The Illegitimacy of “Government” and Rebooting Humanity – Larken Rose

We are publishing the 1st talk from Liberty on the Rocks – Sedona – the Voluntaryism Conference, with political philosopher Larken Rose setting the stage by DESTROYING the legitimacy of “government” and revealing its immorality and illogical nature.

In this thought-provoking episode, political philosopher Larken Rose presents a challenge to the commonly accepted notion of government and authority. Entitled The Illegitimacy of “Government” & Rebooting Humanity, Larken’s talk explores how deeply ingrained beliefs in political authority contribute to societal problems such as war, corruption, and oppression. Through a series of hypothetical scenarios and humor, he questions the legitimacy of authority figures having “moral exemptions” that permit them to act in ways considered wrong for ordinary citizens. Larken delves into the essence of anarchism, defining it as the absence of rulers rather than the chaos often portrayed by monopoly media. He argues for a society where individuals govern themselves, advocating a simple yet radical principle: if an action is wrong for an individual, it is equally wrong to ask others, including government, to do it. This episode is a compelling call for personal responsibility and voluntary cooperation as foundations for a just and peaceful world.

New to the Series? Check out the Introduction Here: Do We Really Need “Government”? – What is Voluntaryism? – Introduction – Liberty on the Rocks – Sedona – The Voluntaryism Conference

Full Transcript

Larken Rose:

All righty, who here is to blame for the problems of the world?

I mean, in this room. Okay, at least you admit it.

Most people in this country and around the world are well aware that humanity has some pretty dang serious problems.

Corruption and war and financial problems and crime and violence and all sorts of not-so-fun things.

Almost none of those people think that their own belief system is the cause of it, or even contributing in any way. But if we have those problems, and we do, and nobody thinks that their beliefs are part of the problem, some of those people must be wrong.

But there seems to be an almost universal assumption that people who mean well and people who are trying to be good and do the right thing and trying to make the world better. Well, they can’t possibly be part of the problem, but they absolutely are.

Almost all of them. Now, it’s not because they’re malicious or evil or trying to ruin the world, but it’s because they believe things that were pounded through their heads over and over and over again, manipulated into their thought patterns without even noticing, like Etienne was mentioning, and it vastly influences how they behave and what they think and how they talk and how they act.

And very few people bother to question such things or even notice them as beliefs. They just think, oh, I just see reality as it is. And they don’t get how much their perception of reality has absolutely nothing to do with reality. The title of this talk is Rebooting Humanity. Instead of assuming that things should mostly be the way they are with a little bit of reform that politicians love to talk about and tinkering here and there, let’s do a thought experiment here starting from scratch to consider some very fundamental principles and concepts. Now, you can’t really examine society without examining the strange beast that is politics.

Political power and legal systems and government. But who isn’t sick of the inane, constant political rhetoric by now? Well, we’re going to keep things very simple and literal here because the most political discussion is a steaming stew of dishonest euphemisms and vague fluff, and emotional noise topped off with a pile of absolute bullcrap.

“If elected, I will enact a policy of diverse opportunity and progressive equality by way of growth and compassionate assistance.”

Okay. What does that actually literally mean?

I’m going to take these people’s money and give it to those people. So those people vote for me.

So we’re going to actually be literal today. We’re not going to go into the fluff. We’re going to directly, specifically, and accurately describe reality. And we’re not going to be bickering over which politicians we think are slightly less slimy than the other politicians. We’re going to go back to basics and look at some principles.

So here’s the thought experiment.

I want you all to imagine that we’re forming our own little town somewhere. It’s just us. Now we’re going to throw in a couple hundred other people because it’s going to be a pretty small town if we don’t. So we’ll just throw in a couple hundred other people that we don’t know. And we’re all gonna be just plunked down in the woods somewhere. We’re being pioneers and building a new little society from scratch.

