Folks Are Using Our Books and Liberators to Widely Expose the Organized Crime “Government” and It is Starting to Pick Up Steam! James Corbett invited us to present an update on what has been happening at the Art of Liberty Foundation since our July 30th, 2025, appearance on #SolutionsWatch for Etienne’s new book: To See the Cage is to Leave It – 25 Techniques that the Few Use to Control the Many. Our update starts at 1:10:04.The basics of the summary are that after appearing on the show, Corbett Report “Corbett-eers” responded by buying 500+ books that we shipped to over 20 countries.Even more exciting was that we received offers to translate the book into various languages, including from Spanish political activist Josefina Fraile, who helped organize other translators in Greece and Spain. Josefina also translated the most important book in the world right now, The Great Taking by David Rogers Webb into Spanish as well. We are finalizing two Spanish translations for Latin American Spanish and the Castilian Spanish of Josefina’s native Spain, and we should send them to the printer next week! We have Greek, German, and French translations in the pipeline. Thank you, Josefina, ΒΟΔΑΣ ΚΟΡΑΗΣ/ Vodas Korais, Beatrice, and Berni, for your service! Our Largest “Friends Bundle” Order EverIn the update, I mentioned that both “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History Exposed! AND To See the Cage is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many have become the very rare (0.0001%?) books people are buying in bulk and distributing to their friends, family, and colleagues. Over 10% of our sales are in five- and ten-copy “Friends Bundles,” and we have dozens of supporters who have distributed over 10 copies, with a dozen or so who have distributed over 20+. What is Going On? Folks are realizing that our books are both: “Striking the Root,” i.e., exposing the REAL way that inter-generational organized crime is robbing and controlling society, and we are proposing and exposing THE ONLY solution that is fair for everyone: Voluntaryism. No one gets the “ring of power” because there isn’t one. So.. Once you realize what is going on.. What is your/our strongest play?Widely exposing the scam in a practical and effective way that gets around the algorithmic censorship of the DARPA Internet. Low-cost “picture books” (that expand the number of people who will engage with any book) and help bring your loved ones to that “Moment of Insight.” Low-cost Liberator flash drives that get around the censorship of the DARPA Internet while allowing anyone to copy for the cost of bulk 64GB flash drives on eBay, roughly $3 a pop when you buy 5-10. I mentioned that we received our most significant “Friends Bundle” order ever for $2,000 worth of Art of Liberty Foundation publications, which would have mailed to 41 NC Sheriffs in the 1st wave. That has been changed and expanded to 250+ copies of To See the Cage is to Leave It that will begin to be distributed to NC Sheriffs, Police Chiefs, and VIPs in a couple of weeks. This is very similar to what we want to do in New Hampshire in support of the Free State Project, in an effort that we call: The Pre-State Project. What is cool is that this is already going on around the world and starting to pick up steam… The final update we gave James is that we are starting to ship bulk copies of books and Liberator drives to Amazon (A Mason?) to leverage their distribution network. We are getting the cost out of acquiring bulk copies and making them available through Amazon, which makes it easier to order and expands the number of people who discover us in the world’s largest online marketplace. We should be shipping through Amazon (A Mason?) by the end of January, and until then, you can get your own deeply discounted “Friends Bundles” at ArtOfLiberty.org/StoreTHICKREDLINE RebootedThe final update is that we received a $2,000 donation to (partially) reboot our THICKREDLINE Project, where our domain name was stolen in a dirty tricks campaign. We have a new domain and will get an abbreviated version of the old website back up, with an updated Handbook for Sheriffs, Police, and ICE. Stay tuned for more info… We have a lot on our plate and can use all the help we can get: https://artofliberty.org/sponsorship-programAbout the AuthorEtienne de la Boetie2 is the founder of the Art of Liberty Foundation, and the editor of the Art of Liberty Daily News on Substack and Five Meme Friday, which delivers hard-hitting voluntaryist memes and the best of the alternative media. He is an internationally recognized expert and speaker on voluntaryism and government illegitimacy, criminality and corruption. His original writings and research can be found at ArtOfLiberty.org and ArtOfLiberty.Substack.comHe is the author of To See the Cage Is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many which exposes an inter-generational psychological operation by the “government,” Hollywood, and the monopoly media to indoctrinate the population with the pseudo-religion of Statism using dozens of unethically manipulative techniques ranging from subliminal content in television programming to a hidden curriculum in the mandatory “government” schools, scouting, and police/military training.He has also authored: “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed! which breaks down how inter-generational organized crime centered around banking and central banking is robbing and controlling the population using the technique of “government” with puppet politicians and monopoly media/academia. His upcoming book: Voluntaryism – How the Only “ISM” Fair for Everyone Leads to Harmony, Prosperity and Good Karma for All! explains how REAL freedom (voluntaryism) can provide all the legitimate non-redistributive services provided by “government” without the waste, fraud, abuse, indoctrination and extortion. He was also the author and principal investigator for the monographs: The Covid-19 Suspects and Their Ties to Eugenics and Population Control/Reduction and Solving Covid – The Covid 19, Eugenics, and Vaccine/Drug Scam TimelineAbout the Art of Liberty FoundationA start-up public policy organization: Voluntaryist crime fighters exposing inter-generational organized crime’s control of the “government,” media and academia. The foundation is the publisher of “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed!- How Inter-Generational Organized Crime Runs the “Government,” Media and Academia.We publish The Daily News, a free survey of the best of the alternative media, censored videos, and documentaries, and the Daily News Digest, a once-per-day-summary of the Daily News as a premium service for paid subscribers of any Art of Liberty Foundation Substack and Five Meme Friday- a free weekly e-mail or Telegram summary of the best of the alternative media, censored truth videos, and at least five hot, fresh, dank liberty memes every week, and “Government,” Media, and Academia Exposed!- A Telegram summary of the best mainstream and alternative news stories proving our thesis that all three are being hierarchically controlled by inter-generational organized crime interests. You can read our 2023 Annual Report here.

Our Friends at the Libertarian Christian Institute Break it Down… Chapter & Verse! Etienne Note: The Art of Liberty Foundation has been distributing this pamphlet from the Libertarian Christian Institute for years as a PDF in our credit card-sized, uncensorable flashdrive o’ freedom, The Liberator and in its free Dropboxes. For Christmas I am republishing it in its entirety where I “value-added” it with memes and visualizations. We have struck a deal with the Libertarian Christian Institute to reprint the pamphlet (without the memes) and add it to our on-line store at ArtOfLiberty.org/Store. The printing order has been placed and we are now accepting pre-orders that are scheduled to arrive and begin shipping on January 12th. Order a Single Copy for $4.95 here: https://artofliberty.org/product/the-idolatry-of-statism/Order a Five Copy “Friends Bundle” for $20 here: https://artofliberty.org/product/5-copies-of-what-anarchy-isnt-the-idolatry-of-statism/The Idolatry of Statism – Why Christians Should Oppose Nationalism Contributors: Cody Cook Matthew Curtis Fleischer Paul Maitrejean Laurence Vance Jeff WrightTHE IDOLATRY OF STATISMContentsJesus was an Anti-Nationalist ………………………………..……………………… 4The American Sacrament that Denies Allegiance to Christ ………. 9The Idolatry of Statism ……………………………..…………………………………… 13The Astonishing Power of a Faithful Mustard Seed Revolution …. 18Is America the Last, Best Hope of the World? ……………..……………… 24Should Christians Cite the Pledge of Allegiance? ……………………….. 30Are You an Imperial Christian? ……………………..…………………………….. 34JESUS WAS AN ANTI-NATIONALISTBy Matthew Curtis FleischerOne of the more overlooked ways in which Jesus brought God’s ethical ideal into full bloom — or as Matthew 5:17 puts it, one way he “fulfilled” the Old Testament law and prophets — was by reorganizing God’s followers from a nation into a church. He denationalized them, transforming them from a typical earthly kingdom into the transnational, interethnic, nongovernmental, nonviolent, geographically dispersed organization we call the universal church. For these reasons, Jesus was an anti-nationalist which makes Christian Nationalism antithetical to the Christian faith.Originally, God formed his followers into the uniquely theocratic, demilitarized, morally advanced nation of Israel. A nation for sure, but by today’s standards, a largely non-nationalistic one. Eventually, the Israelites tired of being different and asked God for a king “such as all the other nations have” (1 Sam. 8:5), one “to go out before us and fight our battles” (8:20). So God, in one of his many Old Testament concessions, lovingly accommodated them.But God also allowed such human-led nationalism to run its naturally destructive course. For the next seven centuries, the Israelites found themselves entangled in typical nationalistic struggles — political exile, a return home, rebuilding efforts, struggles for independence, and additional defeats. When Jesus arrived, Israel was under Roman occupation and struggling to keep its national identity alive. It was this nationalistic context that shaped the Israelites’ expectations for God’s promised Messiah, whom they hoped would resuscitate their national sovereignty.Jesus was opposed to nationalism But when Jesus arrived, he would have none of it. He didn’t gather God’s followers and take back territory, militarily or otherwise. Instead, he repeatedly declined to adopt any and every aspect of nationalism. He unequivocally rejected typical kingship, declining the devil’s offer of control over all the kingdoms of the world, refusing to use his supernatural powers for political gain, running from a crowd that wanted to enthrone him, waiting to announce his messiahship until he could redefine it to exclude nationalism, choosing to ride on a donkey instead of a war horse during his inauguration parade, and eventually declaring himself king of all people and all nations, not just Israel.¹ Likewise, he shunned all political power and commanded his followers to do the same, instructing them not to “lord it over” others, sending them into the world as sheep among wolves (not as a well-organized army), scattering them across the globe as foreigners, exiles, and sojourners whose primary citizenship is in heaven, and ordering them to put their swords away instead of defend him (let alone a nation), while also definitively proclaiming to the Romans that his followers do not fight.²Jesus’ anti-nationalism was most evident in his open inclusion of GentilesSince the start of God’s direct intervention into human history, membership in his kingdom had been tied to Israelite ethnicity/ citizenship. Israel alone was God’s chosen people. Then Jesus began welcoming anyone who believed in God and sought to do his will. He made membership available to everyone. In fact, not only did he welcome gentile believers, he actively sought them out (Romans 1:6). He then commanded his apostles to do the same, instructing them to preach the gospel to all peoples and ordering them to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19), which they did.³Such inclusivity was always God’s goal. He simply used one group of people (Israel) to forge a path to all people. From the beginning, the Bible frequently tells us God chose Israel and set it apart not as an end in itself but as a means of blessing all people and all nations. Paul called God’s use of Israel for such a purpose 4 “the gospel in advance” (Gal. 3:8).That’s why Jesus dissolved the political barriers that typically divide people and erased the morally arbitrary lines we call national borders. To paraphrase Paul, Jesus united Jew and Gentile. He “made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility … to create in himself one new humanity out of the two … and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross” (Eph. 2:14-16). For in God’s fellowship, “there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28).