Why Taxation is Slavery: Words from Frederick Douglass

Source:  The Daily Bell

by Joe Jarvis
April 26, 2017

 

What do you call it when someone takes 100% of your labor by force? Slavery.

Slavery is being forced to work against your will for the benefit of your master, your owner. The only reason they own the products of your labor is because they own you. If you had exclusive control over what is done to and with your body, the most basic right of self-ownership, you would not owe anybody your labor.

So then a lesser percentage of forced labor is also slavery, though to an obviously lesser degree.

Whether a cent or a million dollars is taken without consent, it is theft. And if someone forces you to work for them 1% of the time, or 100% of a time, that is still slavery.

Frederick Douglass was a slave, by any reckoning. So it is interesting to read his own words, on having his rightfully earned wages taken by force. In his book My Bondage and My Freedom, Douglass laments the state of his servitude, that all his hard work is confiscated from him.

Besides, I was now getting—as I have said—a dollar and fifty cents per day. I contracted for it, worked for it, earned it, collected it; it was paid to me, and it was rightfully my own; and yet, upon every returning Saturday night, this money—my own hard earnings, every cent of it—was demanded of me, and taken from me by Master Hugh. He did not earn it; he had no hand in earning it; why, then, should he have it? I owed him nothing. He had given me no schooling, and I had received from him only my food and raiment; and for these, my services were supposed to pay, from the first. The right to take my earnings, was the right of the robber. He had the power to compel me to give him the fruits of my labor, and this power was his only right in the case. I became more and more dissatisfied with this state of things…

Frederick Douglass sees correctly that the only “right” the government has to take your money, is the right of the robber. Yes, they have enough power to force you to give them money, and that is the only thing that makes it “legitimate”. Certainly no one argues that his slavery was justified by the food and shelter his master provided him.

Douglass then muses about what conditions make slave-masters able to keep men enslaved.

To make a contented slave, you must make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate his power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery. The man that takes his earnings, must be able to convince him that he has a perfect right to do so. It must not depend upon mere force; the slave must know no Higher Law than his master’s will. The whole relationship must not only demonstrate, to his mind, its necessity, but its absolute rightfulness. If there be one crevice through which a single drop can fall, it will certainly rust off the slave’s chain.

And this is the same reason people accept taxation. We revere authority and accept government as necessary, and believe we get some benefit out of our slavery.

How often do you hear people support something because “it is the law.”Is there no higher law than that which the government makes up for its own benefit, and then exerts through force? The force of government is the highest law we know.

Is there no higher law than that which the government makes up for its own benefit, and then exerts through force? The force of government is the highest law we know.

But as soon as we realize that it is never okay to be robbed, no matter how small, the injustice is a potent demonstration that we are at the mercy of a thieving gang who has convinced most people that somehow, in this case, theft and slavery are acceptable.

In case you are hung up on the percentage of stolen labor: it is interesting to note that Frederick Douglass did not always have 100% of his wages stolen from him by his masters.

I could see no reason why I should, at the end of each week, pour the reward of my toil into the purse of my master. When I carried to him my weekly wages, he would, after counting the money, look me in the face with a robber-like fierceness, and ask, “Is this all?” He was satisfied with nothing less than the last cent. He would, however, when I made him six dollars, sometimes give me six cents, to encourage me. It had the opposite effect. I regarded it as a sort of admission of my right to the whole. The fact that he gave me any part of my wages was proof, to my mind, that he believed me entitled to the whole of them. I always felt worse for having received any thing; for I feared that the giving me a few cents would ease his conscience, and make him feel himself to be a pretty honorable sort of robber.

How often do people squeal that the rich need to pay their “fair share”? It doesn’t matter how much any person earns, the government always wants to steal more. And somehow they have convinced millions of people that the thieves are the good guys, and the wage earners deserve to be enslaved and robbed.

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Voluntaryism: Candles in the Dark

Larken Rose introduces conversation points designed to teach voluntaryists/anarchists how to be far more effective in talking to their statist friends, co-workers, family members, etc., using techniques that, by taking into account the quirks and complexities of human psychology, give a far better chance of getting others to understand and accept the concepts of self-ownership, non-aggression, and a stateless society.

 

About this Author:

Larken Rose

Larken Rose is an outspoken, nationally known proponent of individual liberty, self-ownership and a voluntary society. He lives with his wife and daughter in eastern Pennsylvania and is the author of several books, include The Iron Web and How to be a Successful Tyrant, (The Megalomaniac Manifesto). He just completed another book, The Most Dangerous Superstition. Visit his website for more info (Larkenrose.com).