Now, I’m sure we have people with different views, different interests, and even different values to some extent, as well as different skills and knowledge. So we’ll probably find ways to barter and trade, organize and cooperate, work together, and so forth. Now, not everybody is competent, and not everybody is honest, and not everybody is nice. Present company, except I’m sure we’re all nice, but some of those 200 hypothetical people I came up with might be nasty. And I’m not sure we can trust them. The fact that they don’t exist, never mind. So we also might have to figure out how to deal with nasty people along the way.

But I don’t want to just babble about what I think our little new society should do because I won’t be in charge of it. I’m not the emperor of this new little colony. I’m just me, and you’re just you.

So I will put a bunch of this in the form of questions for you to consider.

Let’s start with a few basic suggestions and ideas, and you let me know by a show of hands which ones you favor.

Okay, so the first possible suggestion is: There we are in the woods, in the middle of nowhere, with no roads and no any of that.

First suggestion, everybody scatter, everybody just run off into the woods in different directions, every man for himself.

Okay, who’s in favor of that?

Okay, who thinks that idea is pretty stupid?

Okay, next possible plan: we all violently attack and rob each other, and whoever ends up alive and with the most stuff wins.

Who likes that plan?

You’re laughing at my brilliant plans.

Who thinks that plan would be immoral and moronic?

Yay.

Next possible plan: instead of individuals fighting each other, let’s divide into two big groups. Maybe we’ll just split down the aisle here, and then the two groups can try to kill each other and dominate each other.

All in favor of that plan?

You’re no fun.

Okay, how about this plan? Somebody comes up with a central master plan and then forces everyone else to go along with it and violently punishes anybody who disobeys.

All in favor?

Oh, man. What if you get to be the one who comes up with the master plan and forces it on everybody else? Who here wants to be the one? We got one aspiring tyrant, okay.

Okay, now, this last suggestion might sound a little crazy and fringe, but here goes. What if each individual is in charge of himself and each individual gets to decide for himself which projects he wants to be involved in and who he wants to work with and who he wants to trade with and interact with.

So, individuals might voluntarily form groups, big or small, to accomplish certain things, but each individual gets to decide for himself which things he’s gonna be a part of.

All in favor? Ah, a bunch of extremists!

Now, it’s weird because I’ve asked these answers to everyone in the same way. Liberals, conservatives, people who don’t care about politics at all, people from different countries. It’s almost as if freedom and peaceful coexistence is what people want.

Well, if pretty much everyone wants that, why don’t we have that?

Alright, you crazy kooks with your silly childish desires for peace and voluntary cooperation. I’ll give you a master plan that’ll definitely change your mind.

So here is my four-point master plan for our new little colony. It’s genius, and I’m sure you’ll all eagerly and happily agree to it.

First, first of my four-point plan, from now on, I’m allowed to do evil stuff. All the stuff that we would all normally recognize as wrong and immoral—fraud, theft, assault, murder, things like that. That’ll still be bad if any of you do it, but you’ll give me permission to do those things, and it won’t even be bad when I do them. So the first part of my plan is I get a blanket exemption from basic morality applying to me.

The second part of my plan is that you all have to do whatever I say, and I’ll have enforcers whose job it is to beat up anybody who disobeys me.

Now the third point of my plan is very important. I don’t want you obeying me just because you’re scared of my enforcers. I want you scared of them too. I’m gonna need each one of you to really and truly believe that you are morally obligated to obey my every whim and that disobeying isn’t just dangerous, it’s actually wrong—that it’s a sin and makes you a bad person if you don’t obey me.

Now, the fourth and final point of my genius plan is that I get to change my mind whenever I want. I make up new commands and demands whenever I feel like it and change the rules whenever I want to. And whenever I do, you all have to accept that morality itself changes.

If my rule said you’re allowed to do something yesterday, and I changed it, now you’re not allowed to do it today, that means you’re a good person yesterday if you do it, and then you’re a bad person today if you do it—because my will is morality. It defines right and wrong, because I changed my mind.