⁵Jesus’ command to love our enemies had the same effect. It was 6 the ultimate border destroyer. Because of it, there are no longer neighbors and non-neighbors. There are only neighbors. There are no longer natives and foreigners. There are only natives. There are no longer insiders and outsiders. There are only insiders. There is no longer an “us” and a “them.” There is only “us.”Jesus wasn’t merely non-nationalistic; he was anti-nationalistic. He didn’t merely fail to meet Israel’s nationalistic expectations; he theologically terminated them. Jesus made a conscious, concerted effort to forever erase nationalistic divisions from among God’s followers. He definitively declared statehood to be inappropriate for his followers. According to Jesus, God doesn’t want his followers to make America into a Christian nation. He wants us to be the church. Hence the Bible doesn’t merely fail to support Christian nationalism, it warns against it.Jesus didn’t merely reorganize God’s followersHe reconfigured their entire identity. Before Jesus, they were identifiable primarily by their unique nationalistic characteristics — the worship of only one God, a slightly advanced moral code, unusual ceremonial laws, different religious rituals, a restrained warfare policy, etc. After Jesus, they were set apart by their uniquely non-nationalistic characteristics — their border/race/ ethnicity-transcending inclusiveness and self-sacrificial love of everyone, even enemies. Therefore, what was once productive is now counterproductive. The nationalism that previously contributed to the distinctiveness of God’s followers now negates that distinctiveness.Advancing God’s kingdom on earth today requires transcending political power struggles and nationalistic entanglements, Trumplike or otherwise, to express God’s equal and unconditional love for all people. In the way of Jesus, it means refusing to allow our love to be limited by national boundaries. It means living as a setapart people whose existence bears witness to a wholly different type of kingdom, an all-inclusive one.Christian nationalism is backslidingAny Christian nationalism today — any Christian-related favoring of one nation’s citizens over another’s — is ethical backsliding. It reverses what Jesus accomplished by reintroducing ethnic and political membership criteria, by resurrecting the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile, and by turning neighbors back into enemies. Just as Old Testament Israel rebelled against God by demanding a king “like the other nations,” Christians today rebel against God by prioritizing their national interests above universal love “like the other nations.”Christians are principally citizens of a higher kingdom, and we must act like it.THE AMERICAN SACRAMENT THAT DENIES ALLEGIANCE TO CHRISTBy Cody CookThere’s an antebellum African-American spiritual song called “Down by the Riverside.” The song reflects upon being baptized and what it means for the one who receives the sacrament. Lines like “gonna try on my long white robe” and “gonna lay down my heavy load” are paired with “gonna lay down my sword and shield” and “ain’t gonna study war no more.”This connection between being baptized and giving up violence is one that wouldn’t occur to many Christians. You can draw a path between the two from Scripture in a couple steps—from baptism as the sacrament that brings us into that faith, to Jesus’ exhortation that living that faith out requires nonviolence—but there is a more concrete relationship in the history of the early church.Here’s what the second century church father Tertullian had to say about the relationship between Christianity and going to war:“Inquiry is made about this point, whether a believer may turn himself unto military service… There is no agreement between the divine and the human sacrament, the standard of Christ and the standard of the devil, the camp of light and the camp of darkness. One soul cannot be due to two masters—God and Cæsar” (Tertullian, On Idolatry, ch. 19).Did you catch that reference to sacraments? Tertullian says that no one can take both a divine and human sacrament. Nowadays, sacrament is a church-y word that Christians use to describe a religious rite, such as baptism or the Lord’s Supper. Was Tertullian taking this Christian word and applying it metaphorically to serving Caesar as if it were some kind of counterfeit religious rite? Actually, it was the opposite. The word “sacrament” was a pagan word which later took on a religious meaning for Christians.In ancient Roman law and religious practice, a sacramentum was an oath or vow. In the first century B.C., Julius Caesar used the word to describe a military oath which recitation initiates the oath taker into the Roman militaryAccording to Daniel G. Van Slyke’s 2007 article, “The Changing Meanings of Sacramentum: Historical Sketches,” this military usage “soon became the primary referent of sacramentum in non Christian authors” (p. 247, Antiphon 11.3, 2007). It became primarily associated with the sacramentum militare, and this was the oath that Tertullian had in mind. The sacramentum, which functioned as a solemn, religious rite, was taken by soldiers as a loyalty pledge to the emperor.Loyalty pledge to the emperorAccording to the Roman military author Vegetius, in this sacrament, “the soldiers swear that they shall faithfully execute all that the Emperor commands, that they shall never desert the service, and that they shall not seek to avoid death for the Roman republic!” One not only had to be willing to die for Caesar on the 7 field of battle, but the penalty for abdicating one’s responsibilities could be death.The parallels with baptism seem obvious. A Christian who is baptized dies to self and former allegiances, joining the body of Christ to do Christ’s will. When Jesus asks his disciples in Mark 10:38-39 whether they are able to be baptized with the baptism that He will be baptized, the baptism is a baptism of death. The one who is baptized makes an oath of complete allegiance to Christ, even to the point of death.R. Alan Streett, in his book Caesar and the Sacrament: Baptism: A Rite of Resistance, summarizes Tertullian’s argument in this way:“Tertullian… identified the act of baptism as the Christian sacramentum and contrasted it to a Roman soldier’s pledge of loyalty to the emperor and Empire. By analogy, he makes the case that just as a soldier, upon his oath of allegiance, was inducted into Caesar’s army, so a believer was initiated by the sacrament (oath) of baptism into God’s kingdom. Each vowed faithful service to his god and kingdom.”Tertullian’s argument was that one has to make a choice between which of the two sacraments they will take: will they pledge themselves to Caesar and keep studying war, or will they pledge themselves to Christ and commit to study war no more?This is some interesting historical background about early Christianity perhaps, but what does it tell us about living in the world today? America in particular is said to be a Christian nation where God and military service don’t conflict. American soldiers don’t swear loyalty oaths to put the state above all other allegiances, do they?Loyalty pledge to empireAs a matter of fact, they do. In the United States military, enlisted members are required to make this oath:“I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”But what about when an allegiance to the Constitution or an order from a superior contradicts one’s allegiance and orders from Christ?The oath makes no exceptions for conscience or for allegiances outside of the United States system—God is only called on to be a witness to one’s commitment to the state—though a scrupulous soldier might risk disobeying what she deems to be an unlawful or unconstitutional order and hope to not be punished for it later–an improvement upon Caesar’s sacramentum to be sure, but has the Christian who takes this modern sacramentum truly freed themself from the impossible task of trying to serve two masters?While Tertullian is concerned about Christians disobeying Christ’s commands of nonviolence, it is allegiance which he is most concerned about here. He writes that even where “there is no necessity for taking part in sacrifices or capital punishments,” there is still “no agreement between the divine and the human sacrament.” One’s allegiance must be to Christ.THE IDOLATRY OF STATISMBy Paul MaitrejeanMany Christians today are quick to leap to the defense of the current American regime. They will go to any length to defend its actions, particularly in the case of foreign policy and “culture” wars. On both sides of the aisle, Christians will throw their support behind virtually any politician of their particular political leaning regardless of their record, his words, or his current actions. Supporting without question the activities of the American government, particularly in foreign matters, has nearly become an unwritten prerequisite for being a ChristianAmazingly, these Christians are supporting and swearing allegiance to among the most godless, cruel, greedy, murderous governments in history. When this is pointed out, though, the supporters of the State will cite Scripture in their defense—usually the oft-heard and badly-twisted Romans 13:1—and they fall upon the dissenter like wolves. Is this the sort of mindset Jesus came among us to promote?The government which they so ardently support is guilty of violating every God-given right. God gave us the right to life (Exodus 20:13)—but the American government is guilty of murder on every scale through assassination programs, unjust wars, taxpayer-funded abortion, drone strikes, and attacks on citizens (such as Waco and Ruby Ridge). God gave us the right to liberty (1 Peter 4:15)—but the American government has taken upon itself to tell us what we must and must not do, own, buy, sell, consume, and so on. It also imprisons people for nonviolent crimes and even arrests and incarcerates without evidence or trial. God has given us the right to property (Exodus 20:15) – but the American government imposes coercive taxes, confiscates possessions, and tells us what we can and cannot own. God gave us the right to privacy (I Peter 4:15) – but the American government gives itself license to spy on us through our computers, our telephones, our records, and by means of cameras, drones, and even our own neighbors.If God grants these rights to life, liberty, property, and privacy and safeguards them through His divine law, then it logically follows that man has no authority to take them away. Man, however, through his fabrication known as The State, has given himself the perceived right to do exactly that – to define and even take away the rights of other men. In taking this gross license, man thus attempts to dethrone God and replace Him with the stateShould Christians not be outraged at this blatant usurpation? Should they not recognize blasphemy when they see it? Should they not call out Caesar for declaring himself to be god?The vast majority of people who identify themselves as Christians not only disregard the blasphemy but even argue in favor of it. How dare you question the legitimacy of the innumerable wars we wage around the globe? How dare you suggest that the state is evil? How dare you advocate throwing off the yoke of human rule? Modern Christians are overwhelmingly in favor of the American state despite its trail of theft, enslavement, and murder over the past one hundred fifty years. They wave their flags, recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and repeat their statist mantras of “Support the troops!” “Land of the free!” “We’re a Christian nation!” “Love it or leave it!” “God bless America!” and so on.The fact that they so willingly turn a blind eye to the state’s blasphemous and tyrannical nature and so enthusiastically give it their unwavering and unquestioning support, despite its ungodly nature, should make us wonder who their true god is.In Daniel 2, the prophet explains Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, in which he saw great image “whose brightness was excellent . . . and the form thereof was terrible” (Daniel 2:31). This same image was composed of gold, silver, brass, and iron, which respectively represented the Babylonian, Persian, Greek, and Roman empires – kingdoms of men.Throughout Scripture, “graven images” are most often associated with the pagan practice of idol worship (Leviticus 26:1). Human government is a fabrication of man. God never designed it. It is a concept that began exclusively in the minds of men, as early as the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve succumbed to the lure of becoming “as gods” (Genesis 3:5). The Tower of Babel was but one culmination of man’s desire to rise to, if not beyond, God’s level (Genesis 11:4). Since then, man has raised himself up to rule over his peers, forming monarchies, dictatorships, democracies, oligarchies, republics, and many other forms of rule. Man has always been the one to manufacture systems of human rule. He makes his own graven image in the form of the state, sets it up in a place of prominence – a “high place”, if you will – and bows down to it, even punishing those who do not. Nebuchadnezzar took it to a literal level in Daniel 3 by creating a golden image which he commanded his subjects to worship. But in Daniel 4, we see that this was only an outward expression of his worship of self and the state he had forged into mighty Babylon:“The king spake, and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?” – Daniel 4:30The state does not rise into power without the people first setting it in place themselves. They choose whether it will be a monarchy or republic, a democracy or an oligarchy. They create their image, their god, and when it takes power and begins to rule over them, they bow before it. Caesar would never have become regarded as a deity had the Roman people not set him there. Napoleon Bonaparte would not have become emperor had the French people not put in him a position to become so. Adolf Hitler would never have become der Fürher had the German people not recognized him in that capacity. The people of a nation create their graven image – the state, in whatever form it might take – and will always worship the work of their own hands.The ancient Israelites were ruled directly by God through the judges up until the days of the prophet Samuel. When they became dissatisfied, they sought to have a king “like all the nations” (1 Samuel 8:5). They wanted to be like the pagan nations who were godless and lawless. They wanted to do away with the rule of God (1 Samuel 8:7) and set up their own state, their own graven image to worship, despite God’s many warnings against falling for the other nations’ idolatry (Joshua 23:6-8). God, frustrated with their rebellion, allowed them to make their graven image, and Israel fell prey to the nationalism, statism, and oppression that comes with human rule.American Christians worship their own graven image. They reason, “We forged a union out of the thirteen colonies. We wrote a Constitution. We founded the three branches of the government. We elect our leaders.” This government is an image of their own making, and they would far rather bow down to it in adoration than admit that their false god is a god of wickedness.Looking back at Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel 2, notice that the “graven image” is struck down and crushed by a stone that “was cut out without hands” (Daniel 2:34). This stone is, as we now know, representative of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. This stone “became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth” (Daniel 2:35). The absolute opposite of a graven image is an uncut stone. (Deuteronomy 27:5-6). God’s government is not created through the schemes and labors of men, but by the will of God. And that stone, the Messianic kingdom, did fill the entire earth, as we read in Matthew 28:18-19. He has triumphed over principalities and powers (Colossians 2:15). Jesus is King, and has overcome the kingdoms of men, rendering them to so much chaff on the wind – irrelevant, meaningless, void.Then why do statist Christians, while claiming to follow “the stone cut without hands,” continue to bow down to the stone-cut images of men? Simply, they do not recognize the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. Like the ancient people before them, they insist upon worshiping the work of their own hands, which has turned into a beast that tramples them underfoot like insects, demanding more sacrifice, more devotion, more service. They have refused to tear down their high places, clinging to the idolatry of statism. They worship in awe and adulation (Revelation 13:4) while spurning the invitation of Jesus to invest themselves fully in the love and liberty of His magnificent kingdom.“Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” – Matthew 11:28-30THE ASTONISHING POWER OF A FAITHFUL MUSTARD SEED REVOLUTIONBy Cody CookTucked away in one of Jesus’ short, unassuming parables is a hidden subversive message that pronounces coming judgment upon mankind’s systems of power.It all starts with a little mustard seed… While there are plenty of passages in the Bible which explicitly contradict the tenets of Christian nationalism and pronounce impending judgment upon the kingdoms of men, it’s become increasingly apparent to me that this opposition is so thoroughly ingrained into the biblical worldview that it can be implicitly found in many places where you wouldn’t expect it.For example—the parable of the mustard seed. It’s familiar to many Christians, but I’ll reproduce it here since it’s so short:He presented another parable to them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; and this is smaller than all other seeds, but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that THE BIRDS OF THE AIR come and NEST IN ITS BRANCHES” – Matthew 13:31-32 (NASB)Mustard seed as an anti-state metaphorHow does this passage oppose the present political order? You might have noticed that a handful of words are capitalized in this translation. That’s one way that some Bible translations alert their readers that the Old Testament is being quoted in the New.These quotations can be hugely important, shedding light on the meaning of the New Testament author who quotes them. If we’re good Bible readers, we’ll want to know what passage is being quoted here.But that’s where things get a little complicated. Technically, this language occurs more than once in the Old Testament, though the most relevant passage is from Ezekiel 17.The prophet Ezekiel speaks of how Judah’s king, Zedekiah, had sought to make an alliance with Egypt to protect his kingdom from Babylonian occupation. This move may have made some tactical sense, but it was also against the command of God. As a result of this disobedience, God promised that Zedekiah’s plan would fail, his troops would be smashed, and he would die in Babylon.But Ezekiel didn’t just say this plainly. Like Jesus, he used a parable. Zedekiah was like a branch from a large tree that was plucked by a great eagle—the king of Babylon—and brought to his city.When the shoot was planted, it became a low vine spreading out to entangle itself with another great eagle—Egypt. But despite its attempt at self-preservation, the vine was destined to wither in the soil.That was the bad news. But Ezekiel also promised good news for the future:Thus says the Lord GOD, “I will also take a sprig from the lofty top of the cedar and set it out; I will pluck from the topmost of its young twigs a tender one and I will plant it on a high and lofty mountain. On the high mountain of Israel I will plant it, that it may bring forth boughs and bear fruit and become a stately cedar.And birds of every kind will nest under it; they will nest in the shade of its branches. All the trees of the field will know that I am the LORD; I bring down the high tree, exalt the low tree, dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish. I am the LORD; I have spoken, and I will perform it” – Ezekiel 17:22-24 (NASB)Careful readers of the New Testament may be surprised to see Ezekiel using themes and concepts more closely associated with Jesus’ teaching about Himself and His kingdom. The small branch —a future king—will be planted on a high mountain and eventually become a large tree that provides for all the world’s living things. This closely parallels not only Jesus’ image of the tiny mustard seed, but it also suggests the surprising reversals that come in its wake.The seemingly insignificant branch becomes a tree that the others learn they must bow down to. The trees that are now high and flourishing (the kingdoms of men) will die when God performs this miraculous reversal of fortunes.As the New Testament scholar Craig Keener wrote in his commentary on Matthew:Jesus insists that the kingdom, though present in a hidden way in the ministry of Jesus and his followers, is the glorious anticipated kingdom of God (13:31-33). These parables most clearly declare that God’s kingdom had arrived in some sense in Jesus’ ministry, in a hidden and anticipatory way… Far from baptizing the wicked in fire and overthrowing nations at his first coming, Jesus had come as a meek servant (12:18-20), wandering around Galilee with a group of obscure disciples, healing some sick people…Jesus’ initial arrival as a meek and politically inconspicuous servant rendered his mission as opaque as his parables, except to disciples bearing the insight of faith. Only those who press into Jesus’ circle truly understand his identity.⁸Against confusing the kingdom of God with political movementsIn other words, the kingdom of God does not look like earthly kingdoms. Keener’s claim that “only those who press into Jesus’ circle truly understand his identity” suggests that if we confuse the kingdom of God with a contemporary political movement, we are missing who Jesus is and our claim to being His disciples is questionable.As mentioned above, this isn’t the only place in the Old Testament where this kind of language is used. Perhaps Jesus had one of the other passages in mind and did not mean to make such subversive claims about the state? Possibly, except the other places where this language occurs in the Old Testament communicate the same basic principles about the kingdoms of men that Ezekiel 17 does.For instance, when Daniel was in exile in Babylon, he interpreted the meaning of a dream that king Nebuchadnezzar had of an enormous and fruitful tree whose branches were visible to the ends of the earth.This tree was so imposing that “the beasts of the field found shade under it, And the birds of the sky dwelt in its branches, and all living creatures fed themselves from it” (Daniel 4:12, NASB).Suddenly, unexpectedly, judgment was proclaimed against the tree and it was ordered to be chopped down. This is what would happen to Nebuchadnezzar until he learned “that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever He wishes” (Daniel 4:17, NASB)The rest of Daniel has no better news for the kingdoms of men, which are compared to wild beasts that are fit to be slain at the coming of God and then thrown into a lake of fire (Daniel 7, see also Daniel 2).Finally, this language also occurs in Ezekiel 31:3-14, this time of the Assyrian empire. I’ll bet you can’t guess what Ezekiel predicted would happen to it:Behold, Assyria was a cedar in LebanonWith beautiful branches and forest shade,And very high,And its top was among the clouds…All the birds of the heavens nested in its boughs,And under its branches all the beasts of the field gave birth,And all great nations lived under its shade…Therefore thus says the Lord GOD, “Because it is high in stature and has set its top among the clouds, and its heart is haughty in its loftiness, therefore I will give it into the hand of a despot of the nations; he will thoroughly deal with it. According to its wickedness I have driven it away…On its ruin all the birds of the heavens will dwell, and all the beasts of the field will be on its fallen branches so that all the trees by the waters may not be exalted in their stature, nor set their top among the clouds, nor their well-watered mighty ones stand erect in their height.For they have all been given over to death, to the earth beneath, among the sons of men, with those who go down to the pit.” – Ezekiel 31:3-14 (NASB)Like much of what Jesus told His disciples, this short little parable really packs a wallop. While you might be able to guess from the broader context of Jesus’ mission and teaching that the mustard seed-like Kingdom of God is surprising and maybe even subversive, the contours of its meaning really become visible when we read it in light of the Old Testament passages which inspired it and gave it its meaning.And that meaning becomes increasingly clear the more we dig in —the kingdoms of men will be destroyed by God and the kingdom of God will replace them. Since we know this to be true, we had better join the mustard seed revolution while we can.IS AMERICA THE LAST, BEST HOPE OF THE WORLD?By Jeff WrightThe idea that America is the last, best hope of the world is the spirit that animates a great deal of political activity in our country. The “last, best hope” is one of the most enduring rallying cries preached to garner support and enthusiasm for major government initiatives throughout American history. It has become such a widely accepted notion that its veracity and relevance for lawmaking and executive action is simply assumed, even among Christians.In his first inaugural address in 1801, Thomas Jefferson reasoned, “I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government cannot be strong, that this Government is not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world’s best hope, may by possibility want [lack] energy to preserve itself? I trust not.” Jefferson lifted America’s republican form of government up as the world’s best hope. Abraham Lincoln returned to the theme six decades later while the world’s best hope, as embodied by the Union, was in danger of dissolving. Speaking in his Second Annual Message to Congress in 1862, Lincoln movingly declared, “Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free — honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth.” For Lincoln, an intact Union personified the cause of freedom in the world. The freedom provided by a united America was the last best hope of the earth.Ronald Reagan famously revived the theme in 1964 in an effort to strengthen Barry Goldwater’s presidential candidacy during his nationally-televised “A Time for Choosing” speech: “You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.” Reagan persuasively championed “the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order.” He exposed governmental force, coercion, and control of the people and warned against a path that would lead to “the ant heap of totalitarianism.” For Reagan, the destiny of the nation and therefore the entire world rested upon the outcome of this presidential election.On the campaign trail in 2008, Barack Obama carried the theme to new heights preaching, “The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth.”A bipartisan foursome worthy of their own Mount Rushmore – the author of the Declaration of Independence, the Great Emancipator, the Great Communicator, and the personification of Hope and Change – all upheld the United States of America, its form of government, its influence for freedom, and even its ability to heal the very planet itself as the last, best hope of humankind.While Barack Obama represents a leftist vision of America as the last best hope, conservatives have their versions of the theme as well. Conservative thinker Bill Bennett responded to what he perceived to be a decline in young Americans’ understanding of what makes America so great, despite its imperfections, with his three-volume set: America – The Last Best Hope. Fellow conservative sage, Dennis Prager, recently offered his contribution, Still the Best Hope, in which he contrasts the competing visions of “Leftism,” “Islamism,” and, what he calls, “Americanism”: a “trinity” of core values – “Liberty,” “In God We Trust,” and “E Pluribus Unum.” While there may be competing ideas as to which values best represent the American ideal, it is widely held across the political spectrum that America is the last, best hope on earth.The question for American evangelicals is this: is America truly the last, best hope of the world? Let me begin to respond to this question by first asking, are there any alternatives that ought to come to mind when Christians begin to consider this question? Is there anything else Christ-followers might believe is the hope of the world? Do we as “little Christs” have a competing theory? Any “good news” on the topic? What’s that? The gospel of Jesus Christ, you say? Yes, I think that may be it!“C’mon, that goes without saying!” you might reply. Does it? Early Christians promulgated the New Testament creed that is commonplace and almost boring today: “Jesus is Lord!” Yes, we say, Jesus is Lord of my life. He’s the Lord of my heart. This may be what “Jesus is Lord” means to many Christians today but in the 1st century it was a competing pledge of allegiance that directly contradicted the loyalty oath of the Roman empire: “Caesar is lord.” Jesus came to establish his own kingdom, the kingdom of God. When a Christian declared “Jesus is Lord,” the obvious and deliberate implication was, “Caesar is not.”Just as a Christian in the first century would never make the claim that Caesar or the Roman Empire is the last, best hope of the earth, Christians today make a mistake by elevating any kingdom of this world to the status of “the hope of mankind.” When we slip into the mindset that America is the best hope of the world along with the assumption that we must do something to preserve this status, we will eventually find ourselves supporting acts by the government that are contrary to the kingdom that deserves our first and ultimate allegiance, the kingdom of God.The kingdoms of the world and the kingdom of God offer radically different visions for the world. American evangelicals along with all Christians ought to reject the idea that America is the last, best hope of earth because this is a form of idolatry. It is giving a status that ought to be reserved for God to someone or something else. If America is the best hope of the world then the good news of Jesus Christ and his kingdom is not.Unless we strongly affirm the earliest of Christian creeds, Jesus is Lord, we will tend to give the agendas of earthly kingdoms undue importance. Unless we me make it clear that our ultimate allegiance is to Jesus Christ and his kingdom, we will tend to look to the State rather than the church for the solutions to life’s challenges. If America is the hope of the world then the State ought to export this hope to the world and Christians should enlist in that cause. However, if Jesus Christ is the hope of the world then the church ought to be about the business of the kingdom of God.America as the last, best hope of the world was chosen as a “myth of American evangelicalism” because it is one of the underlying assumptions of both conservative and progressive evangelicals. Both camps believe that if they can just gain control of the State then they can use its powers for good. They just differ on what “good” looks like. And when they’re implementing their version of good, they’re “restoring” America’s status as the last, best hope of the world as Barack Obama put it.Preserving a grip on the reins of governmental power causes evangelicals to embrace or overlook what was “evil” when their opponents held the reins of power. Progressive evangelicals who howled in righteous indignation over the war in Iraq and American imperialism under President Bush fell silent when their preferred “Peace President” bombed seven different nations. In November of 2011, President Obama boasted to troops returning from Iraq, “That’s part of what makes us special as Americans. Unlike the old empires, we don’t make these sacrifices for territory or for resources. We do it because it’s right.” Same means, just the “right” ends (and notice the language of “empire”). On the other hand, many of the conservative evangelicals who applauded the civil liberties violations