Rarely do I hear anything from Stefan Molyneux that I can
substantively disagree with, so allow me to jump on this rare
opportunity to take issue with something he said. (I'm hoping this
rant finds its way to him, and I'm betting one of you forwarding it
to him will work better and faster than me trying to find his e-
mail address in my infinite, messy pile of stuff.) In a recent
podcast, where he gave his thoughts on the Joe Stack incident,
Stefan asserted that violence cannot be solved with violence.
Partly true, partly false. Here is the link for that clip:

http://www.freedomainradio.com/Traffic_Jams/FDR_1588_true_news_joe_stack_irs.mp3

I think Stefan would agree that the initiation of violence is a
symptom of something not being right in the head of the aggressor.
And it is absolutely true that the root CAUSE of the aggression
cannot be fixed via more violence. However, the EFFECT (or symptom)
of that problem CAN be. As a very simple example, if someone breaks
into my house at night, my 12-gauge is not going to repair whatever
mental damage led the guy to want to do such a thing. However, it
has a good chance of stopping the EFFECT of his psychosis. In such
an instance, my goal would not be to "fix" what is wrong with the
invader, but to prevent the potential SYMPTOMS of his psychological
problems.

Likewise, the irrational belief in the myth of "authority" is the
direct cause of the vast majority of theft, assault and murder in
the world. The people at the IRS, for example, routinely commit
harassment, terrorism, extortion and robbery, because they truly
believe that when something evil is "legalized," it ceases to be
evil. They (and their victims) have been indoctrinated to believe
that theft is bad, UNLESS "authority" does it, in which case theft
("tax collection" / "law enforcement") is GOOD, and RESISTING it is
bad.

So the root cause of the problem is their indoctrination into the
cult of authoritarianism, and all the propaganda and rhetoric they
were fed about "law," "taxation," "government," and all the other
bunk which is designed to paint theft as a GOOD thing when the
slave-masters do it, and only bad when us peasants do it. And the
SOLUTION to that problem is, quite literally, "deprogramming"
people out of the most dangerous superstition: the belief in
"authority" (the notion that some people have the right to rule
others). So no, cursing at, punching, shooting, or blowing up IRS
employees cannot fix that underlying problem.

HOWEVER--and this is a big however--while delusions remain,
violence can sometimes deter the EFFECTS of those delusions. No
matter how much an IRS employee has bought into the state
propaganda, if he thinks he might die if he keeps on robbing people
("collecting taxes," as he would call it), he might choose a new
career. The underlying problem would remain, but the symptom, in
that case, would disappear, as would some of the potential
resulting damage.

In general, it's a bad idea to focus on treating the SYMPTOMS of a
problem, instead of treating the problem itself. This is true in
medicine, economics, philosophy, and just about everything else.
However, if the symptom of ONE person's problem is the SUFFERING of
another, then treating the symptom is a worthwhile goal, for the
sake of the innocent victim.

Suppose someone came up with a way to convince all 100,000 or so
employees of the IRS that if they showed up for work the next day--
or ever again--they would all die horrible deaths. And suppose they
could be made to believe that without any of them actually being
harmed. Frankly, I would be thrilled. Though it would do nothing to
address the underlying problem--that the state's hired thieves
believe "legal theft" to be morally righteous--it would, on a
practical level, deter them from victimizing others as a result of
their delusions.

So the question is, when do we focus our efforts on trying to
enlighten the deluded, and when do we do whatever it takes to stop
the deluded from hurting people? My answer is, we should
continually focus on both. Those of us who know that we own
ourselves have the absolute right to do whatever it takes to stop
others from initiating violence against us, whether they fully
understand what they're doing or not. At the same time, it sure
would be nice if we could make it so they didn't WANT to initiate
violence against us. But if fear of harm is all that will keep
thieves from stealing, it's better than letting them rob people.

This brings to mind a related topic--which I'll rant about more in
some later message--having to do with condemning the state's
mercenaries ("police"), calling them names ("fascists"), insulting
them ("Nazi swine"), etc. Believe it or not, I don't just do that
to be nasty. I believe it serves a useful, worthwhile purpose to
identify evil as evil, and I believe it can be very destructive NOT
to do so. I know some people prefer to always be polite and civil,
in an effort to "win over" the statists to the idea of self-
ownership, but I think in a way that is often inappropriate. The
thugs with badges get paid to harass, terrorize, assault, extort,
control, and otherwise oppress people who haven't hurt anyone. I
don't believe sane people should talk as if it's up for polite
discussion whether that's okay or not.

In the ever-popular example of the Nazis, which of the following
would have been more appropriate or more effective?: 1) lots of
Germans politely trying to point out the philosophical
inconsistencies in Hitler's agenda, or 2) lots of Germans
constantly and viciously condemning the Nazis in the most hostile,
insulting, caustic terms imaginable, as soon as that party came
into being? If people can be shamed or brow-beaten into not acting
like thugs, I'm all for it. Of course, it would be a lot better if
they could instead be ENLIGHTENED into choosing the philosophy of
self-ownership. And in the long run, that is absolutely what our
goal should be. But history has shown all too well, all too often,
that in the short term, it's a lot easier to shoot an aggressor
than it is to reform him.

