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Guest Post: “Stay And Fight”: Is This Realistic?
Submitted by Simon Black of Sovereign Man
“Stay and fight”: Is this realistic?
Before leaving New York, I was enjoying a perfectly nice afternoon
yesterday walking around the Upper West side. When I got to Lincoln
center, roughly at the corner of Broadway and W 62nd Street, reality set
in.
No fewer than ten NYPD storm troopers were ‘patrolling’ the sidewalk
outside in full combat gear: Kevlar helmet, flak vest, semi-automatic
9mm sidearm, and Colt model 933 with M900 foregrip and M68 aimpoint. A
few of them had M203 variety grenade launchers fitting snugly underneath
the barrel.
And to what did we owe the deployment of such unnecessary firepower?
An invasion of the Canadian hordes? Terrorists on the loose? No. Some
visiting politician… clearly an individual who feels important enough to
merit an intimidating death squad in his vicinity.
This is the nature of the system. Police are armed to the teeth… and
while their official marketing slogan may be to ‘keep people safe’,
their real function is to be the protectors and enforcers for the
political class, all while keeping the people in check so that the know
who’s boss.
On this note, we received a lot of comments this week from readers
who reject the idea of considering greener pastures overseas and instead
choose to “stay and fight.”
Reader Jay K, for instance, wrote that “sooner or later you’re going
to have to fight. It might as well be in your own home, city,
neighborhood, and country.”
This ‘stay and fight’ mentality does seem incredibly noble. It
invokes images of Paul Revere and the original patriots standing their
ground in battle against the red coat British forces. Unfortunately, the
world just doesn’t work that way anymore.
There is no real enemy to fight… no clearly defined opposing force
conveniently dressed in a different color like the rival baseball team.
The battle is one of ideas.
At its simplest, the conflict comes down between those who believe
that government is the problem, and those who believe that government is
the solution. Most people are brainwashed statists who unquestioningly
hold the latter as their ethos.
And then there is the big faceless void of government itself…
politicians, bureaucrats, low-level workers, regulatory agencies, etc.
We’re not talking about a single individual here, but an entire
institution.
It begs the question– for all the ‘stay and fight’ people, who exactly are you fighting? And more importantly, how?
Of all the hundreds of similar notes we’ve received from people who
claim they are going to ‘stay and fight’, I am still waiting for one…
just one single email… from someone telling me exactly how they plan on
doing that.
Are you going to go to the polls and kick the bums out? Go right
ahead. If you can convince the majority of other voters (most of whom
probably don’t share your ideology), then you’re just going to vote in
another set of bums.
Politicians are politicians because they either (a) are attracted to
power, and/or (b) think that government is the solution, not the
problem. Replacing one set with another is hardly a credible course of
action.
What else is the plan– armed conflict in the streets? I don’t
understand this fantasy. The people are going to arm themselves and join
together for an Old West style shootout against the police, the people
will win, and then a new nation will be rebuilt espousing limited
government principles?
It sounds like a great movie… but pinning your hopes on being able to
win a revolutionary style victory against a military police state that
has superior tactics, firepower, and combat experience is simply
unrealistic.
Besides, real turmoil in the west is just getting started. Right now
the conflict is in Greece and Spain. It will spread to Italy, Belgium,
UK, etc., and then finally to the US.
When it does, people will find out first hand that the police have absolutely no problems turning into violent thugs… and this police state grows stronger every day.
Truthfully, there is no way to fight a faceless enemy. The government
is essentially the same as your credit card company– no single
individual or front, just a collection of various departments and
bureaucracies.
What do you do when your credit card company raises your fees, takes
your money, provides you with poor service? Do you petition for change?
Do you try and convince fellow credit card holders to demand new
management? Do you stalk the customer service center in Sioux City,
Iowa? No, of course not. You simply get a new card.
This is ultimately the solution that I’m advocating, and I’m here to
tell you that there are a lot of great cards out there in the world.
If you recognize that the trend is bad, at least have a plan to
safeguard yourself, your family, your livelihood, and your assets…
something that extends beyond the unrealistic (voting the bums out) and
the mythical (doing battle in the streets).