of the Patriot Act under President Bush are now decrying the Obama Administration’s use and expansion of these same policies as a “police state.” Contradictions such as these are tolerated because of the larger aim of controlling the do-gooder powers of the last, best hope of the world.Liberty-minded evangelicals support the furtherance of peace and the preservation of civil liberties during all administrations. We don’t need the State to coerce others into doing good. We have the superior resources of the kingdom of God. The State, American or otherwise, is not the last, best hope of the world, Jesus Christ is. Jesus Christ is Lord and therefore all other Caesars are not.SHOULD CHRISTIANS CITE THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE?By Laurence Vance“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty, and justice for all.”There are three holidays that cause otherwise sound-in-the-faith evangelical, conservative, and fundamentalist Christians to lose their religion.I am referring to Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Veterans DayOne of these holidays doesn’t even have to fall on a Sunday for some churches to go wild with celebration.Memorial Day, of course, is always observed on a Monday. The other two holidays only fall on a Sunday every seven or so years. But if one of them doesn’t happen to fall on a Sunday, the Sunday before the holiday will do just as well. In some years, like when the Fourth of July or Veterans Day occurs late in the week, the Sunday after the holiday is reserved by some churches for observation.As if the blind nationalism, hymns to the state, and exaltation of the military that occurs in some churches on these Sundays isn’t bad enough, sometimes the festivities also include the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance, in church, by the congregation, facing the flag on the platform. The Pledge is usually led by the pastor or a boy scout or veteran, sometimes in uniform.This is not only unfortunate; it is an anti-biblical disgrace.There are several reasons why no one that treasures liberty, is familiar with American history, and knows the history behind the Pledge (an ad campaign to sell magazines) would waste his time saying the Pledge. I want to focus on one of them.There are also several reasons why Christians that treasure liberty, are familiar with American history, and know the history behind the Pledge (written by a socialist minister) would waste his time saying the Pledge. Again, I want to focus on one of them.In 2000, an atheist sued his daughter’s school district because he said that the words “under God” in the Pledge amounted to an unconstitutional establishment of religion. He lost.After an appeal by the atheist parent, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2002 that the phrase in question was unconstitutional.After an appeal by the school district, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that the father of the child lacked standing to file the lawsuit because his daughter’s mother had sole legal custody of her and that she was not opposed to her daughter reciting the Pledge. The ruling of the appeals court was then reversed.In 2010, the same federal appeals court upheld the words “under God” in the Pledge in another case, ruling that the phrase does not constitute an establishment of religion.The idea that the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment is ludicrous. As stated by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in its 2010 ruling:Not every mention of God or religion by our government or at the government’s direction is a violation of the Establishment Clause…We hold that the Pledge of Allegiance does not violate the Establishment Clause because Congress’ ostensible and predominant purpose was to inspire patriotism and that the context of the Pledge – its wording as a whole, the preamble to the statute, and this nation’s history – demonstrate that it is a predominantly patriotic exercise. For these reasons, the phrase “one Nation under God” does not turn this patriotic exercise into a religious activity.¹¹However, just because the phrase “under God” in the Pledge doesn’t violate the Constitution doesn’t mean that it belongs in the Pledge or, more importantly, that Christians should recite the Pledge.One reason why Christians should not recite the Pledge is a simple one, and one that has nothing to do with patriotism or religion.The United States is not a nation “under God.”The United States is in fact about as far from being “under God” as any country on the planet.The United States leads the world in the incarceration rate, the total prison population, the divorce rate, car thefts, rapes, total crimes, illegal drug use, legal drug use, and Internet pornography production.At least the United States is second to Russia when it comes to abortions.According to the Guttmacher Institute, “nearly half of pregnancies among American women are unintended, and about four in 10 of these are terminated by abortion” and “twenty-two percent of all pregnancies (excluding miscarriages) end in abortion.” There are over 1,700 abortion providers in the United States. And even worse, 37 percent of women obtaining abortions identify as Protestant and 28 percent as Catholic.Only a madman would say that the United States is a nation “under God.” “Oh, but the Pledge is just some words,” some say, the reciting of which doesn’t really mean anything. Then why say it? If the Pledge is just some words that don’t really mean anything, then it makes more sense not to say it than to say it.The Pledge doesn’t say that the United States used to be one nation under God. It doesn’t say that the United States should be one nation under God. It says that the United States is one nation under God.That is a lie. Christians are not supposed to lie:“Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds” (Colossians 3:9). “Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another” (Ephesians 4:25). “Thou shalt not bear false witness” (Romans 13:9).Is it unpatriotic to not say the Pledge? It may be. But it is certainly right, Christian, and biblical not to.ARE YOU AN IMPERIAL CHRISTIAN?By Laurence VanceThe tenets of imperial Christianity include things like blind nationalism, belief in American exceptionalism, willful ignorance of U.S. foreign policy, childish devotion to the military, cheerleading for the Republican Party, acceptance of the U.S. empire, and support for a perpetual war on terror – all, of course, with a Christian twist for effect. In other words, the views of Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann or Rick PerryI have some simple yet pointed questions for Christians who subscribe to, or can be characterized by, the above things:Is the president of the United States God?Is America the nation of Israel?Is the United States the chosen state of God?Is the U.S. military the Lord’s army?Does the United States enjoy a special relationship with God that other nations don’t have?Is the Christian’s sword anything but the word of God?Does the Bible command any Christian to kill any adherent of a false religion?Does the Bible command any Christian to go on a crusade against Muslims?Does “obeying the powers that be” mean that Christians should always do anything and everything the government says?Does the Bible say that anyone other than God should receive unconditional obedience?Is it okay for Christians to participate in U.S. government wars just because God commanded the Jews in the Old Testament to go to war?Does the Lord approve of everything the U.S. government does?Does the Lord approve of everything the government of Israel does?Is being patriotic more important than being biblical?Is the Republican Party the party of God?Is it more scriptural for a Christian to be in the military than in the ministry?Does God need America’s help to protect Israel?Does God need the U.S. military to maintain order throughout the world?Is the U.S. military a godly institution?Is the CIA a godly institution?Did God command the United States to build over 1,000 foreign military bases?Did God command the United States to station troops in over 150 countries?Does God always approve of U.S. foreign policy?Is it biblical that churches send more soldiers to the Middle East than missionaries?Did God appoint the United States to be the world’s policeman?Does the New Testament command churches to hold special military appreciation days?Does the New Testament command churches to glorify the military on the Sunday before national holidays?Have U.S. wars always been just, right, and good?Are all Muslims terrorists?Was every Iraqi and Afghan killed by the U.S. military a terrorist?Does the New Testament encourage Christians to wage war against anyone or anything but the world, the flesh, and the devil?If you are a Christian and answered in the affirmative to one or more of these questions, then I understand why you are an imperial Christian. Repent.But if you are a Christian and answered in the negative to all of these questions, then why are you an imperial Christian? Why do you make apologies for the state, its leaders, its military, its wars, its imperialism, and its interventionism? Why are you so devoted to the Republican Party? Why do you sing songs to the state in church on the Sunday before national holidays? Why do you encourage Christian young people to join the military? Why do you recite meaningless prayers for God to bless U.S. troops engaged in unjust wars?Think about these things. Pray about them. Meditate on them. Just don’t be an imperial Christian.ABOUT THE LIBERTARIAN CHRISTIAN INSTITUTEThe Libertarian Christian Institute is a federal 501(c)(3) tax-exempt educational and religious nonprofit organization that promotes libertarianism from a Christian point of view. We are convinced that libertarianism is the most consistent expression of Christian political thought. LCI is ecumenical in nature, welcoming all those who confess the traditional creeds of the universal church.Our goals are to persuade our fellow Christians through online programs, physical publications, in-person conferences, regional small group meetups, and to love our fellow libertarians as Jesus would have us do. Our online presence is unmatched in the libertarian community, with hundreds of articles, book reviews, videos, podcasts, news reports, and much more. Dr. Horn is regularly sought after for a Christian libertarian perspective on a variety of political and cultural topics. Most recently, our Christians For Liberty Conferences have brought hundreds of Christian Libertarians together to share and to learn from great speakers in Austin, Texas.As the Libertarian Christian Institute grows, we are actively seeking out donors who desire to see an organization such as this make a positive difference in the church and in the world today for liberty and for Christ. Learn how to participate in our mission to equip the church to make the Christian case for a free society by visiting LibertarianChristians.com.Our Vision: Christians Embracing a Free SocietyThe Libertarian Christian Institute envisions a world where Christians promote the values and principles of a free society as the most consistent expression of Christian political thought. We see a world where, instead of polarizing to the left or right, Christians demonstrate that individual liberty is a force for the common good. We aim to persuade Christians that the political expression of our faith inclines us toward the principles of individual liberty and free markets.Our Mission: Equipping Christians to Spread the Message of Individual LibertyWe seek to create quality resources to equip Christians to promote individual liberty among their families, friends, ministries, and churches. We view ourselves as a contributor to the vast resources of libertarian content online by making the Christian case for a free society. We resist the assumption that the default political position of Christianity is domination and control, and we combat this by employing studies in history, theology, and biblical exegesis in a variety of venues.THE CORE VALUES OF A LIBERTARIAN CHRISTIANChristian Political Philosophy Should be Informed by a Holistic View of Scripture, Reason, and Historical TheologyA comprehensive view of the biblical narrative indicates that the Church’s proclamation of Jesus’ lordship is not a mere personal statement of allegiance; it is also an anti-imperial declaration that the way of peace comes through Christ’s counter-cultural kingdom of love and service. Followers of Christ are called to be a prophetic voice against the powers of domination and violence. The State — the monopolized institution of force in society — is never to be confused with the Kingdom of God, and when the power of the state grows, the rightful influence of churches, families, and local communities is diminished.A Free And Civil Society Depends Upon Respect For The Non Aggression PrincipleThe ethics modeled by Christ and the early Church call us to change the world and build the Kingdom of God through service rather than force; through persuasion rather than coercion. The use of political force to compel ethical behavior cannot change hearts and only antagonizes our struggle against sin, death, and evil. Christians must call for repentance from sin in humility and never with violence. As such, a consistently Christian ethic always embodies non-aggression.Individual Liberty and the Common Good are not at OddsAs God is intrinsically relational within the Trinity, so also human beings are created to live in community. Sin has marred the communal relationships for which we were created by pitting individuals against God, against one another, and against the earth for which we are called to be wise stewards. Affirming the dignity, worth, and rights of the individual as an image-bearer of God is a first step toward restoring authentic, Christ-centered community among diverse individuals. Because society is comprised of individuals, a healthy society requires healthy individuals. Through voluntary cooperation and respect for freedom, people can join together to trade, innovate, create, collaborate, share, and build a world that simultaneously respects the individual and betters our neighbor.Social Institutions Matter for Human FlourishingHumans are created to be social beings, and God’s design is that we work together to develop institutions which promote human flourishing. Insofar as these institutions are voluntary, peaceful, and non-coercive, human beings possess the God-given capacity to solve the worst of problems in the best of ways. Social institutions founded upon mutual cooperation — such as marriage, family, church, organizations, and businesses — are vital for authentic humanityChristian Theology Affirms the Essential Tenets of Free Market EconomicsRespect for private property, voluntary exchange, condemnation of theft, and the value of cooperation and service towards achieving common goals flow naturally from Christian thought and habit. This is what defines “capitalism” in the libertarian view.Wealth is a tool given by God, and all who possess such wealth are expected to utilize it for God’s Kingdom and the good of our neighbor. Taxation and regulation tend to destroy wealth, discourage innovation, and centralize power, and therefore hamper our ability to fulfill the calling of God. Where free markets are allowed to flourish, human beings will prosper both materially and spiritually. Additionally, Christian ethics helps equip our economies for service toward God and neighbor.Even if you don’t call yourself a libertarian, if you share our affinity for these core values, we count you among our ranks. We hope that you will want to partner with us to help spread the message of liberty by making the Christian case for a free society. You can help us keep the message alive and growing at LibertarianChristians.comGet the Hardcopy Booklet from the Art of Liberty FoundationThe Art of Liberty Foundation has been distributing this pamphlet from the Libertarian Christian Institute for years as a PDF in our credit card-sized, uncensorable flashdrive o freedom, The Liberator and in its free Dropboxes. This year we have struck a deal with the Libertarian Christian Institute to reprint the pamphlet (without Etienne’s memes) and add it to our on-line store at ArtOfLiberty.org/Store. The printing order has been placed and we are now accepting pre-orders that are scheduled to arrive and begin shipping on January 12th. Order a Single Copy for $4.95 here: https://artofliberty.org/product/the-idolatry-of-statism/Order a Five Copy “Friends Bundle” for $20 here: https://artofliberty.org/product/5-copies-of-what-anarchy-isnt-the-idolatry-of-statism/

