Freedom From the State

Freedom from the State is a journey that begins in the mind. It doesn’t matter where you go or what you do, if you haven’t snapped the chains that restrict your own thinking you can never be free of the burdens of the State. There are lots of books and podcasts and respected speakers who claim to possess the secret formula for dealing with the State. But if your mind is still chained to the oars of the State’s galley whether or not you can beat a parking ticket or skim an extra 5% off your taxes doesn’t change the fact that you are still a slave at the State’s beck and call. If the transformation doesn’t start in your head, all you really are is a pet, thrilled when your master gives you a new collar to bind your throat. 
The first step toward freedom is not the realization that you want a longer leash. The first step toward freedom is recognizing that you are a slave and that slavery is evil. Once you fully understand this point, nothing but the destruction of slavery is acceptable. However, the State has placed a long confusing series of lies in the path of all who would seek freedom, and each of those lies leads back into bondage.
The Strongest Chain of The State is the Fear of the Unknown.
One of the most common things a slave faces when confronted with the idea of freedom is the fear of living without his master to provide for and protect him. Sometimes even the slave that has been beaten and abused is oddly terrified at the proposition of struggling through life without the master’s hand above him. Sadly, this is the reason that some people will never be able to accept freedom and will fight vigorously to keep their collar firmly latched to their neck.
In practical terms, the slave will seek comfort in his bondage by insisting on any number of fallacies, and will make great effort to ignore any information that contradicts the reality he has created for himself. We see this when a slave chants the mythical mantra that the State provides roads or the State keeps away the evil terrorists or how without the State there would be no laws and savages would rule the world stealing and killing at will. Never mind that in each objection the State itself is the one disrupting the natural processes of life that would provide all the goods and services that people wanted, and never mind that the State is the actual entity that kills and robs on a scale that no crime gang or terrorist organization could ever compare. The slave will ignore the fact that the State currently steals more than half the fruit of his labor and can kill him on a whim, and will instead cling to his fear of what could happen if his master weren’t holding the leash.
Make no mistake; the slave’s bondage is not an indication of ignorance or stupidity. Often times the most intelligent and best educated slaves fear freedom on the deepest levels. The shallow minded slaves rarely notice their chains as they are too easily distracted by the free circuses with their dancing bears and staged fights. As long as the State provides the bread and wine, the simple minded never care that the cup is made of lead and this diet fills the gut but rots the brain. The intelligent slave sees this and understands it, but the fear of life without the State is stronger than his desire for freedom or his disgust for his master.
Can a Bird Be Fooled By a Bigger Cage?
I have often used the example of the birdcage. A bird in a cage is a captive bird. Double the size of the cage and the bird is still captive. If you make the cage big enough and provide enough distractions, the bird may not notice the cage, but it is none the less captive. On the other hand, take the noble raptor and carefully raise it from a young age, constantly reinforcing the belief that all food comes from the handler and your trained bird will fly through the sky, kill on command, and fetch the prize to the master. Then he will perch on his stand, content with the scraps of his own kill that the master allows him to keep. But he is still just a captive bird. He has simply been fooled into accepting his enslavement without the master bothering to provide a cage.
Breaking the Chain is a Matter of Will, Not Strength.
Freedom cannot be realized so long as dependency upon the master is acceptable. No amount of argument, no compilation of facts, and no appeal to logic, can wrest the slave from his safe haven of bondage so long as he finds comfort in his master’s hand. It is only in coming to grips with the evils of slavery that the individual can see himself as he really is and see the State as his enemy and not his benefactor. For this reason it’s often unprofitable to answer each objection to a stateless society by explaining how each service would be provided and how each need would be met. Until the slave realizes that the State doesn’t actually provide any useful service and that the State only hinders the market from providing things like safety, law, justice, and prosperity, offering various substitutes for the State will not wean the slave from sucking his pacifier and gripping his blanket. He must first realize the blanket provides no protection and the pacifier is void of milk.
The real task is in breaking the illusion of the State as a caretaker. So long as the slave refuses to see that a relationship with the State is a one-sided affair where the State takes over half of all the production while providing nothing in return, the slave will remain a slave. But the realization that all the goods and services that the slave depends on are actually provided by people is the beginning of the knowledge of freedom. Understanding that the State is simply a tumor on humanity, siphoning the life-blood of society to engorge itself while providing nothing but illness and death, is the start of a one-way journey on the path of freedom.
The Moment You Stop Believing is the Moment the Chain Breaks.
As long as you cling to the lies of the State and as long as you seek excuses as to why freedom can’t be found, you will remain a slave. The moment of change comes when you decide for yourself that any fate is better than remaining in bondage. For some, this is an act of desperation that is only faced when all other options have been exhausted. For others, the moment they realize they are a slave the urge for freedom drives them to abandon the State without reservation. The difference in these two extremes is the difference in individuals and at its core that difference is the strength and the beauty of human kind. The individual differences in people along with our inherent similarities, is the reason freedom works. We are all driven by identical urges for survival, for reproduction, and for prosperity, and yet each of us values everything we encounter in life on a scale unique to ourselves. This oddity of nature provides a mechanism for humans to fulfill every want, need, and desire, which our imagination can conceive of through the wonders of voluntary exchange. This market of exchange has lifted humanity from scratching worms from the ground and digging grubs from fallen trees, to standing atop creation contemplating immortality.
The State, on the other hand, is a distraction from that progress and is simply a failed religion, like so many other superstitions we have toyed with through the ages. The time is rapidly approaching when humans will to grow up and discard the State. Or as one man said, “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
Humans will someday drop their security blanket and spit out their pacifier. When this happens the chains of slavery will vanish and a free adult will step into the light of liberty and walk upright.