If you continue to value what you used to value, you will continue to get what you got." I invite you to consider the following pairs of values and activities:

       Failure Programs - Success Programs
               Weakness - Power
             Conforming - Questioning
                Comfort - Risk
                   Fear - Analysis
             Hesitation - Determination
             Status Quo - Change
                 Belief - Reason
       Have-the-Answers - Look-for-Solutions
                 I Know - I Learn
          Do Same Thing - Experiment
                  Habit - Creativity
                  Stuck - Fluid
            Complacency - Continuous Improvement
                Emotion - Thought
         Self-Deception - Self-Examination
              Confusion - Focus
                    Law - Consciousness
                   Hope - Effective Action
        Give Me Liberty - I Seize My Freedom
 Call them "Government" - Call them "Terrocrats"
                Slavery - Self-Control
                 Victim - Master
Respect for "Authority" - Self-Respect
           Helplessness - Action
              Surrender - Persistence
            Theoretical - Practical
         Appeal-to-Mind - Appeal-to-Pocket
            Being Right - Producing Results
      Change-the-System - Beat-the-System
                Apathy  - Enthusiasm
              Pessimism - Optimism
              Obedience - Self-Determination
      Symbolic Behavior - Substantive Action
              Big Cause - Self-Interest
               Altruism - Egoism
              Sacrifice - Achievement and Profit
                Begging - Creating Value
             Protection - Competition
                 Preach - Demonstrate
     Vicarious Pleasure - Action Pleasure
               Escapism - Challenge
             Mediocrity - Excellence
                Poverty - Wealth
               Laziness - Ambition
                Illness - Health
               Deathism - Immortality
     External Authority - Individual Sovereignty
           Old Programs - New Programs

If you have been actively promoting freedom, I invite you to examine your actions in the light of the above pairs of values and activities. Read them several times. Think about how I structured them. How would you change or structure them

What Distributors Do
As a Distributor I invite you to distribute Build Freedom fliers. Mail them out. Attend meetings of freedom activists such as Libertarians, Objectivists, Patriots, Anarchists, etc. Hand out Build Freedom fliers.

For every customer you generate, you receive commission. You will also receive commission on the future sales of most products and services by Build Freedom to the customers you generate. Eventually these commission could become substantial.

Report #TL13: How to Sell Freedom for Profit will tell you more.

The Build Freedom Mission
One of the most important success principles is to formulate a vision. A "mission statement" is an important aspect of the vision. I have tentatively defined the mission of Build Freedom as follows:

TO CREATE A RAPIDLY GROWING
WORLDWIDE ASSOCIATION
OF FREE SOVEREIGN CITIZENS
WHO CONTINUOUSLY IMPROVE
ALL ASPECTS OF THEIR LIVES.

My own (Frederick Mann's) personal mission is:

TO LEARN, DEVELOP, AND IMPLEMENT
THE MOST EFFECTIVE APPROACHES
TO CREATE A RAPIDLY GROWING
WORLDWIDE ASSOCIATION
OF FREE SOVEREIGN CITIZENS
WHO CONTINUOUSLY IMPROVE
ALL ASPECTS OF THEIR LIVES.

As a Build Freedom Distributor, your mission could be something like:

TO ACQUIRE, PERSONALLY IMPLEMENT,
AND DISSEMINATE INFORMATION ABOUT
TERRA LIBRA AND FREEDOM TECHNOLOGY
FOR PERSONAL GAIN.


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