It’s time to reject bombastic fantasies and check in to reality. Make
a grounded appraisal of the situation, and if you decide to stick
around, great. Just make sure you have strong safeguards in place, a
plan to execute if you ever deem it necessary, and most of all, a clear
idea of your breaking point.
After all, the boiling frog only survives when it senses danger and jumps out.
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I'm surprised how many spineless detractors there are. I'm really getting the disturbing feeling that many citizens simply equate their American citizenship to what they directly benefit from at a given time. It's similar to a man's wife that contracts a debilitating disease and before you know it, the husband is plotting his convenient exit. I think as a country we've grown collectively weak since we've inherited past prosperity and freedoms, we did not directly earn. This coming storm will be an interesting social experiment to witness, in which the wheat will be separated from the chaff. Welcome to the human race, my friends. It isn't pretty and personal freedoms aren't derived from a piece of paper.
As far as my situation, I'm comfortable materially, but I have no qualms about settling particular scores with the men who "dance between the raindrops" so to speak. The DoJ nor their security forces cannot protect them from the coming wrath.
Bull.
We have carried the World for so damn many decades. Destroyed Nations in war and rebuilt them after. Over and over and over. And for what?
*Blows rasberry.
"I'm really getting the disturbing feeling that many citizens simply equate their American citizenship to what they directly benefit from at a given time."
no kidding, Pig-executioner. Benjamin Franklin supported the American Revolution because he thought the British elites and Royal Army were cutting in to the colony's "natural" energetic profits; HIS SON, William Franklin, remained a LOYALIST (Tory), because as NJ Governor under the British, he did far better than he would have as an independent colonial/American businessman like his wealthy father. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Franklin
Back in the days when the Rethuglicans & press/media had managed to make the very term "LIBERAL DEMOCRAT" into a SWEAR WORD (just around time Timmy McVeigh, a fringe righty, blew up the OKC govt. building), I read a right-wing militia "separatist" novel about a future U.S. civil war, in which one rancher was explaining, around a campfire, why he had joined the anti-US govt. rebellion: because his herd of cattle had been prohibited from grazing on federal lands, on their way to fresh water found only on those federal & restricted properties. He was going to committ treason, because he couldn't take over property (or exclusive use of) that had never been his!
Or look at Medieval English history: THE MOMENT the king looked weak or distracted, the most powerful nobles and barons in the land would INSTANTLY start building illegal private castles; leading to outright rebellion, and ultimately, to attempts to sieze the crown.
Power, politics, and "citizenship" are ALWAYS about the money. See also "FILTHY PARIS" - how Parisians, DISGUSTED that their city had been turned into a ghetto-walled-in CESSPIT by the kings & nobles of France, REBELLED, leading to the French Revolution.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00g4k6c
The idea is simple. Withdraw from the current paradigm as much as possible, and convince others to do the same. Create a local economy that does not contribute to the system of control. Eventually that system will collapse under its own weight. If we are all feeding ourselves, clothing ourselves, housing ourselves and protecting ourselves, how will they get the necessary funds to buy the bullets and grenades to enslave us with? Their methods of control will decay and will be their own undoing.
The Weapon is called distributed Non-participation.
Politicians are politicians because they either (a) are attracted to power, and/or (b) think that government is the solution, not the problem.
Ron Paul: none of the above...
Replacing one set with another is hardly a credible course of action.
Ron Paul: Credible option, so pass the word along
Watch what you say. You know the NSA is tracking conversations like this.
This article is complete garbage. The author should hop in their Prius and drive off a cliff.
(1) Their won't be F-16's and Apache's killing Americans on American soil, ever. Our military boys know who the good guys are.
(2) It's not a bombastic fantasy, more like a complete fucking nightmare. Does anyone really think patriots are fantasizing about fighting in our streets?? I know I'm not... but I'll do what has to be done when the time comes, and so will all good men.. the author of this piece of trash not being one of them.
(3) We know exactly who the enemy is. A faceless void it is not.
I could go on and on but that pretty much sums it up.
The NSA will like that one Ultra guy.
The article fails to take into consideration that the farmers and peasants on April 19th faced the worlds largest, most well equipped and battle hardened army on the face of the earth.