PDF of The Most Dangerous Superstition




What is Sovereignty

What is Sovereignty

by Zen Gardner
May 25, 2016

 

This subject or concept is a hot topic in the alternative community. I recently attended the Anarchapulco conference that featured a wide range of aspects of this important subject regarding our personal awakening and growing financial, legal and spiritual independence and empowerment.

Cryptocurrencies were featured along with our current geopolitical situation and alternative lifestyle choices, while roundly exposing the futility and anachronistic nature of statism, brilliantly done by Larken Rose and many other speakers. Understanding what we’ve been programmed to accept and learning to question every aspect of what the social engineers have indoctrinated us with is paramount to any real truth seeker.

When I approach these subjects touching on sovereignty, whether it be freedom from the binding maritime law-based legal system or questioning all forms of the hierarchical control paradigm, I look at it from a spiritual perspective.

What essentially IS freedom? How do we manifest our true nature more fully and thus naturally break the chains that bind us from whatever quarter?

It’s all about the initial question. And our perspective.

Standing Back

Conscious awareness may appear to be something vague and illusive but it’s not. It’s extremely practical. The fundamental step to be taken is to find the vantage point of our higher self. What is it that is observing you, and that speaks to you and even corrects your thoughts and behavior? What is this inner voice?

The fact that it exists at all, as Echhart Tolle so lucidly expounds upon, causes a major shift in awareness and breaks so many chains immediately. What exactly is this awareness observing the experience that is us? How do we develop and utilized that perspective and what implications does this realization the wise sages of the ages have all spoken about have on the course of my life?

This to me is the deep and wondrous world to be explored, which in its very seemingly esoteric nature has all the so-called answers to life we are seeking. But this awareness needs to mix and gel with our mental and heart awareness at the same time to make sense of this experience we call “life”.

It’s as practical as deciding what to eat or not to eat. Whether to go by impulse and just yield to our surrounding environment and accumulated habits, or learn to make a more conscious decision as to our actions as well as thoughts, this profound realization begs a whole new way of life.

If we let it. And take action on what we’re learning and hearing from this much more pure source of information and awareness. It needs to be developed which is the challenge of this school of higher learning in which we find ourselves.

Beware the Psychopathic Paradigm

Just look at the world today. Unfortunately, while the fact that non-empathic, power-crazed personages is well known to be the case amongst rulers, politicians, bankers, corporate monsters and the Orwellian media, people still take their word, hoping against hope that their empty promises will come true. What is that? Is it lethargy, apathy, psychotic denial, mind control, or what? Most likely it’s a convergence of many such conditions, but the reality of this form of mass Stockholm syndrome is absolutely pathetic.

Stockholm Syndrome:

Stockholm syndrome, or capture-bonding, is a psychological phenomenon described in 1973 in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending and identifying with the captors. These feelings are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, who essentially mistake a lack of abuse from their captors for an act of kindness. [Emphasis mine] (source)

Does that sound familiar? That’s society at large. Just the abuse/abuser cycle is rife in society, and designedly so. After all, these so-called rulers have themselves been abused by their handlers, physical and/or interdimensional, and so pass on that same paradigm. Hence the massive propagation of fear as the ultimate controlling signal. It’s the implanted and socially engineered parasitic mindset, be it archontic, wetiko or some other transdimensional explanation of this energetic vampirism. The dynamic is there and it’s designed to disempower and control through intimidation, fear and ignorance of the truth.

What are they afraid of ultimately? What is it they are trying to suppress? Because underlying this is the empowering reality that we can break from that cycle at any time; first by identifying what is going on and then by making the necessary changes in our thinking, behavior and attitudes while continuing to grow in manifestation of the infinite divine expression within each of us.

But whatever you do, don’t support it by participating in it. Elections are a perfect example.  They’re rigged and a total distraction. Just look at the strife they engender, dividing up the populace in yet another way in their effort to divide and conquer. It’s time people fully woke up to what’s really going on and how they’re energy is being siphoned off.

Appealing to a hierarchy that shouldn’t be in the first place only reinforces its grip, and is a form of voluntary self-subjugation. It’s eons old and evidenced not just in politics but religion, learning institutions, scientism, medicine and the entire corporate and monetary state model. It’s time to get conscious and disengage. Their entire manufactured structure many call the matrix will crumble. It’s the people who fall for the charade that support it. But first people need to see the extent of the lie, as well as discover their own power of spiritual sovereignty.