Get Amazing Gifts That Will Be Remembered AND Spread Liberty AND Support the Art of Liberty FoundationWant to give some gifts that will be remembered for years to come and help your friends, family and colleagues better understand the scam of “Government?”Happy Holidays from the Art of Liberty Foundation! Get 20% off until December 12th using the discount code: Liberty20, 15% off from December 13th-16th using the discount code: Liberty15, and 10% off from December 17th until Christmas using the discount code: Liberty10! Shop for unique books and gifts now at ArtOfLiberty.org/StoreThe discount brings the price per copy down to under $10 for books and flash drives in our “Friends Bundles”! “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed! – How Inter-Generational Organized Crime Runs the “Government,” Media and Academia. The best-selling book at over two dozen liberty-oriented conferences and events! 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Paperback Version – Usually $30.00 Holiday Sale price with Liberty20 20% Discount Code: $24.00High-Resolution Hardcover Version – Usually $50 Holiday Sale price with Liberty20 20% Discount Code: $40To See the Cage is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many To See the Cage is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many To See the Cage Is to Leave It, author and truth advocate Etienne de la Boetie2 takes you deep inside the methods and tricks used to manufacture our consent—from the classroom to the newsroom, from the ballot box to the battlefield. This book pulls back the curtain on the world’s most successful mass manipulation: Statism—the indoctrinated, pseudo-religious belief in the desirability, necessity and legitimacy of “government”.Book WebsitePress Release & Book SummaryPaperback Version of To See the Cage – Usually $19.84 Holiday Sale price with Liberty20 20% Discount Code: $15.87High-Resolution Hardcover Version of To See the Cage – Usually $40 Holiday Sale price with Liberty20 20% Discount Code: $32The Liberator – A 64GB uncensorable, credit card-sized flash drive crammed with evidence of “government” and media criminality. that can be easily copied for friends, relatives, and colleagues. Includes the ePub 5th edition of “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed! and To See the Cage is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many. Along with companion and reference material that is disappearing off the internet. 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The Everything Bundle includes both of Etienne’s books: “Government” and To See the Cage, The Best of Larken Rose, along with a collection of potentially life-altering introductions to voluntaryism. 1 × “Government”- The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed!, 1 × The Liberator 64GB, 1 × The Most Dangerous Superstition by Larken Rose, 1 × Sedition, Subversion, and Sabotage – Field Manual No. 1 – A Three Part Solution To The State – By Ben Stone, 1 × What Anarchy Isn’t – By Larken Rose, 1 × Three Friends Free – A Children’s Story of Voluntaryism, 1 × Anarchy Exposed – A former police office reports on his investigative journeyUsually $115.00 Holiday Sale price with Liberty20 20% Discount Code: $92.00Friends Bundles – Low Cost Bulk Copies for Friends, Family & ColleaguesFun Fact: Over 10% of our books and flash drives are sold as viral “Friends Bundles” where readers realize the importance and uniqueness of our work and share with friends, family and colleagues. 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Let’s Take the Best & Brightest of America’s Youth and Crash Em Together in a Way That Almost Guarantee’s Brain Damage + NFL Teams as the “Artificial Tribe” Dr. Barre Lando: Welcome to the Alfacast Podcast, and thank you for being with us here today. Dr. Barre Lando here, and today I’m speaking with Etienne de la Boetie2, and we’ll be discussing his latest book, To See the Cage is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many.Étienne, my friend, good to see you again. How is my French pronunciation?Etienne de la Boetie2: You did better than most. You forgot the “squared”. I use a numeral two as an exponent to denote myself, that I’m not the original Etienne de la Boetie, and that’s the only way you can find me in a search engine.Dr. Barre Lando: We strongly believe at Alpha Vedic that self-reliance is something that’s essential… that we all need to get back to. And really when we moved away from self-reliance, that is what ended up generating, let’s say, a more dependence on government. So maybe we’ll start off with the first question. What could possibly go wrong with that?Etienne de la Boetie2: Well, so for folks in your audience that aren’t familiar with my work, my original book was called The Government the Biggest Scam in History . And my main thesis is that government is always illegitimate. It’s immoral. It’s impossible to have a legitimate government. And so it’s really beenThe Biggest Scam in History! And one of the ways that government has perpetrated itself on the population is by creating dependency in government on a huge, huge, huge, huge segment of the population is completely dependent on it for their jobs, whether they’re public school teachers or in the military. They forced people into their retirement system, so now many people are completely dependent on it for their retirement. They’ve forced people into their schools, they’ve monopolized medicine. They’ve created artificial poverty. They’ve impoverished the population. And then they’ve gotten, you know, a huge segment of the population dependent upon cash welfare. and on these, you know, on SNAP benefits and everything else. And so that’s one of the ways that they’ve been able to maintain their control is they’ve gotten so many people entirely dependent upon the government.Dr. Barre Lando: An interesting statistic, the numbers are going to be in the ballpark here, but in the early 1900s, the majority, I think it was maybe in the 80, 90 percentile, were all self-employed, early 1900s. At present time, the majority of people are employees and amidst those employees, Over 50% might even be more now, because these are old statistics, derive their income directly or indirectly from the government.Etienne de la Boetie2: I used to live outside Washington, D.C., which is the land of the Beltway Bandit, and it is somewhat creepy how dependent the population of Washington, D.C. is on the government. And the other thing that’s crazy, a lot of people don’t realize this, but four FIVE out of the top 10 wealthiest suburbs in the counties in the United States are all right outside of Washington, D.C. And so that’s Loudoun County, Virginia, it’s Fairfax County, Virginia, Arlington County, Virginia, and Prince William County, Maryland. And they lead the nation in fine wine consumption and luxury goods, and it’s amazing. And whenever, when I lived there, whenever the topic would get brought up at a dinner party or at a get-together or something like that, I would always make the running joke that it’s almost like the wealth of an entire country was stolen and concentrated into this one area around Washington, D.C. And the funny thing is, is that Washington, D.C. doesn’t really make anything. There’s no real industry, except for the Beltway Bandits. There is the Internet industry. I was in the Internet business, which is how I came to live outside of Washington, D.C. But besides the Internet, which was a DARPA program and essentially a military network that the Pentagon lets us use so they can spy on and track us while we’re using it. Besides that, D.C. doesn’t make anything, yet that’s where all of the wealth of the country has been accumulated.Dr. Barre Lando: Well, on a positive note, there has been some exposure, even though most of it’s wrapped up in a lot of media theater as a distraction, but there has been some exposure to a lot of folks who are getting their eyes open, realizing where that money actually comes from. It’s a vast topic, but we could get into the Federal Reserve and how they harvest us and make things out of thin air and so forth. Yeah, there’s a reason why that wealth is there. It’s not real wealth, but it is there available for them to maintain what, you know, really appears to me as a little cult, what you’re describing.Etienne de la Boetie2: Well, uh, now you’re, you’re, you’re going to give away the, the, the ending of my new book, but, uh, so I, you know, I have a new book out and, uh, the original book was “Government “ -The Biggest Scam in History. And the subtitle of that book was how intergenerational organized crime runs the government, the media, and academia. And my thesis in the book is really that “Government” has been the Biggest Scam in History. It’s impossible to have a legitimate government, a moral government. And so it’s best thought of as a technique for robbing and controlling populations. I don’t want to give away the ending, but it’s banks on the top and the banks create money out of thin air using a technique called fractional reserve banking. And for your audience that isn’t familiar with it, when you go to a bank to get a mortgage or a loan or a 50 year mortgage, they’re not going to lend you deposit or money. They just create those digital dollars out of thin air. Even though that’s inflationary and even though that steals the value out of everybody else’s money to let the banks create, you know, gazillions and gazillions of digital dollars, it kind of dilutes the value of the dollars that are in circulation. So the whole basis of our monetary system is essentially theft and fraud and and a scam and to protect that unethical, that corrupt system, they bought up the media and academia and they control the information that society receives so that they can tax farm the population by stealing the value out of the money and with confiscatory taxes. and handing money out the back door of Washington, D.C., whether it’s for mandatory vaccines, whether it’s for weapon systems that we don’t need to fight wars based on wise manufactured intelligence, whether that’s for ethanol subsidies or a gazillion other ways that the federal government is sliding money out the back door to identifiable interests that then get recirculated into campaign contributions.So that essentially 99% of Congress are, what Mark Twain said was the only distinctly criminal class in the country. One of the things that we’re doing and exposing at the Art of Liberty Foundation is that government is being run as a criminal enterprise out of Washington, DC. And what my new book breaks down is one of the ways they get around it is they’ve been indoctrinating the belief in having a government as a religion. Now, they don’t call it a religion, but they’re using all the tricks and the techniques of an unethically manipulative religion or a cult to indoctrinate and to propagandize and to trick the population into going along with something that is against their interest.Dr. Barre Lando: Yeah, and you know, one more comment about the money system, which I believe makes it even more sinister. It’s not just that they’re printing money out of thin air. We’ve all heard the saying that it’s based on the full faith and credit of the American people. So a corporation such as the Federal Reserve or United States Incorporated, it’s a piece of paper. It has no sentience. It has no energy. It can’t do anything unless somebody can sign on to it and say, hey, I’ll provide real life energy for you. We breathe our life into it whenever we sign on with all the contracts that bring us into their domain. So when we sign that 50 year mortgage, I can’t even imagine that. What we’re really doing with our signature is providing the credit ourselves. So, it’s our energy, it’s our life force that is given to us by our creator to create beauty, you know, on this planet. And they use it. It’s a real matrix-like situation where we are the batteries to keep this artificial entity going. And then based on our signature for whatever how much the loan is, then they give us some credits so we can go out and spend those within their system. But then as you already described, in the fractional reserve system, now let’s just say they gave you $500,000, they can loan 10 times that amount to other people and it just keeps going exponentially into fantastical figures. And then on top of it, they say, well, if these people are so stupid that they’re going to do this for us, let’s go ahead and charge them interest as well. So even though it’s their debt that they created, they do some shenanigans and route it through the security exchange and create a debt instrument that goes back on the left side of the banking ledger. which is now their responsibility. But then when we sign all these stacks of loan papers, we’re actually agreeing to take on their debt as well with interest, and then we pay it back many times if we’re lucky. But then here’s the real sinister part too. They only print enough money to cover the debt based on our loans that we take out, they don’t print enough to cover the interest. So if anybody’s wondering why we have all these homeless folks and even people that, you know, really gave it a good stab, you know, in their adult life to make a living and now they don’t have a home, it’s because not everybody can pay back the full debt with interest because they didn’t print enough to cover all that, and it’s on purpose to kick us out of our home and out of the country that our forefathers paid for with their own blood.Etienne de la Boetie2: It’s a form of economic warfare