Said army got their asses handed to them. More than once.
@ Simon Black, "Sovereign man":
At a philosophical or metaphysical level, the problem is even simpler, far simpler than you make it out to be: although post-WWII technology (the nuclear age, the rocket age, the silicon/instant-communications age, and above all, the OIL and OIL BASED AGRICULTURAL era) made it APPEAR as though the "DISMAL SCIENCE" of MALTHUSIAN economics was permanently eradicted, historically ended forever... that ol' EXPONENTIAL human POPULATION GROWTH chart has caught up with us... and pushed us RIGHT BACK TO the pre-WWI, or even MEDIEVAL era.
(Recall your history books? The Black Death/bubonic plauge of 13__ wiped out 1/3rd of Europe's population: OVER HALF in some communities!)
This is an entirely natural consequence of BILLIONS of new people, being added on to the BILLIONS who were already here ten (or so) years previously. Even the poorest Indian barefoot, rural rice farmer (or subsistence Amazon slash-and-burn farmer) HAS AN IMPACT on the eco-system, and the more like us ENTITLED, GAS-GUZZLING Americans, the more so.
Now everyone knows that EVERY major city in America, FILLS its commuter highways, with RIVERS of moving cars & trucks, each & every damn (working) day. And if you INTERFERE with that "natural order" of American cities, suburbds (and highway dependent rural towns) - THEY WILL KILL YOU in a New York minute!
Not just in hot tempered lines at local gas stations (1973 Arab oil embargo) - but we will SEND OUR MERCENARIES TO STEAL YOUR OIL, if you live in South America, Africa, Asia, or anywhere the locals don't have a powerful enough economy to forestall our oil-seeking mercenaries who OPERATE ON OUR BEHALF. (Of course, the BP tsunami of underwater oil spill in the Gulf, means we Americans are now paying the butcher bill - in lost jobs, trashed environment, toxic seafood - that were formerly "outsourced" to 3rd world countries.)
The same is true of MEAT EATING (seriously energy guzzling & enviro toxic), nuclear power (radioactive Fukushima shrimp, anyone? Guaranteed to glow in the dark!) and hundreds of other American consumer vices, addictions, and virtues! (Baseball, hotdogs (chemical preservatives!) & apple pie ("WHITE GOLD" sugar!) anyone?)
Here's a scary thought: WWII casualties were on the order, between Europe (Russia, Western Europe, & US) and Asia (Japan, China, etc.) of 50 million.
TODAY, WE COULD LOSE 50 MILLION people in an asteroid impact (volcanic explosion, tsunami, viral epidemic, nuclear explosion... take your pick of disasters) and we would STILL have MORE THAN DOUBLE the ENTIRE world population on eve of WWII!!
The natural order of life, and bio-systems, is to REPRODUCE until there is INTENSE COMPETITION for (once plentiful, now scarce) resources. In plain English, animals reproduce to where SOME of the young MUST DIE, because the environment demands it (wether a certain portion of prey animals dying from predation, or only one or two fox kits, wolf pups, or lion cubs surviving a litter of a half dozen.)
The FINANCIAL WARS, and POLICE STATE control of financial resources (who has access to money, and who doesn't) is simply a reflection of this larger biological law.
We humans, answering to our reptilian mentality & turf-wars jeolousy
(Exodus 20:4-5: "for I am a JEALOUS god" !) and scheming, are entirely too stupid to manage our (collective, worldwide) procreative urges... so it is back to the Medieval era, or age of god-kings, where you had to EXTERMINATE the losers in a tribal/empire fight for a fertile river valley, because agricultural capacity at the time could not support both winning and losing tribes/nations.
(see 4,000 year old artistic images of Pharaoh god-kings smitting their captured & bound enemy prisoners.)
Asteroids... whoopiee dee do.
Not to be flip, but where are you gonna run to when a world ending monster strikes Earth in a few hours?
I for one will be found down at the levee enjoying a smoke, drink and looking at the .45 bullet. How it goes depends on where it strikes and the impact to the immediate area we are in.
We lived our Cold War days with hot missile silos ready to deliver hell in 30 minutes or less gauranteed. Peace in our time one hour at a time, night and day. Those empty boxes called fallout shelters are only graves already prepared so that a single bulldozer will spend a moment to cover the entrance two or three weeks after the war to stop the spread of sickness from rotting bodies.
