Understanding the Trick

(originally launched into cyberspace on 08/17/2007)

Dear Subscriber,

When you watch a "magic" trick which you haven't seen before, if
it's done well, you can watch it over and over again, and each time
be mesmerized by it, while trying to figure out how it's done.
However, once you learn how it's done, when you watch it again, you
may wonder how on earth the method of deception didn't occur to you
before.

A similar thing happens with tricks that are used to swindle people
(instead of just entertaining them). If you know how it's done, the
deception may seem painfully obvious, and you can't imagine how
anyone could miss it. For example, you may marvel at how any crook
can call random numbers, pretending to be working for a credit card
company, and trick a LOT of people into giving out their numbers
(which the crooks then use to go on shopping sprees). And you may
ask yourself, how on earth does anyone still fall for that sort of
thing?

Whenever I watch any political ad (which I try to avoid), that's my
instinctive reaction: How on earth can people be so gullible as to
still fall for this bunk? It doesn't matter if the crook has an "R"
or a "D" after his name--the method is ALWAYS the same: make the
people scared of something, and then suggest that if the people
will only give politicians the power to "fix" the problem, all will
be well. It works with poverty, and war, and terrorism, and health
care, and crime, and getting old, and global warming, and
education, and safety, and so on, and so on, and so on. Some of the
things you're supposed to be scared of are real, and some are not,
but fixing them is NEVER the goal of the politician. The goal is
always increasing his own power. Always.

If you vote for someone because she sounds so sincere about her
concern for the poor in this country... well, you're a gullible
twit. If you vote for someone because he sounds like he wants to
fight terrorism... well, you're a gullible twit. In fact, it pretty
much comes down to this: if you vote for someone, you're a gullible
twit.

Every once in a while, someone will run on the platform of "If
elected, I'll leave you the heck alone!" Unfortunately, even most
of the people who say that are also lying--like ALL of the
supposedly "limited government" Republicans elected in 1994, and
ALL of the leftover sixties hippies who pretended to believe in
"live and let live." The fact is, at least 99.999% of the people
who run for "public office" do it because they want the POWER it
provides to them. Even if they went in honestly hoping to do
something GOOD with that power, preserving and increasing their own
power will instantly overwhelm any good intentions they might have
had. (Ron Paul is the only one I can think of who still has me
convinced that he really DOES want "government" to have
significantly less power, even though I think doing it via "the
system" is an impossibility.)

When I released my book, "How To Be a Successful Tyrant," lots of
people didn't get what the point of such a book would be. If you
don't WANT to be a tyrant, what good is the book? Lots of people
who have READ it, on the other hand, quickly got the point (and,
I'm happy to report, lots of people have given it glowing reviews--
more glowing than I would dare to give it myself). The point is
that at least 95% of the people in this country continue to fall
for age-old tricks, because they don't understand the methods which
tyrants use to deceive and control. The book is written from the
perspective of the TYRANT, just the way a "how-to" magic book is
written from the perspective of the magician. If the people
understood how tyrants operate, they might stop falling for the
tricks. But as long as the people don't see how they are being
duped, they will keep unwittingly SUPPORTING their own enslavement.

I know a lot of you can already see through the bunk of political
campaigns, so you're not the problem (but I still think you'd like
the book). Trouble is, the ignorance of your friends and neighbors
is what allows the tyrants to oppress YOU. If "government" could
only rob, terrorize, and control the people who fell for its
tricks, I'd be content. But the tyrants acquire the power to
oppress us ALL, by way of duping the majority. The people can't see
beneath the feigned compassion and concern of politicians, to their
rotten, anti-human interior. So the people keep falling for the
tricks.

When someone pretends to have only YOUR best interests in mind,
he's almost certainly lying. Here, I'll give an example of all-too-
rare honesty: One reason I want you to buy my "Tyrant" book is so
my wife and I will have more money. However, I also firmly believe
that the message is something which, if understood by the general
public, would expose and therefore render impotent the slimy tricks
of the megalomaniacs of the world. I dare say that after someone
reads the book, even an "average Joe" who doesn't think much about
politics, he won't be able to watch another political ad, or
another political "news" story, without immediately noticing the
euphemisms, the obfuscations, and the other psychological tricks
which the power-happy use to control the beliefs of their victims.
And then he will wonder how he ever fell for it, and he will wonder
why almost everyone he knows is STILL falling for it. (Then maybe
he'll get them to buy my book, too.)

Sincerely,

Larken Rose
www.larkenrose.com

(P.S. The web site for the book is http://www.tyrantbook.com )

Wave It, or Burn It?

(originally launched into cyberspace on 07/05/2007)

Dear Subscriber,

I decided to delay this message until today, for reasons which will
become apparent. Many of you won't like the message, but it must be
said. If you don't like hearing that your "free" country is dead,
you're free to unsubscribe and go back to a world in denial.

