Disobey: Drawing Your Line in the Sand

by James Corbett, The Corbett Report
October 24, 2020

Choices.

We are living in world historical times and, like it or not, the choices that we make over the next few years will have profound implications for the future of the human species.

Whether or not to wear the mask. Whether or not to take the vaccine. Whether or not to get the health app. Whether or not to fill out the digital visitor card. Whether or not to take the chip.

Choices.

Perhaps the most insidious thing that the would-be rulers of society have ever done is to convince the public that there’s no choice to be made. That in each and every instance, you HAVE to do x, y or z.

But this is a lie. These are choices that we are making each and every day. They have always been choices.

Now, don’t get me wrong: choices have consequences. There’s nothing to say that you won’t suffer for making the “wrong” choices in the coming years. In fact, the severity of the consequences that we face for making day-to-day choices are about to escalate greatly. “No jab, no job” quickly becomes “no vax, no travel” and, inevitably, “no injectable 5G luciferase microchip, no access to the market.” Only those who are deliberately deluding themselves fail to see this by this point.

But, nonetheless, we make a choice each and every day to comply with what we know is wrong, or to refuse to go along with the charade. But we have a weapon at our disposal. A secret weapon that has been used throughout the centuries to bring down the dictators.

The Secret Weapon

The “secret weapon,” as it turns out, is not so secret. It has been known and discussed for centuries now. Powerful as it is, though, it is so seemingly simple that it is discarded and forgotten as easily as it is found, only to be rediscovered every generation or two.

As listeners to my recent podcast with Keith Knight of Don’t Tread on Anyone will know, the secret weapon has been around for at least five centuries now, articulated with grace, style and concision by Étienne de La Boétie in his 16th century treatise, The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude.

Obviously there is no need of fighting to overcome this single tyrant, for he is automatically defeated if the country refuses consent to its own enslavement: it is not necessary to deprive him of anything but simply to give him nothing; there is no need that the country make an effort to do anything for itself provided it does nothing against itself. It is therefore the inhabitants themselves who permit, or, rather, bring about, their own subjection, since by ceasing to submit they would put an end to their servitude.

This wisdom was rediscovered in the 19th century by Henry David Thoreau in his classic work on Civil Disobedience.

“A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible. If the tax-gatherer, or any other public officer, asks me, as one has done, “But what shall I do?” my answer is, “If you really wish to do anything, resign your office.” When the subject has refused allegiance, and the officer has resigned his office, then the revolution is accomplished.”

And in the 20th century the idea was given new life by Mahatma Gandhi:

“In fact, I believe that I have rendered a service to India and England by showing in non-cooperation the way out of the unnatural state in which we are both living. In my humble opinion, non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as cooperation with good.”

And, as listeners of my podcast on Eric Frank Russell’s 1951 story “…And Then There Were None” will remember, the inhabitants of the far-away planet of Gand will rediscover this “secret weapon” hundreds of years in the future. In this story, a simple ivory strip with the letters “F—I. W.” engraved on one side is revealed to be the most dangerous weapon in the possession of the the Gands:

Glancing up, his features puzzled, he said, “Call this a weapon?”

“Certainly.”

“Then I don’t get it.” He passed the plaque to Harrison. “Do you?”

“No.” Harrison had a good look at it, spoke to Baines. “What does this F—I. W. mean?”

“Initial-slang,” informed Baines. “Made correct by common usage. It has become a worldwide motto. You’ll see it all over the place, if you haven’t noticed it already.”

“I have spotted it here and there but attached no importance to it and thought nothing of it. I remember now I’ve seen it inscribed in several places, including Seth’s and the fire depot.”

“It was on the sides of that bus we couldn’t empty,” added Gleed. “Didn’t mean anything to me.”

“It means plenty,” said Jeff. “Freedom—I Won’t!”

As Russell’s story goes on to make clear (listen to it or read it if you haven’t yet done so), the deceptively simple mantra of the non-cooperationist (“Freedom—I Won’t!”) is like a super power. Understood and practiced by an entire planet full of people, the practice of non-compliance makes that people ungovernable and unconquerable. Tyranny cannot exist where there is no one to follow the tyrant’s orders.

Yes, as humans have known for hundreds of years, the key to overcoming dictatorship is to engage in active disobedience against it. This is why the state invests so much of its time and energy into propagandizing the public. It requires massive amounts of brainwashing to convince people to go along with a system that is so evidently detrimental to their physical, mental, economic, social and spiritual wellbeing. But it is a sign of the effectiveness of this propaganda that we have to turn to the history books (or the annals of science-fiction) for examples of calls of mass non-cooperation.

Thankfully, the era of the “Great Reset” is at the same time awakening a significant portion of the public to the dire nature of our predicament and the need for disobedience. From Victoria to Dublin, the human spirit is rising once again to combat the despotism that is descending upon it.

So how can we apply this ancient wisdom to our own lives in the present day? What can we do to start down the path of non-cooperation that will be so essential to throwing off the yoke of technocratic tyranny?