Hah. Asteroids... they make good movies and generally make for gripping Discovery channel shows. other than that, see you on the other side. if I am lucky, the damn thing wil come right here and wipe this place out.
It wont hurt, I promise. A moment of glory and light then death.
Gimme a break, "Hungry Seagull"! I only mentioned a city-killing asteroid (see "Starship Trooper") as the least "political" among several other mass die-off events.
Speaking of, though, I wuz touristing/visiting in St. Peter's square (Rome) a few years back... when I observed two seagulls, in the top tier of one of those muti-tiered fountains, TEARING APART a luckless pigeon they were feeding on. "The PERFECT METAPHOR for mother church" (and humanity, and "our gods") I thought !
I will tell you how I picked the name.
I walked out of a fast food place with a bunch of fries being towed by impatient parents. 50+ seagulls eyed my fries and me as a hostile threat.
I threw the fries and ran looking over my shoulder. The sky was grey with gulls.
Not a single fry hit the parking lot deck.
Boy did my parents whip me that day for wasting .45 cents sheesh.
As we peeled out of the lot, more Gulls came from the hills and the sea far and wide to join ine one big circling cloud screaming at each other.
Never mind the fat pidgeon. Watch out for the Owl that lives in the Church steeple.
Fiat makes a good point: Malthus was right, and pop. growth now exceeds agric productivity growth.
Rwanda was the densest pop area on planet.
There are not enough police in America to handle a full-scale American insurrection. The politicians will try to save themselves and the system, and police brutality will only swell the number of protesters.
If there are crowds rising to one or two million in Washington, DC and they are of a different mind than the demonstrations we’ve seen there through the years – iow, they are not happy families with signs but they are angry protesters and in the groups are men (not just college students) – the authorities will not be able to handle them. If the authorities try to channel them down certain streets or try to arrest the ring leaders or try to use tear gas and riot control methods, it will just get worse. It will turn to violence and the country at this point will side with the protesters. The police, in many cases, will side with the protesters.
I’m talking about people who are angry; fighting mad. And with the Internet, with cell phones – it’s no longer the same world.
And the government will be forced to begin to make chances to placate a rising insurrection.
The mistake so many people make is that they project action on today’s events and today’s public mood. But an event like the Kent State killings, when the authorities overreact and the cameras are running, can immediately change a national viewpoint overnight. When the situation gets worse, people begin to think differently.
Who we gonna fight? When the time comes, we’ll know who we’re gonna fight. But IMO it will never come to this in America; the pressure will force the changes before events reach this point. It’s happening now; a few more Jefferson Memorials and the people will begin to demand a crackdown on police methods…
From your mouth to God's ear, JR, but I think we are headed for some hard-edged fascism.
Maybe our best hope is to manage a reasonable standard of living by owning PMs. Hope that confiscation does not occur.
Recent rule-change at COMEX reminds me of who is in charge. If the elites make the rules of the game and can change them at will, are we not deluded if we think we can outplay them? Consider how the Fed radically changed the rules since the crash... football, no basketball,no badminton!
Just try not to get trampled, I think.
Thirty years ago I had a friend who stood up to Uncle over constitutionality of the income tax and he was crushed like a bug, legally, just a few simple chess moves. Taught me not to offer too large a target. Don't piss off the Leviathan. A man's gotta know his limitations?
Now, I can dig the molotov/AK/sniper shit as much as the next guy, but it plays better in movies than in real life, I suspect. Cells are easily infiltrated. On the other hand it has been shown conclusively that, given enough political will, the underdog can prevail in asymmetric warfare. But the underdog must be willing to suffer losses far greater than the superior force, fight a frontless war, hit and run, live in deprivation and constant fear. Not an easy gig.
I doubt that it will come to asymmetric warfare in the US. Just a grinding depression, then a new secular cycle. If we could just rid ourselves of the Rothschild/Warburg/Morgan/Rockefeller parasites!