I spent years trying to make various IRS employees (and other state
mercenaries) consider the possibility that maybe "doing their job"
is immoral. Joe Stack spent a day showing them that "doing their
job" might be hazardous to their health. Which of us did the IRS
folk learn anything from? Sorry to say, I don't think it was me.



Larken Rose
http://www.larkenrose.com

P.S. I have to take this opportunity to throw in a disturbingly
appropriate excerpt from my second book, "Kicking the Dragon:
Confessions of a Tax Heretic," most of which was written in 2006,
during my time as a political prisoner:

"Then along comes this '861' thing, and suddenly I saw, not just a
really nasty fraud that needed exposing and resisting, but
potentially a means of achieving real positive change (not the
fictional kind that politicians endlessly yammer about), WITHOUT
violence ... Imagine that: a nonviolent way to rein in some of the
government's gargantuan power. Sounds good to me. To be blunt, I
still see exposing the income tax deception as the only way to
avoid an eventual (but not too distant) large-scale violent
conflict between the U.S. government and the citizenry. ... To put
it another way, I did what I did in part because I saw this
endeavor as the best hope for avoiding large-scale violence AGAINST
THOSE IN GOVERNMENT. No, that wasn't a typo. I believe that ending
this fraud is the best way for those in government (as well as
others) to escape a very nasty end, by allowing for a 'revolution'
that requires no bullets and no blood. ... I really wish I had some
compelling argument left supporting some hope of success via
nonviolence, but I don't. To be blunt, if you read in the news that
some IRS paper-pusher or collection thug, or some pseudo-judge, got
his or her 'determination' overruled with a baseball bat or a pipe
bomb, I won't be very surprised. ... [JFK] said that when you make
nonviolent change impossible, you make violent change inevitable. I
really do hope, even as I sit here in prison for a crime that the
prosecutors and the judge know I didn't commit, that a bunch of IRS
headstones don't start to appear as a confirmation of JFK's words."

A while ago, I decided not to talk to the press anymore. They get
so much wrong--sometimes due to incompetence, sometimes due to
dishonesty--that I didn't want them getting it wrong about me. But
recently I decided, I might as well say what I think when they ask,
and then see how badly they mangle it. At least it MIGHT make a
reader or two think about something.

So yesterday I got a call from Jeff Carlton at the Associated
Press, and I told him what I thought about the Joe Stack thing. Not
surprisingly, the piece basically ended up as statist propaganda.
But what was surprising is that he didn't misquote me. So I guess
that counts as a slight improvement. Here's the "story":

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_PLANE_CRASH_PILOT?SITE=MDFRE&SECTION=HOME

What's really ironic is that the mainstream leftist news keeps
trying to link Joe Stack with the "Tea Party" movement. Meanwhile,
I'm bashing most "Tea Party" folk because they still think "working
within the system" has any prayer of achieving freedom. So they're
"playing by the rules" (the rules made up by the tyrants), and
STILL being portrayed as extremists, criminals and terrorists.

The reason for that is simple: the statists want everyone to think
that the ENTIRE range of ideas people can have (with the "Tea
Party" folk at the "far right") boils down to "Who do I vote for?"
So the media has to paint lukewarm, conformist, ineffective whining
at tyrants as "extremist," while pretending that those of us who
ACTUALLY advocate freedom--even when it's "illegal" (which is
always)--don't exist.



Larken Rose
http://www.larkenrose.com

SAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

. .
. Rest in Peace, Mr. Stack

Earlier today, a victim of the largest extortion racket in the
world struck back, giving up his life in the process. The control
freaks, and their propagandists who pretend to be "reporters," will
no doubt spend the next few weeks demonizing the man, or painting
him as crazy. You can decide for yourself if this was the case. As
best I can tell, today Joseph Stack burned down his house, and then
crashed his plane into the Austin, Texas offices of the IRS. We
don't need to ponder the reason, because he told us why, in a
suicide note, which can be read here:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24783.htm

I found reading the note very disturbing, mainly because Mr. Stack
was obviously far more intelligent, and more in touch with reality,
than the vast majority of Americans. In other words, compared to
the deluded masses of conformists, Mr. Stack was the sane one.
Several statements in his suicide note show that he had overcome
the authoritarian statist indoctrination far more than most people
ever will. Does the following sentiment sound familiar?

"We are all taught as children that without laws there would be no
society, only anarchy. Sadly, starting at early ages we in this
country have been brainwashed to believe that, in return for our
dedication and service, our government stands for justice for all.
We are further brainwashed to believe that there is freedom in this
place ... I have spent the total years of my adulthood unlearning
that crap from only a few years of my childhood." [Joseph Stack,
2/18/2010]

A lot of you will find aspects of Mr. Stack's personal story
disturbingly familiar. I see no need to parse every sentence of it,
though I would urge everyone to read it all, carefully. What would
drive a rational, intelligent man to do such a thing? Of course,
the control freaks and their propagandists will paint Mr. Stack as
a nutcase, and will claim that his actions, by themselves, prove
that he was insane.