against the population, and they don’t want the population to have independent wealth. They don’t want people to be independent. They want them dependent upon either the government or the corporations that have been monopolized by the fractional reserve system. And so the, you know, just one more analogy that I like to use about fractional reserve banking, you know, imagine if I have a dollar and you dear, you know, viewer or listener have a dollar and those two dollars, the only dollars in the world. So I have 50% of the world’s wealth and you have 50% of the world’s wealth. And a bank or a government comes along and creates two more dollars out of thin air using fractional reserve banking or quantitative easing or printing press or digital dollar creation. Well now they’ve stolen 50% of the world’s wealth and you and I have been reduced to 25% of the world’s wealth. Now imagine multiplying that by a gazillion transactions and a gazillion dollars. And that creates, it’s the most profitable criminal enterprise on the planet, which is the reason why the bank is generally the largest building in every city on the planet is a bank building. And so those have seen profits. The first thing they did is they bought up the media. So the media wouldn’t tell you what’s going on. And in my book, “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History, I kind of break down a quote from a U.S. congressman that hadn’t entered into the congressional record of how they bought up the top 25 newspapers. And I think it was 1913. And they established an editor for each of those papers, and then they began coordinating the output of 25 newspapers in the United States to be able to widely control the information that the population received during the time of the newspaper. It goes even further back. I also tell the story of it. In the founding of the country, they collapsed a newspaper in Pennsylvania that was reporting on the the shady history of the Constitution and how that was forced on the population as well and the illegitimacy of that. But like that ability to create, sorry, to control perception, to control the information that the population receives really is the most, you know, kind of powerful weapon. But after they bought up the media and consolidated the media so the media wouldn’t tell the population what’s really going on and how they’re being robbed by the system, they began to provide unlimited capital to a handful of companies to buy up and consolidate their industries. And that’s really what we’ve got right now is that they’ve been providing these cartel companies unlimited dollars, and those cartel companies have been buying up family businesses and mom and pop businesses and every kind of business to create a system where they can exercise control through BlackRock and Vanguard and State Street and these large private equity companies that are holding and you know that the ownership of the companies bought up with fractional reserve dollars and providing management to them and controlling the you know, who’s sitting in the C suite and who’s sitting in the CEO position. Um, and, and once you’re, you’re in that hierarchical control system, then they can push down policies. Like everybody gets vaccinated and that’s what they want. They want to be able to push down a policy. Like everybody’s going to take this vaccine that works at this company and you can’t do anything about it because you’re now an employee. You’re not an owner anymore. You’re not a, you know, you’re, and that has been to a large degree how they maneuvered themselves into this catbird seat where now it’s a kind of tax slavery system. And every day that the average American goes to work in January, February, March, April, May, and June, they don’t see a nickel of it. The government is nice enough to spread out the payments over the entire year. But the average person, when you include the overt taxes of the 1040 and the income tax, the covert taxes of every time you get a gallon of gasoline, or buy a beer, or smoke a cigar, or pay your cable bill, or pay your cell phone bill, or get an airline ticket, or all the other ways that they’re taxing you on the sly, and inflation, so that the value that they’re stealing out of your dollars through this corrupt monetary system. That’s over for 50% of the average person’s income. And that’s tax slavery. And that’s you working for the government, which is not really for the government. It’s really for the people that are using government to rob and control the population. So you’re working for this system. Half of the year, you don’t see a nickel of it. They are, like I said, nice enough to spread the payments out over the four years.Dr. Barre Lando: Everything operates with the threat of force or even violence, which I think is the classic definition of criminality. You brought up the Constitution. That could be a vast topic as well, but maybe we’ll just touch on it if you don’t mind. The Constitution, most people think it gives us rights. It doesn’t give us any rights. There is some brilliance in there that delineates what the government is supposed to do and not do. They’ve circumvented that. But the Constitution originally was an abrogation of debt. abrogation, meaning of course that it’s a transfer of debt from one party to another. So after the Revolutionary War, where we borrowed money to fight the Brits, who have never left by the way, We were on the hoof for that, and the colonists said, stick it, when the folks said, hey, will you be sureties for the debt? So they created the Constitution in order to shift that debt to a private corporation. It was incorporated in Delaware. People know that it’s been reincorporated many times, Civil War and everything. But basically it’s their debt and the Constitution created an international business which has become this monster that we’re talking about. And God gives us rights. We are born with them. And it has nothing to do with the Constitution. And I kind of go a little bit nuts every time I hear people talk about their constitutional rights. So what could you add to that?Etienne de la Boetie2: Well, a lot of people don’t realize the word right, you know, everybody uses the word right. I’ve got to write this. I have a right to own a gun. And the word right comes from the natural law tradition. And in the natural law tradition, which is essentially the basics of the golden rule, do unto others as you would have others do unto you, which is in every civilization. Essentially, it’s codified into almost every civilization out there has some version of the golden rule. And so in natural law, there are five, depending on who you ask, there’s five to seven things that are wrongs. Stealing is obviously wrong. Rape is wrong. Murder is wrong. Theft is wrong. And all of these, by the way, are thefts. So murder is the theft of life. Rape is the theft of sexual choice. Theft is theft. You know, trespass is theft. theft of safety in your lair. And so these things are obviously wrong because there’s a victim. And so the other side of that coin is anything that is not a wrong is your right. And so if you’re not hurting somebody else in the world, you have the right to do whatever you want to do as long as you’re not hurting anybody else. Now the government, the Constitution was supposed to codify those rights and just make sure that the government wasn’t going to trample on the rights that everybody understood that they had, not from the government, but from being a free, independent human being on this planet. And so they kind of tricked the population into saying, okay, well, we’ll codify these rights if you go along with us having a government in Washington, D.C., but as I’ve kind of broken down on previous episodes, it’s impossible to have a legitimate moral government. So at the time the Constitution was passed, there was probably three million people living on the continent. And so the idea that four to five dozen slave owners, politicians, and attorneys could go into a room on a continent of 3 million people, okay, and write down on a fancy piece of paper that they alone get to make up rules for everybody and steal the wealth of others, and then proclaim that it’s valid, that was the really big scam is that you can’t do it today. If there’s 10 people on an island, there’s no way, you can’t write down something that forces four people to work for the other six and it to be legitimate, moral, and desirable, and logical. And so government really has been the biggest scam in all of history. Now there’s a lot of, you know, patriot mythology around the idea that we have the best constitution in the world and we have the best government in the world and there’s a gazillion books that the government has written itself explaining how we have the best government in the world, but it’s all poppycock because even if you believe in the The myth of the Constitution that it’s there, that government is created by ourselves to protect our own rights, even if you believe that, it didn’t work. It didn’t protect those rights. The government routinely violates every single one of the Bill of Rights, except for the quartering of soldiers. I don’t think they’ve quartered soldiers for a while. But whether it’s your right not to be searched and seized, try and exercise that when you get pulled over by the police or at an airport. Whether it’s freedom of speech, they’ll put you into a free speech zone and won’t let you have anything. We have freedom of speech without reach. If you’re in the alternative media like you and I are, as you know, you will be demonetized, deplatformed, de-indexed, shadow banned. And so even if people subscribe and want to hear what you have to say, they may not actually see it in their feed, even if they’ve subscribed to you. Your emails are going to go into spam. I could tell you censorship stories forever. And the constitution was supposed to limit the government, and we have the largest government that the world has ever seen, and so the constitution didn’t work. As advertised, even if you believe in the official story of the Constitution, that it was all done to protect your life, liberty, and property, the case I make in “Government” – the Biggest Scam in History , is that it’s best thought of as a technique for robbing and controlling populations, and that they get away with it because they have co-opted the Monopoly Media and Monopoly Academia, the mandatory government school, or the mandatory government school and the media, every single channel, government is legitimate, government is legitimate, government is legitimate, until as an adult, you can step back and you may never encounter that idea because it’s the biggest secret the government wants to keep from you and the bankers want to keep from you and the system wants to keep from you is the idea that it is illegitimate on its face. It is impossible to have a moral, logical, legitimate government. There’s no way to do it with a constitution. There’s no way to do it with a coronation. There’s no way to do it with a ceremony. There’s no way to do it with an election. There’s no way to have a moral, legitimate government. That’s the thing they don’t want you to know, but you really have to be able to step back from what you were indoctrinated as a kid with what this, and we’ll talk about, and not just indoctrinated as a kid, but they’ve been, as I break down in the new book, to see the cages, to leave it, it’s the media coming in on every single channel, and not just it’s the government is legitimate, the government is legitimate, the government is legitimate, but they’re actually running tricks with the media to give you a warm and fuzzy about the government. By doing things like product placing the American flag at moments of high positive emotion, always making the government the hero, the government’s always saving the day, the CIA is, you know, thank God for the CIA, otherwise there would be nuclear bombs going off in every city on the planet on a pretty regular basis if it wasn’t for the CIA. The FBI is saving the day. There’s a movie last Christmas season about a TSA guy that saves a city from a nerve gas attack. It’s ridiculous. The government is making itself the hero, controlling the information the population receives. And here’s the big reveal. I’ll just give it away to the audience. They’re presenting government as a religion. where the state is the god and they’re not calling it a religion but they’re using all the tricks and techniques of an unethically manipulative religion to get people to go along with government, including, like I said, these unethically manipulative techniques where they’re having Hollywood weave the government’s legitimacy, desirability, and necessity into both movies, television shows, popular culture. They’re putting it into your social media feeds. They’re putting things like You know, Lee Greenwood singing, thank God I’m an American, at least I know I’m free, into your social media feeds. They’re suggesting government sponsored books for you. They’re in every place you look around and you probably have never noticed it. But the magic of the book, to see the cages, to leave it, is it’s very picture-oriented. And once you see it, and once you recognize, oh man, I’ve just never noticed. One of the things the book does is you can’t even just flip through it without going, I’ve never noticed that pattern. I’ve never noticed. That’s what’s going on. Is that what you found?Dr. Barre Lando: That was the brilliance of your first book, “Government” – The Biggest Scam. I had that on my coffee table. They’re wonderful coffee table books. I had people come over, a couple in-laws I’m thinking of in particular, that are pretty brainwashed. They could listen to me and they’d just write me off as a whack job when I just try to present some possibilities. know that they might think about but then you start thumbing through this book and it’s very picture-oriented and you know it really caught the attention of a lot of people that would come through my house now in similar fashion I was holding this up before Your latest book is wonderful in the same way. Maybe would you like to go through the 25 techniques? I know it would take a long time to go through all of them, and you’ve already hit on a good number of them, but let’s open up the book. For instance, you were talking about how they debauched the currency. And everything that you were talking about, you know, is here with nice imagery and very easy to understand that, you know, for people that don’t want to read Federal Reserve publications, it actually tell you what they’re actually doing to rob us. And because they know nobody’s going to read that stuff. So here it is right here. Just I’m going to the page where the 25 techniques. So should we go through those? You can take them in any order and maybe highlight and talk about them?Etienne de la Boetie2: Sure. Well, absolutely. Technique number one is the mandatory government school, if I remember correctly. The mandatory government school, we’re going to take kids when they’re young, before they’re old enough to really understand what’s being done