Thanks for the good debate, Ponzi
The point is, IMO, the Rothschilds et al., don’t have anywhere to go with this scheme. They can’t make their economic system work. People are getting more and more frustrated with it – just as you and I. People react in different ways - some resign themselves to it, some become frustrated and make complaints, and others wait for some chance to strike at them.
We can’t take them on with little groups, I know; we would be setting ourselves up for sacrifice. But the rising displeasure with the money changers' unworkable system and the politicians is going to get bigger and bigger because they are such thieves that they don’t allow any compromise, any give and take, any justice or rule of law.
We’re heading for a confrontation with the authorities. Zero Hedge, the razor’s edge, already has changed the playing field. After the United States no longer is a safe haven for the financial power elites, there will be no place for Bernanke and his bosses to run.
Ron Paul has said there is an end to fiat currency; it comes to a point where it doesn’t do the job and it’s over; you can’t use it anymore. At that point, the bankers would have to have a police state so strong that anywhere in the world, if there were opponents to it, they’d have to go in and take them out, not arrest them, but take them out. IMF aside, it’s not going to happen, IMO. They can’t even get rid of Gaddafi with drones and controlled airspace.
Fiat currency no longer satisfies as a medium of exchange because it's unworkable. Bernanke is creating a worldwide Zimbabwe. That’s the end of the road. The end of fiat currency.
And that’s all Bernanke’s got. He’s got fiat. He doesn’t have any more tricks.
Yea, go ahead and form a "terror cell" (their words, not mine) on a fucking public website. 99.9% of zero hedge users are posting from an IP easily traceable to them and all it would take is one FISA letter to FORCE Zero Hedge to give up its entire user base with emails and IP addresses.
Good luck with that. I almost suspect you're a fed yourself for suggesting something so insanely retarded. No, small cells and lone wolves is the only way to operate in a high tech surveillance society/police state.
It doesn't matter if all you're planning is peaceful demonstrations. That's more than enough to get you on watch lists and the authorities are always surveilling the internet for signs that someone, anyone, is about to do "something" so they can intercept, photograph, arrest, document, add to watch lists, and release for monitoring. So get the fuck back in your free speech zone and smile for the camera...and if you whip out a camera of your own, well, let me know how the hospital food tastes as you drink it through a straw after the cops beat the shit out of you.
Oh BS. Give up and submit. The founders didn't have a chance either, right? After all, their oppressors weren't even on the same continent - how can they fight them?
The fact is, the best approach is always a new frontier. Leave the authority lovers to embrace their favored predators without a producer class to keep them both alive. Oh, that'll work great... fun to watch from afar!
But the current crop of nazis have taken over just about every country on earth, and the holdouts are run by crazed dictators and kings. Where is the "new frontier"? It should be outer space, but the predators-that-be have cut off that option too by thwarting space habitation for the past 40+ years. And for some reason no group of liberty lovers have created a community floating on the ocean, or floating below the surface.
So unfortunately, the natural way to deal with tyranny has been cut off by the predators themselves. They are no longer satisfied to have their billions of slaves.
They are now dedicated to the proposition that every last human is their slave.
Screw them! The straw that broke the camels back is long, long overdue in the west. Perhaps that straw has come in some places in the mid-east... only time will tell.
Let's hope liberty lovers have brains. Let's hope they understand zero conventional approaches have any chance to work. However, diverse, ever-changing unconventional approaches can work fine; look what happened in Vietnam as a partial example. Let's hope those who revolt understand they need to start at the top of the medusa and work down. With a fiat system, the predators-that-be and predator-class can hire unlimited thugs to taunt us into action. Do not sucker for that. Even if you must respond, find out who is involved, find out where they live, and choose the time, place and methods with the best odds. And any organizations needs to focus from the top down.
Until the straw breaks the camels back, close all accounts at all financial institutions and convert all personal assets into real, physical gold, silver, guns, ammo, seeds and most importantly - productive equipment and supplies. Get independent. Start avoiding their scams. Never submit to TSA or other thugs... stay away from them and other thugs. Stay off their lists. And create or find somewhere you can vanish in a matter of a few hours... or less.