But they don't. They prove he was desperate, and frustrated, and
that he was willing to GIVE UP HIS LIFE to try to resist injustice.
And THAT is the part the parasite class does NOT want people to
think about. They will paint him as a "mentally unstable" "tax
cheat," or apply to him whatever other labels they think might make
people not want to THINK about what Mr. Stack did, and why.

Now comes the controversial, uncomfortable part. Several people
have already asked me whether I approve of what Mr. Stack did. Any
good, unthinking obedient serf would immediately blurt out, "Of
course not!" In short, though I am saddened that the world had to
lose Mr. Stack in the process, and though there are alternatives I
would have much preferred, yes, generally I have to praise him for
what he did. I'm not about to emulate him, nor would I suggest that
anyone else do so, but he had the courage to do something about the
injustice he saw, and that puts him ahead of 99.99% of the
population.

So far, I have heard about a couple of injuries, and one person
unaccounted for, at the crash site. So at the moment, as far as I
know, Mr. Stack is the only one who died in the crash. I don't know
whether that was his intent or not. In other words, I don't know if
he intended to destroy only property, or to kill people as well. As
far as mere property, if someone found a way to destroy every IRS
computer, every IRS building, every IRS vehicle, firearm, every bit
of property used by the federal extortion racket, without hurting
any people, I would without hesitation cheer, loud and long. (I'd
like it even more if someone took it all, and gave it to the people
who were robbed to pay for it in the first place.)

But the question of taking human life is far more serious. At this
point, most writers would quickly add, "I would NEVER condone
violence against law enforcers!" Not me. Violence is justified when
used in an attempt to stop an aggressor--one who initiates
violence. And the politician scribbles called "laws" have no effect
on that. IRS employees, from CID down to the paper-pushers, are
CONSTANTLY initiating violence, every time they levy a bank
account, or swipe someone's home, or send threatening letters
(i.e., "pay up or we'll do nasty things to you"). It is their job
to use violence, and threats of violence, to take property from
those to whom it rightfully belongs.

Most do it without thinking, and I doubt any of them accept any
personal responsibility for their actions. "Hey, I'm just doing my
job." Yeah, you and the Nazi SS. But this is the problem that the
"authority" myth creates: a bunch of brain-dead authoritarian
jackasses, day after day, terrorize, extort and rob millions and
millions of people. The people are then left with a choice: go
after the unthinking bureaucrats whose main sin is being blindly
obedient, or allow injustice to continue. Neither option is
pleasant. Apparently Mr. Stack chose the former.

I'll have more to say about this later, but today, let me leave you
with two excerpts from "The Iron Web" which are disturbingly
appropriate to what happened today:

Excerpt 1: "Real life isn't like the movies. In the movies, the bad
guy is always so obviously evil that when he dies, in some
spectacular finale, everyone stands up and cheers. That's not how
it works in real life. In real life, the people who have to be
killed to protect the innocent are hardly ever truly evil
themselves. Instead, their sin is usually just being stupid, and
doing what they're told. That's all. ... The state uses violence
for everything it does. Every law is a command, and if anyone
disobeys, force is used to make them comply. And good people don't
want to resist. Even if they don't like the law, even if they think
it's unjust, the last thing they want to do is kill some poor pawn
who is just doing what he was told. It would be so much easier if
only evil people committed evil, but through the belief in
'authority,' otherwise good people routinely become agents of evil.
Even the atrocities of Hitler's regime, Stalin's regime, and all
the others, were the result of a few truly evil people, and
thousands upon thousands of merely obedient people. The real
villains aren't stupid enough to go to the front lines themselves.
That's what compliant subjects are for. But the result is that the
good people of the world are left with a choice: either allow evil
to occur, or kill people who are merely misguided or ignorant. Most
people choose the first option, and mankind has suffered
unspeakable horrors because of it."

Excerpt 2 (from a different character): "You have to understand,
this was bound to happen. The parasites have been making this
monster for decades, and now it's broken free. It's not about
whether I think it's good. I don't. But I think it's inevitable.
It's like some poor dog that's been beaten since it was a puppy.
Mostly it just cowers and whimpers, always in fear. Then one day,
it snaps and rips its master's throat out. Those IRS paper-pushers
have been emptying peoples' bank accounts, taking their homes, and
ruining lives for years and years. The zoning bureaucrats, the
inspectors and regulators--they've all been pushing people around
for decades, and it all adds up. As long as the cogs in the machine
felt comfortable obeying orders, they went right on doing it. Their
victims had no recourse, so they just put up with it. Well, now all
their frustrations are coming out as hatred and a desire for
revenge. When people are oppressed, humiliated and tormented for
all their lives, even if only a little at a time, and even if they
barely notice, it builds up inside them. It's like a poison the
body can't get rid of. It builds up and builds up, until something
breaks."

Today, something broke. Mr. Stack, rest in peace.



Larken Rose
http://www.larkenrose.com