- --------------------------------------------

Today is Independence Day. Today Americans across the country will
show great reverence for an empty symbol, while showing disdain for
a worthwhile principle. We celebrate with great fervor the signing
of the Declaration of Independence, while showing absolute contempt
for the ideas expressed therein.

What is it we are celebrating? Independence? Independence from
what? We rejoice at having thrown off a tyrant who taxed us at an
average of two to three percent, in order to establish new tyrants
who tax us at over fifty percent. Having been thoroughly
indoctrinated into the insane notion that "our" government supports
liberty and justice for all, we schizophrenically condemn the
actions of King George III, while remaining silent about the far
more intrusive, oppressive, unjust actions of the current tyrants
we mislabel as "representatives."

Let us set aside our picnics and parades for a moment, and think
back to this nation's birth, and see what it is we should be
celebrating. In his famous "Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death"
speech, Patrick Henry stated that "it is natural to man to indulge
in the illusions of hope," and that "We are apt to shut our eyes
against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till
she transforms us into beasts." How many eyes are shut in this
country today? How many Americans today "having eyes, see not, and,
having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their
temporal salvation?" On the other hand, how many Americans have
this attitude?: "For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may
cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and
to provide for it."

Few. Very few. And who could say the following today, and not be
condemned by the masses as an extremist lunatic?: "Is life so dear,
or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and
slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may
take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death."

And what of the Declaration itself? How many Americans who pledge
allegiance to a flag today can even remotely relate to the message
of that document? The Declaration has become a revered relic, whose
words have lost all meaning to most of those who worship it. We
repeat the words, but the spirit of the message is long since dead.
Let us revive it, put it into the modern vernacular, and assess
just what the modern American response to the sentiments expressed
therein might be: When a government infringes upon the rights of
the individual, instead of protecting those rights, the people have
the right and duty to throw off that government, violently and
illegally if necessary. How many flag-wavers believe that? One
percent? Probably less.

History shows that people will tolerate injustice they are
accustomed to, rather than doing what it takes to get rid of a
familiar system which oppresses them. Amen. And so it is with the
dim, fading shadow of this formerly great nation. As long as we
have our couches and our TVs, we will do nothing about tyranny in
this land. So long as we are enslaved in comfort, we do not resist.

Much of the Declaration is a list of oppressions and injustices,
"injuries and usurpations," committed by King George III. The
Declaration proclaimed such wrong-doing to a "candid world," to
justify their illegal, treasonous (and righteous) rejection of the
government they were under. In short, the complaints of the
Founders against King George III pale in comparison to the
complaints modern Americans should have against the far more
oppressive regime they now call "their" government. As one example,
the Founders complained that the British Crown had "erected a
multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to
harass our people and eat out their substance." In contrast to
modern America, that complaint seems laughable. Today almost three
millions people are employed by the federal government alone: a
full one percent of the population. State and local governments
employ even more. The level of micromanaging and regulation is far
beyond what King George ever would have dreamed of. One look at the
Code of Federal Regulations, which takes up an entire book shelf,
will tell you that.

Desperate to hallucinate something superior about this country,
people now resort to saying that, though we're not actually free,
we're more free than other countries. In reality, however, the U.S.
does not have the most freedom, either economically or socially,
anymore. In fact, the U.S. has the highest per capita incarceration
rate in the world.

So what is it we should celebrate about this country, and its
independence? There is no substantive reason to celebrate. All that
is left is unthinking pack mentality: we "love" it simply because
we're here, the same way the people in every other country "love"
what they are familiar with--the same empty herd mentality which
enables tyrants to perpetually play the game of war.

How many this "Independence Day" will say the following words?: "I
pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and
to the republic for which it stands." Only the familiarity of those
words, and our unthinking repeating of them, hide from us the evil
insanity underlying such so-called "patriotism." Blind allegiance
to a flag and a government is nothing to be proud of. (The
reference at the end to "liberty and justice for all" is now
nothing but a sad Orwellian lie.)

The ideals which drove the American Revolution are stone dead in
the hearts and minds of the American people, who have been trained
to view subservience and obedience as virtues. The following are
the words of a current leading contender for the Presidency:
"Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to
cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you
do" (Rudy Giuliani). And millions would vote for him.

To wave the American flag in public, to carry it in parades, either
demonstrates profound psychological denial, or profound historical
and philosophical ignorance. If the flag represents what this
country and its government has become, it deserves to be burned in
contempt and disgust. If it represents the ideals from which this
country was born, it deserves to be burned out of respect and
sorrow, rather than desecrated by flying it atop the giant shrines
of tyranny in a land where freedom has died.