Make no mistake. If humans let the current crop of predators take full control of earth, this will become a permanent slave planet. Unlike any previous time in history, they have the monitoring and military technology to make it permanent once implemented. We must refuse to comply, refuse to submit, and get ready for the final war against elitism, statism and predatorism. When it comes, you better already be ready.
You may be ready. And you may need a bigger boat, as the line goes. I have PMs. Maybe guns and grains are next. I dunno. Things are speeding up, but I have been waiting for the systen to collapse for 40 years, so I am entitled to a bit of reflection on the contours of oppressive scenariois and the limits of popular response.
I must say, it does anger me that liberty advocates have not managed to implement even one "new frontier" (on the ocean, under the ocean, under the south polar cap, take over a tiny country, other ideas). With all the moaning and bitching you'd think a few people could organize an alternative to "fight it out". I have tried to organize a few efforts myself. Unfortunately, everyone today seems to be frozen, confused, unable to act - even those who understand liberty is the way, individualism is the way, and the current crop of predators is hell bent on global enslavement of mankind.
The complete lack of any viable group implementing alternate options is stunning, and a disgusting statement on the state of mankind. Hell, I'm ready to go "all in" on any well conceived effort, and some scenarios only require a few people with similar levels of savings as myself (about the price of an average home).
But it appears I'll have to implement a micro scenario limited to my own resources. This royally sucks, because there are enormous "efficiencies of scale" when an effort like this reaches slightly larger levels. Even at a mere 4 or 5 participants the efficiencies are gigantic. For example, $250,000 can buy a house on 1/8 acre most places. For 4 to 5 times that much we can build a nice self-sufficient lodge on 125 acres of gorgeous remote pristine coastline with private beach. And this is just at the first step up in scale.
Something has gone seriously and massively wrong with human beings in the past 30 or 40 years. They can't see facts that are right in front of their eyes. They can't make themselves take actions that are obviously extraordinarily wise and prudent... if they are even slightly out of the ordinary. Freaking humans have become stupid and "dead in the head".
Maybe a day will come when a straw does break the camels back, and all of a sudden all the necessary changes in attitude will happen. Unfortunately, I doubt it.
Only a very small % think like you do. Most are happy to be slaves so long as they are provided safety and minimal comfort. This current system could get 10 times worse and the American empire could still survive another 500+ years. The people are so far from revolt that the notion is virtually unthinkable within the next 90 years. Shit will NOT hit the fan. Not in the sense of nationwide collapse of the rule of law, not without WW3 or an Earth shattering natural disaster.
I suspect you are correct about the vast majority of americans being overt sheeple willing to accept and even defend endless outrageous abuses by the government of the USSA.
However, that may not be the whole story. Apparently the vast majority in the 1770s didn't do much of anything either, and preferred not to "cause trouble". The point being, a small (but significant) minority that is massively riled up can... just possibly... change things.
But more relevant, I think, is the lesson of the USSR. The people did not overthrow the USSR... the leaders and political party destroyed the USSR, which just collapsed.
Something similar to the USSR is much more likely scenario for the USSA. The most honest, ethical, productive people in the USSA are leaving in droves, or finding ways to avoid the system, or at least avoid contributing to the system. This will hasten collapse. Hell, the USSR didn't have anywhere near as much debt as the USSA has.
Frankly, it is my strong belief that the best and by far most natural "solution" to scumbag governments is for alert, alive, honest, ethical, productive human beings to simply "move on" to the next empty frontier.
Unfortunately, we've almost run out of those on earth, the only semi-viable possibilities being "on the ocean", "under the ocean [surface]", under the south polar icecap, or something along those lines. And perhaps because people are so confused today, no effort to date has gotten anywhere.
Of course outer space is the perfect new frontier, because it cannot ever be controlled by government. Anyone who understands the sheer astronomical volume of space (and the energy required to get from place to place, and the easy of hiding and becoming invisible, and so forth) will conclude the cost a government would need to bear to attempt to force people to comply with their orders would vastly outweigh anything they could tax or steal from those living in space. But unfortunately again, the predators-that-be actively destroyed that part of the space program that focused on space habitation, so the chance that will pan out is a long shot.
There is no need to fight. OPT OUT don't play the game. refuse the gov't and their benefit/priviledges.