Taking the Stand

What invariably happens to a sincere truth seeker is a change of lifestyle. It usually happens in increments. It becomes obvious to have the least entanglement possible with any of the world’s systems. They’re essentially toxic and woefully binding, hindering our very being from being truly free in a whole range of ways.

It may mean to change jobs or careers, so called. It may mean, and usually does, finding some creative outlet where this conscious awareness can manifest via our imagination. It also means disengaging from any compromises we can, be it banking or credit card enslavement, poor eating and living habits, choosing the right people to engage with and leaving others and unfruitful relationships behind.

It’s profound, but only goes as far as we’re willing to go. As these changes progress more and more becomes completely obvious. You are not your name, therefore any legal attachments to your paper identity are essentially fraudulent or fundamentally ensnaring. The entire legal and political system becomes almost embarrassingly stupid and obviously built for control purposes.

Therefore, you strive to get free. Only not striving in their sense, fighting the very thing that only seeks affirmation by our unconscious response to it, but by sidestepping the entire matrix. If we think we can combat or dissipate their fabricated low vibrational world on their level we’ve already lost, and will only recreate another system with the same low vibrational construct in some form.

It just doesn’t work that way.

Be Practical, But Stay Spiritual

I’m all for activism, but it needs to be wisely targeted. When it builds community and most of all awareness it’s good, whatever it is. There are definitely times to lay ourselves on the line when it comes to the encroaching machine. There’s clearly a war on against humanity, one major thing that will become apparent to the seeker, and we cannot lay down and just take it, just as you wouldn’t let the state come in and take your children, never mind vaccinate them or some other such barbaric practice.

The most powerful and impactful effect any of us can have is being who we truly are. To what degree we’re willing to manifest our true self is the challenge we all face, including the apparent nuts and bolts on how we do that in a practical way, one step at a time as we continually raise our levels of consciousness.

Essentially it’s not complicated at all. Being honest, lovingly forthright and sovereign comes naturally to the soul. It’s the rest of our convoluted, conditioned and reflexive self that needs to snap out of the hypnosis and catch up.

Changing our personal environment is a big start. Cut away the hindrances to where you can gather some momentum in manifesting your integral, honest and authentic self. Drop the downers and energy vampires out of your life. You’re not helping them by continuing on as just another compromised gnome to appease and avoid confrontation. That’s the matrix working through our horrific psycho-social programming to hold us back at as low of a frequency as possible – and to NOT venture out into our full-on freedom but stay firmly in the yoke of their parasitic grip.

There’s plenty of motivation to do this for anyone even half awake. The exterior world of the system is closing down at a frantic pace, and your life, mine, and those of our loved ones and the many wonderful people worldwide as well as the life of our very planet are at stake.

It may mean doing more to expose the establishment and what’s behind it in a meaningful, awareness-generating and community building way. Whatever we do or refrain from doing, one cannot keep on business as usual once you’ve woken up, that’s for sure.

Whatever path you take, let it be a conscious one, done wisely and circumspectly. There are so many factors and each of us is our own unique expression of Universe and we need to honor that. But respond we must to the call of consciousness.

It’s not airy fairy, it’s not a religious retreat, it’s not some state of blissful ignoring of our circumstances. It’s being fully alive in the eternal here and now. We are communicating in very human bodies with very real restrictions and limitations as well as needs and desires. But at the same time we are primarily and first and foremost spiritual beings inhabiting these incredible bio-machines.

It may appear to be a conundrum but it’s not. It’s what it is, and we need to have that reality check in full and take on our responsibilities with courage and determination. Not judging by what’s going on around us and the actions of others or any kind of social or even alternative norm. But expressing our uniqueness, as living examples of authenticity and freedom in everything we do.

We are sovereign, in the very essence of the word. Now we need to operate from that all permeating knowing. Everything else will become clear.

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” – Albert Camus

Much love, Zen

 


Zen Gardner is an impactful and controversial author whose writings have been circulated to millions and his personal story has caused no small stir amongst the entrenched alternative pundits. His book You Are the Awakening has met rave reviews and is available on amazon.com. You Are the Awakening examines the dynamics of the awakening to a more conscious awareness of who we are and why we are here – dynamics which are much different from the programmed approach of this world we were born into.