Sincerely,

Larken Rose
www.larkenrose.com

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

(originally launched into cyberspace on 06/29/2007)

Dear Subscriber,

I've been surprised by how blunt I can be, and still not offend
most of you. So far my most effective offending-you message seems
to be my message about how the Constitution didn't work. (Around 40
people unsubscribed after that one.) But that's still well under 1%
of the list, so you people apparently have pretty thick skins. So
I'll try again:

If you live in the U.S. and worry about terrorism, you're a
gullible bonehead. It's getting pathetic how easily the government
and the media can lead the American public around by their
emotions, in any direction they choose. "Oh my gosh, I'm scared of
global warming!" "Oh my gosh, I'm scared of gun violence!" "Oh my
gosh, I'm scared of terrorism!" The general public worries about
and is scared of whatever they're TOLD to be scared of. A
particularly hilarious parody of this fact can be found here:

http://www.ihateronpaul.com

There you can see a string of politician rhetoric which is
OBVIOUSLY designed to SCARE you. Politicians are constantly talking
about terrorism, and how they neeeeeeed more power to combat it.
But, even accepting on blind faith the government's version of what
happened on 9/11 (which I don't), is fear of terrorism rational?

Statistically, no. I hate to mess up their mind control by citing
facts, but the following site gives some basic statistics about
causes of death in the U.S.

http://www.nsc.org/lrs/statinfo/odds.htm

Assuming the stats in 2003 weren't drastically different from the
preceding years, here are a few facts that you should keep in mind:

1) In the last decade (1997 to 2007), you had about a 1/100,000
chance of being killed by a terrorist attack. (That's the
population of the country divided by the number of people who died
on 9/11/01).

2) In the last decade, you were about 170 times as likely to be
killed in a car accident as you were to be killed by a terrorist
act. Let's do a little graphic to illustrate the ratio:

Killed by terrorists (1997-2007):
*
Killed in car crashes (1997-2007):
*************************
*************************
*************************
*************************
*************************
*************************
********************

(So are you 170 times more scared of driving than you are of
terrorists? I am.)

3) In the last decade, you were as likely to drown in your bathtub
as you were to be killed by a terrorist act. (Where is the clamor
for "bathtub control"?)

4) In the last decade, you were twice as likely to die from cold
weather as you were to be killed by a terrorist act.

5) Last, but not least, in the last decade you were more likely to
be SHOT AND KILLED BY AMERICAN LAW ENFORCEMENT than you were to be
killed by a terrorist act. Don't believe me? Look at the bottom of
that page, under the Orwellian heading "legal intervention." (347
events per year adds up to well over 3,000 in a decade.)

(Yes, I know that using the word "you" is a bit of an over-
generalization, since people in different categories obviously have
different risks, but you get the point.)

People are constantly telling me how we neeeeeeed "government" to
protect us (a topic I'll discuss more soon). When the government,
with the help of the mainstream media, is constantly telling you to
be SCARED of things--except for itself, of course, which is what
you SHOULD fear--and then painting itself as the solution to all
those problems, it's no wonder so many people think we need it. All
our lives we've all been bombarded by the propaganda of tyrants,
telling us that the world would be CHAOS if they aren't given the
power to protect us. Even a lot of pro-freedom people still have a
ways to go to overcome that indoctrination.

Sincerely,

Larken Rose
www.larkenrose.com

Time to Give Up? Yes and No.

(originally launched into cyberspace on 06/22/2007)

Dear Subscriber,

In response to my anti-endorsement of Ron Paul (actually, my
condemnation of the entire scam called "democracy"), several people
disagreed, and in their messages implied that, though it's an
uphill battle, working within the system (e.g., for campaigns like
Ron Paul's) is our only hope of achieving freedom. In the same
vein, they complained that I offered no alternative "solution" to
the problem. In fact, several people interpreted my message as
giving up, or throwing in the towel. I assure you, that is NOT the
case.

Imagine you lived in a primitive tribe which, when there was a
drought, would offer up human sacrifices to their gods, and pray to
their gods for rain. They did this year after year, but droughts
would still happen. Then one day, one dude says, "Hey, guys, have
you noticed that this human sacrifice routine DOESN'T WORK!?" That
radical might go so far as to advocate the "extreme" position that
the tribe should STOP sacrificing people altogether.

"Oh, so we're just going to LET the droughts happen and do nothing?
You're just going to give up? You have to work within the system,
and improve our sacrifice rituals to get a better result. I know
the system isn't perfect, but we can't just give up! Imagine how
little rain we'd get if we DIDN'T do the sacrifices!"

The radical dude would probably have a tough time getting the
others to think outside of the box of human-sacrifice-related
"solutions." I mean WAY outside the box, like piping in water from
the nearby lake, or making rain-catching reservoirs--in other
words, things that might actually work.