I take this topic extremely seriously. I have reached many of the same conclusions as the author of this article. My primary concern is where to go? It seems that the entire Anglosphere is headed down the path of totalitarianism and police state enslavement.
Where do you run? Where do you hide?
Thus far I've not come up with an answer. I am saving my pennies to make a flight from the American police state. You think you see how bad things are? I see more than you do, and you can only imagine what I know is coming.
I want to be out of here before I can't leave. Before the clamp down on mobility kicks into high gear. Before the VIPR teams are deployed on every highway in America. Before trying to smuggle precious metals out of the country is deemed high treason, punishable by death.
The people WANT enslavement. The people desire only safety and comfort. The Democratic process in America has led us to an authoritarian police state. There are sheep (large majority of ignorant Americans), there are shepherds (tyrannical authoritarians that desire dominance over other humans, many seek power and get it), and "lions" (strong individuals willing and able to face challenges on their own, desiring only to be left alone to live in peace). Those few strong individuals among us that desire liberty cannot grant it to the sheep. They are happy in their enslavement, so long as they are kept safe and minimally comfortable. I have talked to many people about these issues and the majority are fine with any invasion of privacy so long as it keeps them and their family (most of the sheep have families, it seems to weaken their resolve and soften them all around) "safe." They prefer life in a Panopticon police state so long as it makes them feel safe. And make no mistake, that's all it is, a feeling of safety, an illusion.
So what are you going to do? Go shoot some cops? Go shoot some government employees? Yea, I'm sure that'll win the hearts and minds of the sheep (sarcasm). Meanwhile the shepherds will unleash their "sheep dogs" and they will ruthlessly hunt you down and murder you. They'll even have the moral high ground. As the author says, there is no one to fight other than the majority of the American people that WANT to live in an authoritarian imperial police state.
So in the choice between fight and flight, I choose flight. I think finding a country too poor to implement a high tech surveillance society/police state is the best choice. This likely means somewhere in South America, although many of those countries have committed horrifying abuses against their populations in recent history that make the current American police state look like a joke. So, again I say, where do you run? Where do you hide? I don't think there is anywhere else to go, but I'm open to suggestions.
This is a crusty old thread, but I'll give you my two FRNs worth:
First of, most of the Anglosphere is screwed. NZ and Eire are still quite sound from a liberty perspective, though the Irish may rankle (rightfully) and being included in the Anglosphere. Fiscal problems are ephemeral compared to cultural bedrock. You have to look for places where solidarity of community and unity of culture are the order of the day. This obviates, in large part, the NEED for a top-down police state. Some people find these cultures unwelcoming of outsiders, but if you can get in, just ingratiate yourself and live quietly in peace. I'm thinking of Scandinavia and Finland. People will complain about their socialism and tax structure, and whatever, but we're looking for a quiet corner of non-invasive states with sedate populations, right. Pay their taxman and that's the end of your gov't obligation. I don't know enough about Switzerland to recommend it, but it seems solid enough,with a tradition of pragmatic non-alignment. There are also several East Asian countries I would recommend, but as many people will have problems with each one, I will refrain, but if you know geography and history, I think you know a few that meet the above criteria (I've chosen one of those, for the record). Then there are the dark horses that no one mentions - the -nesias, Micro-, Poly-, and Mela-. Do your research to find which ones are likely to remain friendly to Americans after the collapse (we royally pissed some off in the war and made others VERY happy) and which can support you in some way when and if tourist dollars dry up. Since everyone seems to like Caribbean lifestyles (I hate it) I don't know why more people don't head Pacific-side. Many of these don't require extra special visas or green cards from Americans. Be prepared for a standard of living adjustment, but everyone will have to in the near future so better to be in a place where people won't use violence as a means of therapy. Hope this helps.
re : run, hide. fight, flight.
no.
Gospel of Thomas
Thomas 33 -- 33. Jesus said, "What you will hear in your ear, in the other ear proclaim from your rooftops. After all, no one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, nor does one put it in a hidden place. Rather, one puts it on a lampstand so that all who come and go will see its light."
or the space in darkness, for eons, is
revealed for what it is, contains, in an instant
of light and the soft rules the hard as a matter of
physics. it is a matter of heart. imo