with them. And we’re going to put them into a mandatory government school where the teacher, the priest, so you can think of the government school as the church. You can think of the public school teacher as the priest, where she’s going to teach the children about the holy documents of the Constitution. where she is going to have them pledge their allegiance to a kind of common prayer to the flag. There’s going to be a social, you know, it’s going to be, it’s going to be, you know, like all the other kids are doing it, so surely you want to do it too. It’s hard. There’s a social pressure to, you know, to participate. They’re going to sing the hymns of the national anthem and the Star Spangled Banner. When they’re in middle school, they will be taken to Washington, D.C., Mecca, okay, the holy city, and they will be taken to the Capitol, which is a carbon copy of the Vatican for a reason. So there, you know, it is a cathedral towards government, to the god of government. And government is presented not as a tool to take care of, to protect life, liberty, and property. Government is presented as something that you would pray to by voting. So voting is kind of like the equivalent of prayer to make the world the way that you want it to be. to protect you from the potential of not having money in your old age, or not having money as a single mom, or whatever it is. Government is the supernatural entity that is going to protect you against all of the harms of the world that might befall you. And all you have to do is be willing to participate and promote this system, which is going to rob and extort money from your friends, your neighbors, and your relatives, and it will give you that money and it will transfer it to you. And as a middle schooler, it blows your mind. I still remember going to these school trips to the capitals and to the you know, and you’re away from your parents for the first time, and it’s like great fun, and they’re going to take you into the temples, the monuments, and they’re going to show you the deities of Lincoln and Jefferson, and it’s going to be very hushed, and it’s going to be very reverent, and you’re going to be kind of subsumed into this system.Dr. Barre Lando: You could think of it almost as a form of idolatry, can’t you?Etienne de la Boetie2: Well, it is, it is idolatry because government is presented as the God that if you, if you worship it, if you pray to it, that it will give you what you want. Okay. Whether, you know, it’s going to provide for you in your old age, it’s going to provide for you in your time of need. It’s going to take care of you when you’re sick. Dr. Barre Lando: You have a lot of wonderful quotes.Etienne de la Boetie2: Yeah, it is. It is a hundred percent idolatry. And I’ve got a link, uh, the, both of the books are supported by a, uh, a credit card-sized flash drive that we call the liberator. And this is what it looks like. And so on this book, we actually have a book put out by the Libertarian Christian Institute called The Idolatry of Statism, where they actually break down chapter and verse.Dr. Barre Lando: I have mine right here.Etienne de la Boetie2: There you go. Oh, you have a 32. We’re up to 64 gigs.Dr. Barre Lando:Oh, I’m behind. OK.Etienne de la Boetie2: I will get you one. Thanks. I’ll get you one out, one of the new ones out. These are brilliant.Dr. Barre Lando: These are amazing.Etienne de la Boetie2: And in addition to books like The Idolatry of Statism, we’ve got documentaries, and we’ve got truth music from the Liberty Movement’s hottest artists, and we’ve got memes, and we’ve got short videos, and it’s just chock full of everything that is being censored off the internet. And it’s a way of making sure that some of this evidence of government illegitimacy and evidence of government criminality doesn’t go anywhere. And then once you have a liberator, you are authorized and encouraged to make copies, free copies for your friends. And so a lot of people, you know, I run into a lot of people that come up to me at conferences or events and they’re like, hey, I discovered your work. Because we were at a Liberty meetup and somebody came in and they threw down 30 flash drives and everybody got one. That’s how I discovered your work. And so there’s no way to stop, like the good news, I guess the good news part of my message is there’s no way to stop the signal in the information age. There’s no way that, you know, they can, they can try and they can, Deplatform you they can be monetize you they can be index you but we’re we’re figuring out ways of getting around that censorship even if it’s sneaker netting, you know, it’s a brilliant system. It really works. But that is the so that is the core of it. The number one technique is the government school system. And that’s really a whole bunch of other techniques. So there’s a whole bunch of techniques assumed under that because when you’re in the government school system, they’re going to run techniques on your kids like collective punishment. public shaming. They’re going to use the red, yellow, green troublemaker board to where if you talk out of turn, you know, you go, they’re going to move your child’s name from the green part of the board to the yellow part of the board. And if he talks again, he goes to the red part of the board and they’ll put him at the quiet table, which is really the public shaming table in the center of the of the cafeteria during lunch where he’s there by himself and is kind of in the middle of this. It’s like the equivalent of the town stops.Dr. Barre Lando: Talk about abuse. I grew up in the old school system where the nun just broke a ruler over the back of your knuckles, but it’s evolved quite a bit since then it seems like.Etienne de la Boetie2: Well, I had a football coach that would paddle us with a paddle that had air holes in it, and you would get popped. I grew up in Texas and we had corporal punishment. You’re going to do what the government employee tells you, and if you don’t do what the government employee tells you, then they will hit you with a paddle that has air holes in it, wielded by the football coach.Dr. Barre Lando: And talk about football as being one of their theatrics that, you know, get us into the whole militaristic mindset. You know, I played college and one of the teams we played in the season was University of Texas. We go to Austin Stadium and boy, you go and there’s 110,000 people and they’re rolling out the American flags and jets are flying overhead. And it’s quite a show. And then, of course, the Football camp is run just like a military basic training sort of thing. And yes, sir, no, sir. And yeah, it’s pretty incredible. And we love to go see the Gladiators.Etienne de la Boetie2: I played football too. I didn’t play in college, but I played in high school. And so I’m a fan of football. I love the game, but I just want you to know, but I’m also, you know, I realize now kind of like what was going on and we’re going to get the best and the brightest and we’re going to crash them together in a way. almost designed to produce brain damage. And what’s being done today, especially at the NFL level, is the football team becomes the artificial tribe. And so human beings are very, very tribal. And so your real tribe is your family and your neighbors and your church. and your people that you work with, that’s your real tribe. And so they don’t want you spending time and focused on your real tribe and how y’all can all grow together and how y’all can all support each other and how you can all… you know, help each other, whether it’s co-garden or whether it’s, you know, uh, you know, help somebody start a business or whether it’s, you know, takes care of somebody that’s, that maybe needs their house repaired in the community. They don’t want you focused on that because that’s the things that bring people together and strengthen the community and strengthen the tribe and strengthen everything. They would much rather have you focused on this artificial tribe, where you’re taking a solid part of your weekend and you’re wasting it watching, frankly, adults play children’s games. But this monopoly system is going to go ahead and make that seem like that’s masculine and that’s what you’re supposed to do if you’re a man and that’s how you spend Saturday and Sunday afternoon. You don’t talk about you don’t talk about politics and religion during Thanksgiving, you, everybody just watches a piece of furniture. And so like that is, that is part of the way that it’s been indoctrinated into the system. I still love to play the game. I like to watch a game as much as anybody else, but I try and keep that piece of the pie, that entertainment piece of the pie. at the kind of right proportion that it should be in it doesn’t you know that that piece of the pie doesn’t take up the entire plate it’s just a little sliver and I you know and I get a little bit of it like like you would have candy. And that’s the if everybody did that we’d be a lot better off as a city.Dr. Barre Lando: Yeah, and we could uh, Enjoy ourselves in the game and there’s there’s no harm in that So you have 25 of these and uh, you know, it’d take a long time to go through all them But we have number two government affiliated scouting programs three junior reserve officer four police training five military basic training Any of those that you’d like to highlight and then we can go through a few more after that or anything after that?Etienne de la Boetie2: If you take a look at the government’s mandatory school system is going to produce a taxpayer that is going to tithe and is going to semi-voluntarily hand over 50% of their income to the cult to the cult leadership and they’re going to gather around the pope of the religion, the president. And a lot of people are going to invest part of their identity in the leader. And so one of the things I break down further in the book is that human beings are biologically predisposed to have a strong leader. And so because we were just talking about the tribal nature of human beings and in the artificial tribe, it has been an advantage to have a strong leader. And so what the system will do is present you a blue leader or a red leader. The red leader is designed to appeal to kind of rural conservatives. The blue leader is designed to appeal to kind of urban liberals. Okay. And they’re going to give you what’s known as a Hobson’s choice. The Hobson’s choice is a fake choice. Old man Hobson ran a livery stable and you could rent any horse you wanted as long as it was the one closest to the door. So the term Hobson’s choice means no choice at all. And so you can either have blue government leader or you can have red government leader and then that’s going to be the pope of the artificially indoctrinated religion. And then a lot of people, because there is a biological desire to have a leader, they get themselves invested. And you can see it. It’s cult-like. It’s the leader of the cult. You can see people in the MAGA movement. You can see them exhibiting the classic. textbook examples of cult followers doing cult things, whether it’s wearing the red MAGA hat, whether it’s putting the bandage over the ear after his fake assassination attempt, whatever it is that, you know, it’s wearing the the flag, you know, wearing symbolically the flag of the system that is enslaving and controlling them.Somewhat humorously in many occasions, as you can see in the book of of people literally dressing themselves in the American flag and so you can so once you see it that’s really what the book is designed to do is is you cannot flip through the book and not realize what’s going on and then once you see it, you can never ever unsee it. Most people, not everybody, if you’re getting your paycheck from the government, if you’ve been through Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Explorers, Junior ROTC, ROTC, military training, and in some cases police training after that, there’sDr. Barre Lando: You can’t, you can’t really be, you know, you’re not, you know, in my demographic, I hear the excuse a lot, you know, because everybody’s on social security or some kind of retirement and they can’t buck the system because they’re dependent on it. But as things get exposed and some people are actually willing to look at information, it does breed a bit of ambivalence in people. But then what I hear from my peers is that, well, I’m too old to do anything about it and I can’t change at this point. So they count on everybody going along even when they know that it’s a big scam. But I think the younger generation coming up, whatever they call them, X, Z, whatever, they’re, you know, there’s the folks that unfortunately get in the college system, they might be gone forever. But there’s a lot of youngsters that are really questioning things now. And it gives me hope. And also, I look at my own kids. We brought them up at home, birthed them at home, homeschooled them. Now they have kids. They’ve done the same exact thing. And so there is a number of kids coming up that really give us promise if the present government doesn’t do something to succeed in trying to kill everybody, which is exactly what they’re trying to do right now. So, we’ve got information by the military, number six, intelligence, you got into CIA.Etienne de la Boetie2: Let’s go back to the military. Yeah, I want to just, because I like, it’s a really, you know, the Cub Scouts and the Boy Scouts and the Explorers and the JROTC is a really core piece of it that most people never give a second thought to. And I was a Cub Scout. I was a Boy Scout. And so I like to say that scouting, like rat poison, rat poison is 99% delicious food. Otherwise, the rats wouldn’t eat it. But at the core of scouting is a hidden curriculum of the flag worship of the pre-militarization of getting you into the uniform. And so it’s a government-sponsored affiliated youth program where the kids are going to receive awards, either Cub Scout Adventure Loops or Boy Scout Merit Badges for regurgitating the doctrine of the religion And then again, there’s going to be social pressure placed on them to participate. Everyone is constantly doing flag ceremonies and pledging allegiance to the flag, and they’re learning how to … You can’t throw the flag away when it’s done. You’ve got to bury the flag. You’ve got to burn the flag in a ceremony, and then a lot of times the ashes are then ceremonially buried. And so they’re going to create this reverence for the government, and they’re going to give kids awards for regurgitating the doctrine of the religion, and they’re going to run these unethically manipulative techniques on the kids while they’re in there, like the uniform. And so uniform means single form. And what it is, is it’s replacing an individual identity with a group identity. So now the kids are part of the group, and this is what the group does. And then they pile on, they create a kind of artificial group pressure for everybody to go along within the group. And then a lot of people don’t realize, but especially now in the modern age, a lot of these kids, scouting has become a parking lot for autistic kids. And so the