I am NOT suggesting that you give up on trying to achieve freedom.
I'm suggesting that you give up on the traditional, perpetually
failing "solution" called "government." How long have people prayed
to IT to save them, and how often has it worked? At least when you
offer up human sacrifices to imaginary gods, it doesn't make the
weather WORSE, whereas when you look to "authority" to improve
humanity, it ALWAYS makes it worse.

If you see working within the "system" as your only means to
achieve freedom, you are VOLUNTEERING to be powerless. We were all
trained to think that way: to view playing the games of tyrants as
the only decent, civilized way to try to reduce tyranny. How goofy
is that? If we need to ASK the tyrants whether we can be free, what
do you think they will say? If we're given two tyrants to choose
from, and we ACCEPT that our only choice is to pick one, well, no
wonder we're where we are.

I'm not asking you to give up. I'm asking you to stop advocating
human sacrifices. Open your eyes, and realize it doesn't WORK.
Elections, Constitutions and petitions are not the road to freedom.
Those paths cannot lead there.

To put it another (slightly cliche) way, the primary problem is not
the shackles on your body, but the shackles on your mind. Imagine
two slaves a couple hundred years ago: one who believes himself to
be the rightful property of his "owner," the other who believes
that he owns himself. The ONLY recourse of the first is to ASK his
owner to "give" him freedom, while the second knows he has every
right to claim his own freedom by any means necessary. The first is
doomed to be enslaved forever, because he has ACCEPTED the idea
that someone else has the RIGHT to rule him.

Likewise, those of you who still revere "government," "authority,"
and "law" (statutory) are accepting the premise that you BELONG to
the state; that you have no right to be free until the commands of
tyrants give you permission to be free (which, not surprisingly,
doesn't happen). I'm not suggesting you give up on your attempt to
be free; I'm suggesting that you give up the DELUSION that will
keep you enslaved forever: your belief in "authority." Until you do
that, all of your actions will amount to, "Please, Massah!" And how
far do you expect that to get you?

Sincerely,

Larken Rose
www.larkenrose.com

[ June 27, 2007, 03:42 PM: Message edited by: 3rdEar ]

The Experiment Failed

(originally launched into cyberspace on 06/21/2007)

Dear Subscriber,

The great American experiment, an attempt to have a system of
government whose purpose is to preserve and protect individual
liberty, ABSOLUTELY FAILED. Denying that fact at this point is just
silly. So why exactly does anyone think that trying the same thing
again would turn out better? Let's take it beyond the slim
possibility of getting Ron Paul elected President. Let's suppose we
figured out a way to resurrect Thomas Jefferson, James Madison,
Alexander Hamilton, and the rest of them, and give them control of
the government. What reason is there to think we wouldn't end up
where we are now?

Sure, it would take a while to get back to here, and you and I
probably wouldn't be around to suffer the consequences of the
SECOND failed attempt. But it would get to totalitarianism
nonetheless. Now, I've heard people say that what we have today is
NOT the fault of the Constitution, but the fault of the people who
didn't value freedom, who weren't vigilant, who fell for the tricks
of politicians, and so on. Oddly, those same people will criticize
communists who make the same argument: that the IDEA is fine, it's
just imperfect people keep botching it up. What good is an idea
that doesn't work in the real world? The Constitution DIDN'T WORK.
It didn't keep government in check; instead, it made something that
grew into the biggest tyrannical empire in the history of the world
(though not the most overtly violent... yet). That's not to say
there weren't some huge leaps in the right direction, regarding
issues concerning individual rights, limited powers of
"government," etc. But it wasn't enough, and anyone who looks at
modern America and still denies the FAILURE of the Constitution is
no better than the people who look at the Soviet Union and fail to
see the FAILURE of Communism. It took the Constitution a lot longer
to fail, because it was infinitely wiser than the short-sighted
anti-human stupidity underlying communism, but it failed
nonetheless, and for the same reason: it was based on the myth of
"authority."

Many Americans, including many of those I deeply respect, still
revere the Constitution as a near-divine entity, and consider
criticism of it to almost amount to heresy. In my own case alone, I
have seen that the First Amendment is dead; the Second Amendment is
all but dead; the Fourth Amendment is dead, buried, and eaten by
worms; the Fifth Amendment is in a coma; the Sixth Amendment has
been cremated; and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments have died,
decomposed, turned to dust, and blown away. So don't tell me the
Constitution worked. It didn't. Now why, exactly, do you think
trying the same thing again, via a Ron Paul presidency, would work
out any better in the long run (especially considering the
collectivist mindset that most Americans now have)?

Sincerely,

Larken Rose
www.larkenrose.com