Getting Started

If we are to have any hope of negotiating the gauntlet of choices that we are about to run through, it is imperative that we be prepared to face the consequences of the choices that we have to make. But before we can even begin to prepare ourselves physically or economically for those consequences, we have to be prepared psychologically. That means committing ourselves to the principle of non-compliance with that which we know to be wrong, and determining where, when and how we make our stand against the authoritarians.

Back near the start of this COVID World Order crisis, I wrote a Guide to Surviving a Crisis which exhorted my readers to engage in some self-reflection about their lines in the sand:

Firstly, know what you are capable of and what you are not able to do. How long could you last through a lockdown without needing help from some government agency? What are you prepared to do in the face of mandatory relocation? Or forced vaccination? How long could you survive without work or regular pay? And, also of extreme importance, what are your family and loved ones capable of? Do they share your views and will they be with you in your decisions?

Well, here we are seven months later. We are about to enter the “dark winter” of the second wave, which, we are constantly reassured, will be the worst part of the scamdemic. Worse, the Americans in the crowd are about to go through a (s)election cycle that is almost guaranteed to lead to more widescale unrest. Even the MSM is starting to flirt with the idea that this “could be the beginning of the end” of the United States.

If ever there was a time to engage in that round of self-reflection, this is it. If ever there was a time to draw your line in the sand, this is it.

Your responses to this round of self-questioning will determine how you go about preparing yourself and your family in real world terms, so be as specific as possible when preparing your list. And be honest with yourself. If you commit yourself to something unreasonable and you end up breaking that pledge, then you may feel like the entire list has been undermined.

So, when you prepare your list, write what you mean and mean what you write. What are the things that you are prepared to compromise in a moment of emergency and what is the inviolable line in the sand that you will not cross under any circumstance?

Think about your own situation and be as specific as possible. Do you have a loved one who requires ongoing medical attention and who may be subject to harsh restrictions in the event of future lockdowns? Do you have a job that will require you to travel or is likely to require proof of immunity? Do you have children who will suffer if you are forced out of work or out of public life?

No one said that the choices we are going to make will be easy. That is why we should start preparing our answers now.

What happens next?

After you have plotted out the most likely scenarios for the coming years and drawn your line in the sand, it is time to prepare and fortify yourself for whatever may come as a result of that choice.

If you absolutely refuse to get vaccinated under any circumstances, for instance, you better be working on securing yourself a job or some means of subsistence that will not require such a thing. If you will not submit to the new digital government IDs or the health tracing apps or the digital currencies, you better be working on developing a community (or a freedom cell) of like-minded people (preferably in your geographical vicinity) who can help to support each other as the walls of the police state start to close in.

The specifics of what will be required will depend on where we have drawn our lines in the sand, what resources we already have available to us, the community in which we live and a million other variables. But once we begin defining those variables and wargaming various scenarios, we will be able to come up with concrete plans for securing our food supply, building a local trading community, and stockpiling resources for the times ahead.

The future is our choice

Non-compliance is a time-tested strategy. It has worked to bring down dictators and empires in the past. No, the victory is not eternal. It does not forever and always solve the problem of authoritarianism that has always plagued mankind. But guess what? Nothing has, and nothing will. This is part of the way human society functions. It is a struggle that is engaged in afresh by every generation. Anyone who critiques an important strategy for undermining the authority of a dictator because it won’t solve all of humanity’s problems for the rest of eternity is either a troll, a coward or an agent of discord.

But let’s for a moment concede everything to the trolls, the cowards and the agents of discord. Your act of non-compliance will change nothing. It will solve nothing. The steamroller of the New World Order will roll right over you and carry on its merry path without a second thought, and your sacrifice will have achieved nothing.

As Thoreau observes:

“But even suppose blood should flow. Is there not a sort of blood shed when the conscience is wounded? Through this wound a man’s real manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting death. I see this blood flowing now.”

Even if our critics are right that this, our most powerful weapon, will be ineffective against the dictators, they are wrong to imply that our acts of non-compliance are meaningless or wasted. At the end of our life, we will each have to come to our own reckoning. In the scales, we will have to weigh our actions, our decisions and our choices. Did we resist evil? Or did we lay down before it in the hopes that it would leave us alone for a short while longer? That choice—the choice to stand up for what is good or to lie down and comply with evil—is what matters in the final reckoning.

Mighty are those who will be able to face their final day with these words upon their lips:

“No, I will not comply. No, I will not do as I am told. No, I will not stop what I am doing.”

If any of the foregoing leads one to the conclusion that I think these choices will be easy to make or that only the weak will fail the tests that we are about to face, then I have failed in my job as a communicator. On the contrary. Only the strongest of the strong will be able to commit themselves fully to non-compliance. When faced with the prospect of losing your job, how many will stick to their principles? And what about when the ability to buy and sell hinges on you saying “yes” to the demands of the tyrant? Who will separate themselves from their own family or force their children to live as outcasts by refusing to go along with the agenda?

Only the fool looks at Gandhi and sees a frail, weak man. If I’m being honest, I, too, worry about these choices and exactly where it is I draw the line in the sand.

But as difficult as it will be to maintain the ideal, it remains the ideal.

Freedom. I won’t.

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