brain damage of the mercury and aluminum-laced vaccines has produced all of these kids that don’t socialize well with other kids. And so a lot of the kids that are in scouting today, they’ve been put there because that’s the way that their parent, the mom, the single mom can get their kid to play with other kids. and be assured that the kid is going to get some time with other kids and get friends with other kids.Dr. Barre Lando: Interesting. Yeah, I hadn’t considered that.Etienne de la Boetie2: You’ve got brain damaged kids that are being put through these techniques and then they come out and they go into the military where they have that same, so they’ve been indoctrinated into the love of the uniform. They’ve been conditioned into hierarchical command and control from kind of like a young age. They’re participating in all of the flag worship and they’re, you know, they’re being, you know, forced to learn, like a cookie at the end, the, you know, citizenship in the world, citizenship in the nation are two of the merit badges that you have to get. It’s not even, they’re not even the mandatory ones. It’s not even the, you know, the optional ones. It’s the mandatory ones that you have to get. And then once you regurgitate that, they give you the cookie of the Cub Scout Adventure Loop or the Merit Badge. But that system is ultimately going to produce what is known as an order follower. And so the government school produces the taxpayer that’s willing to semi-voluntarily tithe and, you know, believes in the idea of the state and the government and everything like that, the Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Explorers, JROTC, ROTC, that’s going to produce an order follower that’s willing to set their morality aside and use violence for the government on peaceful people. In the military, we’re going to go abroad and kill whoever we’re told. And in the police force, we’re going to use violence on peaceful people either to enforce the morality of the religion, we’re going to arrest people for things that aren’t really crimes, victimless crimes like smoking a plant or gambling or whatever, you know, like things that we’re going to, we’re going to use violence on people to arrest them for things that aren’t really crimes, which then compacts the police into an unhealthy dynamic because they’re really the criminals because they’re using. So again, they’re violating natural law. They’re creating harm in society. They’re doing wrongs. Okay. And so that compacts them into an unhealthy group dynamic, or they’re going to raise revenue for the government and the police force by doing road piracy and pulling people over for, you know, victimless crimes, trying to search their car. trying to find the end of a joint so that they can confiscate the vehicle, or finding thousands of dollars, or whatever it is. So they’re going to rob their neighbors for the government. And the system that produces that is the Cub Scouts, Weeblos, Boy Scouts, Explorers, JROTC, ROTC, and then police and military training. Final thing on that is if you’re not, You know, a lot of people don’t even realize this, but there’s, after Boy Scouts, there’s a program called Explorers. And there’s either, there’s police explorers, there’s secret service explorers, there’s military explorers. And so now, this is, now the kids are gonna be segmented off, away from the rest of society. They’re gonna go, in the summertime, they’re gonna go to military bases, where they’re gonna be put into the uniform, they’re gonna have their head shaved, they’re gonna be compacted into this. You know, there’s other unethically manipulative techniques that the military will run, you know, once you get into the military. But they start it on the explorers. On the police side, they’ll be given uniforms, like little mini police uniforms. They’ll begin doing ride-alongs with the police officers. And so a lot of people don’t realize that this is going on. A lot of people don’t realize that the government’s running high schools where the entire curriculum is the government or the Marine Corps or the military. And so these kids are coming up and they’re being subjected to these unethically manipulative techniques that’s all woven around allegiance to government and being willing to kill for government and being willing to use violence. on their friends and family and neighbors for the government and people don’t think about it, you know, about like what’s really going on, I break it all down in the book. I could have, like, you know, I use, you know, police, like military training is one technique, but actually there’s, in that one article on the techniques that the military is using, you know, there’s probably a dozen, I probably listed over a dozen like little sub techniques in addition to the uniform and the shaving of the head and the, you know, the, but like, you know, it’s sleep deprivation. It’s, uh, it’s collective punishment. It’s the, it’s the, if you, if you’ve seen full metal jacket, you know, you’ve seen the blanket party and blanket party is where they take the nonconforming and they’ll hold them down on their bunk and everybody else in the platoon or the training regiment or whatever it is will come and they’ll either wrap a towel a soap bar and a towel to make a flail. A flail is something that you swing and it hits you. It’s called a blanket party.Dr. Barre Lando: And if they really don’t like you, it’ll be a lock in a sock.Etienne de la Boetie2: And so the soap bar and the towel hurts like hell, but the lock in the sock is the one that if they really don’t like you, you know, you’re being beaten with a padlock in a sock as a flail. And it still goes on today. I have a friend of mine’s son, they did it to his son. And so I know for a fact it still goes on today. It’s not just something in the movies. And so these are just a few, just a small handful of the unethically manipulative techniques that they’re using on the police and the military to get them to use violence for the government, either to raise revenue or to go abroad and murder people in these wars that are for resources and stealing oil and whatever is the lie of the day of why we’re going to war.Dr. Barre Lando: Yeah, and World War II was really the genesis of all this, where, you know, my dad came back from World War II. He was Air Force, and they were really believing that they fought a just war and did good things. Now, in hindsight, we realize it goes a little deeper than that. I grew up hearing about, well, to be a man you should go to the military and become disciplined and that’s the way you do it. So it continues all the way into the extremes that you’re speaking on as far as what has evolved too. I think we’re right there. We look at other countries, like overt communist countries, and it’s still couched in the Constitution and freedom, but what’s the difference between ourselves and a communist state?Etienne de la Boetie2: That’s a fascinating point that you just brought up, because one of the things I broke down in “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History as you know, is that there is a playbook of techniques. The new book focuses on the religious aspect of it, but all of these techniques are being used by the so-called bad countries as well. In “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History I looked at 20 techniques And then I looked at it, you know, what it was in Nazi Germany, what it looked like in East Germany, what it looked like in the Soviet Union, and what it looked like in the United States. And so on each page, you know, you can see the technique. And then, you know, you’re left scratching your head because, well, wait a minute. We’re the good guys. Why are we using the same techniques as the Nazis, the Soviets, or the East Germans? And you realize, hey, wait, it is. It’s a playbook. You can’t flip through the book and not understand that this is a playbook. Most people are visual learners. They come to insight very, very quickly. And so once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And whether, you know, like, let’s let’s let the boogeyman of today, you know, Iran and North Korea and Russia, what what what techniques are they running on their own tax slaves and on their own populations are running mandatory government schools. They’re running government-affiliated youth programs. They’re running, you know, they’ve got their equivalent of the Boy Scouts and the Explorer program. They’ve got their equivalent of the JROTC and the ROTC. They’ve got their own, like it’s the exact same program even in the bad countries. And once somebody goes through the program, then you’ve got somebody that’s willing to goose step You’ve got somebody that’s willing to use violence on their neighbors. You’ve got somebody that’s not able to really think because they’ve been controlling the information that they receive. They’ve moved them off to a military base. They control the information to them. They’ve run all these unethically manipulative techniques on them. They’ve shot them full of vaccines. They can’t think straight. Uh, you know, now you’ve got, uh, you’ve got a force that is willing to, you know, uh, you know, willing to, you know, in the case of like what ice is doing right now is willing to go and scoop up people in the middle of the night and. and black bag them into vehicles. And I think they’re just getting the population used to having goons on the street that will scoop up people.Dr. Barre Lando: No doubt about it. No doubt about it. And one of the main planks of communism is primary is the abolition of private property, which has been achieved in our country by attaching a warranty deed to our homes, which means we don’t own it anymore. So I would challenge anybody to read the Ten Planks of Communism and find one deviation from how we do things in America.Etienne de la Boetie2: And to that point as well, so the banks trick people into these mortgages, they create the mortgage, create the money out of thin air, and then when you can’t pay, even if you’ve paid you know, 29 years on your 30 year mortgage or I guess 49 years on your 50 year mortgage and you’ve already paid two to three times. the amount that you borrowed in interest and you can’t make those final payments, who’s going to come and take that house? It’s going to be the people that they’ve run through these unethically manipulative programs. They will come and they will take your house. because they’re order followers and they’re going to set their morality aside and all they can do is follow orders and this is how they’ve set the system up and this is how they do it. And so now you’ve paid 29 years or 49 years on your mortgage, you’ve more than paid for the house on a loan that they created out of thin air that they made up out of whole cloth and whatever. and they’ll take your house and now they have real wealth and you’re now homeless and the guy that did that for them is this guy that went through the Cub Scouts, the Weeblos, the Boy Scouts, the Explorers, the JROTC, the ROTC and had all of these dozens and dozens and dozens of manipulative techniques unethically manipulative techniques run on them to produce someone that would do that deed for them and steal your house.Dr. Barre Lando: So we’ve run through a good number of the overt methods that are utilized. Number 10 could start off, you know, we’re kind of implying this all along, but number 10 is subliminal programming. Would you like to comment on that at all?Etienne de la Boetie2: So a lot of the things that come out of Hollywood, there’s a lot of subliminals in them without you knowing. And so I think the one that you’re talking about is subliminal text. And there’s a sign-off message from the 1960s. And for the younger members of your audience, I had to explain what a sign-off message was. But in the old days of television, television wasn’t 24 seven. And at the end of the broadcast day, around 1 o’clock or 2 o’clock in the morning, there would be the sign-off message. And the sign-off message was always government propaganda. It was always, generally, it was the flag flying. And it would be heroic landscapes and Indians and American iconography and everything. And so this particular one from the 1960s has the text. of the Star Spangled Banner is being, you know, scrolling across the bottom of the screen as somebody’s singing the Star Spangled Banner. And you gotta understand at one o’clock, two o’clock in the morning, most people are in kind of an alpha state, and that’s a brainwave state where information flows into the brain uncritically. It’s just accepted by the brain. There’s no cognitive processing to it. And so these messages are scrolling as the words of the Star Spangled Banner are scrolling off the screen. Other words are flashed on the screen as it scrolls off. And the messages that are being flashed on the screen is, government is God, obey God, government. Rebellion won’t be tolerated. you know, messages like government is God. And so that, so the, so the God again, so it’s, you know, the, the, the title, the subtitle of “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History is “How inter-generational organized crime runs the government, media and academia”. So they’re controlling the information that comes to you, including putting subliminal text into your feed, okay, when you’re in an alpha state and when information is flowing in uncritically, and so they’re telling you that government is God and that rebellion won’t be tolerated and obey the government, and they’re doing it in an unethically manipulative trick. So they’re running a trick on you. And then some of the other kind of, you know, like I guess some of the modern equivalents is the product placement of the flag. And so some of the other techniques that I cover in the book are, you know, there’s a documentary that breaks down a lot of academic scholarship around the fact that Hollywood, that the government is paying Hollywood to weave pro-government messages into movies and television shows. Sometimes this is done by, you know, providing them with, you know, millions and millions or tens of millions of dollars worth of military equipment, the F-18s for, you know, for Top Gun Maverick, the carriers, the military bases to shoot on. And in exchange, the directors are weaving the American flag, product placing it in moments of high positive emotion, and they’re changing their scripts. The other thing that the documentary is called Theaters of War, and you can actually, in the book, there’s a number of different short videos, and you can just QR code scan with your phone a page from the book, or if you’re in the the EPUB version of the book, you can click on that video and it will actually play the trailer for this documentary, Theaters of War. But Theaters of War breaks down over 1,000 movies and over 1,000 television shows in which the government has had some kind of input into the creative process, frequently exerting script control and changing history in many cases. So when you see war, you know, portrayed on screen, you’re seeing a sanitized version; you’re not going to see the My Lai massacre.