Enjoy Life and Growl!

 

Here's another supplementary page with more suggestions about how to live well as a TOLFA graduate, between now and E-Day.

Segment 18 began by reminding us what we must do; to use no violence at all - not even the violence of casting a vote, which always endorses a violent system - but to take three actions with the acronym "GRR", hence a "growling":-

It seems almost incredible. that human history will undergo such a radical change, so soon, just because each TOLFA graduate takes those three easy, simple actions. Can it be true? Yes.

This is New

Please notice (in case you hadn't before!) that this approach to the future of freedom is unprecedented. There is plenty of excellent literature on how a free society would work in theory, and - happily - an abundant and still-growing supply of reports, especially on the Net, about the increasing chaos government is causing. But never has anyone published a simple and systematic plan for putting such theory in to practice; for actually terminating the state. This is new, and as a TOLFA grad (as a Growler) you are now on its leading edge, helping cause it to happen. There is only one way government can be caused to vanish, and that's when all its employees quit; and there's only one way to motivate them to quit and that's to help them understand what government and freedom are all about - to re-educate them. Nothing else is needed, and nothing else will do.

Many fine ideas exist for living as free as possible in a very unfree world. Harry Browne's book of that title is recommended at the foot of Segment 18, and another - Claire Wolfe's remarkable "I am Not a Number" - is well worth reading, and her web site should be explored. She describes a life style that brings the greatest degree of self-esteem by refusing to co-operate with the state in as many ways as possible while building the underground economy, the "white" market.

However, all of these suffer an important shortfall: they all assume that the state is unmovable, that "living free" means more or less permanently looking over one's shoulder, living under government radar, doing without quite a lot of what we might desire to enjoy. This would make sense - and very good morality - if that assumption were true, if the state were a permanent fixture; but since we know it will quite shortly disappear, we need not limit ourselves so much.

Do consider it as an option, by all means; but remember that the state is now a temporary monstrosity, not a permanent one, and so our choice concerns a short term life style, not one to last for ever. If you feel that during this temporary period (until about 2027) you'd enjoy life more by maximizing your self esteem by withdrawing all form of cooperation with government, follow Claire's advice and go for it! Alternatively if you'd enjoy it more by living in a far more conventional way, pretending to respect government people while knowing their jobs will soon disappear, that too is a good choice. As for morality, the onus now falls on any who are failing to take this opportunity to help terminate this evil institution, to account for their failure.

Either way, the only essential action is to "growl": Graduate, Recruit, Resign. And yes, Repeat.

Suggested Dos and Donts

This period is one of transition, and after about 2022 things will change very fast. As each of us brings one friend to and through the course so our numbers double annually, there will be several million of us by then and the number of state employees walking out on their jobs will become significant. It will become progressively less able to function. That deterioration will accelerate. Transition to Liberty offers a take on some of the likely details of that process.

At the same time, we shall begin to become aware of each other (for example when we start to hear the reply to our invitation "Thanks, but I'm already a TOLFA grad") and so will trade with each other preferentially, so building a free market which, at the very same time, government will become less and less able to suppress or control.

That's the stage when it will make excellent sense to engage in some "civil disobedience" - for example, by hiring and paying someone without deducting taxes or handing them over to the government. Wholly illegal still, but as the state becomes unable to enforce those laws, quite safe and highly productive. That is the time when the two streams of liberty-lovers, mentioned above, will combine. Then the White Market will explode in size until, after E-Day, it becomes the only remaining way to trade.

Other kinds of civil disobedience will also become safe to practice, because law enforcement will become impossible as government resources shrink. What a pleasure it will be to let driver licenses expire without that odious visit to the DMV, to let April 15th come and go without writing the IRS, to construct a home without a building permit, to smoke weed (if that's your scene) with fast reducing fear of narcs. Buy, sell, store and lend gold and silver, ie become an unlicensed banker using real money. Commit some free enterprise, without a permit! The heavy downside from doing any of that too soon, while government remains strong, will melt away - but to do such things prematurely is not, to my mind, "enjoying life" at all - and has little to do with freedom, for it means one becomes less free as a result.

So instead, for the present, it's wiser to pay taxes, apparently feeding the monster, contrary to all we prefer; because we also know that a few years hence, the currency in which we pay them will have become so worthless that government will be incapable of using them any longer to wreak havoc. We may accept its handouts, knowing that meantime, a "dollar" transferred from government to the free market will slightly empower the latter, and weaken the former. We accept its nasty SS numbering system, which enables it so easily to track us, spy on us, steal what we produce, treat us as slaves - because we know that before many years have passed, all that slave-state paraphernalia will exist only in museums of the Government Age - assuming only that TOLFAns GRRowl. Appear as perfectly "ordinary" as possible, so that government people see us yet do not recognize us for what we are. Be a "sleeper." Then they will never know what hit them.

Of course, there are some things we will not do, on ethical grounds, even though it may cause trouble, even during these years when government has the power to do us harm. Different people will draw that moral line at different points in the sand - but an obvious candidate will be a refusal to obey a draft, if one is reinstated, to go and kill the government's foreign enemies. More difficult will be a decision to refuse to register for the draft, which is a precursor to that. Some of us will decline to allow a newborn baby to be identified with an SS number - though about the time that newborn attains an age when he or she can decide for himself about applying for one, its significance will be expiring. All of us will refuse to let our children be indoctrinated by the state, in its schools; home schooling is the best alternative, and this is important because 12 years' exposure to state brain washers is a fearful and permanent waste of the best years of the growing child's life.

So yes, certainly, there are some things a TOLFA grad should never do. The general principle, in these waning years of state power, should be to avoid doing things which, through government, would harm somebody else (foreigners, children, neighbors...) but not to go out of one's way just to assert one's own rights, for with a little patience - and GRRowling - those rights will very soon be fully restored. Otherwise, live life to the full, take advantage of everything it has to offer - knowing that very shortly, it will offer much more yet.

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