And in case you were wondering, I can make different rules for different people, and different rules for different places, different rules for different times. I can basically do whatever the hell I want. And if you don’t like it, your only proper and civilized recourse in our new society is to pitifully beg me to change the rules that you don’t like. And if I don’t change them to what you want, and I pretty much never will, well, sucks to be you. You’ll obey, and you’ll like it.

All in favor of my four-point plan? Come on, just give me unlimited power over everyone, and I will be your savior.

No takers?

Now, I trust that everyone watching at home immediately recognized that my proposed plan is laughably stupid and, in fact, downright demented and insane. Hopefully, you also knew that I was kidding. But here is where things might get a little bit uncomfortable for some people because leaving our hypothetical new society and getting back to the real world here, if you vote for any political candidate or party, if you believe in and support any government of any size, of any type—democracy, constitutional republic, monarchy, whatever—then you already have given your blessing to exactly the plan that I just described.

Now, that’s not an exaggeration, and it’s not hyperbole. It’s literally true, but I expect exactly no one who wants “government” to actually believe me yet.

So again, we’ll keep things simple, literal, and direct and see what the reality of political authority actually is, point by point, like my plan. Now, the first part of my totally bonkers plan was that I should get an exemption from morality and I should be allowed to do bad things, so much so that they’re not even bad if I do them. Still bad if anybody else does them, but come on, that’s certainly not what government is, is it? Well, let’s see.

There you are, a mere human being, and you don’t have the right to rob people and beat people up and murder and things like that. Those things are wrong. Now, you do have the moral right to voluntarily organize and cooperate with people and trade with people.

In fact, I think most of us would agree that you even have the right to use physical force against other people if that’s necessary to protect an innocent person from an attacker. In other words, it’s bad if you violently attack people, but if you use force to stop an attacker, that can be justified.

Yes, I realize this is very basic and obvious, and I’m describing things that most eight-year-olds understand. So let’s bundle all those things that you, as a mere mortal human being, would be morally justified in doing, and we’re gonna call that “good stuff.” It’s okay to do good stuff. Let me know if this deep philosophical explanation is too complex for you. It’s okay to do good stuff.

Now, as a mere peasant, you do not have the right to rob your neighbor or violently control his decisions and choices. You can’t, for example, impose and collect a tax from other people on your own.

That’s extortion if you do it, and that’s bad. As another example, you don’t get to use threats of violence to tell other people what they can eat or drink or smoke or sell or buy or build or live in, who they can trade with, and so on and so forth forever. That would be violent thuggery if you do it. It’s legislation and regulation if the government does it.

Now, here’s the uncomfortable part, even though it’s painfully obvious. If you and me and every other mere mortal on the planet have the right to do good stuff, and some special people like politicians, tax collectors, law enforcers, and other government employees have the right to do some stuff that you and I don’t have the right to do, that means that those people are allowed to do stuff outside of the category of good stuff, also known as bad stuff.

So yes, “government,” by its very nature, is the thing that supposedly has societal permission to commit evil. That is the fundamental nature of what government and political power are. When those people do it, it’s fine, legitimate, and necessary.

When you do it, it’s bad. Because you see, those people have an exemption from morality. Hmm, that’s just like the first point of my completely bonkers plan.

Now, you can bicker that, well, they can’t just do whatever they want. They’re only allowed to do certain evil stuff. Okay, that doesn’t really change the underlying principle and how bonkers it is to think that some people should be allowed to do evil. Whether people like hearing this or not, to believe in government of any size, any type, automatically and necessarily means that believing that people in government have an exemption from basic morality and are allowed to do evil. So much so that it’s not even evil anymore when they do it.

The vast majority of people, whether they’ve ever looked at it that way or not, believe exactly that. They believe that some people, those in authority, have an exemption from morality to one degree or another. And that’s absolutely insane and also horribly dangerous and destructive, as several hundred million people murdered by their own governments in the last hundred years kind of demonstrates.

Now, I’m going to bundle together the next two points of my bonkers plan: that I get to boss you around and have my enforcers beat you up if you disobey, and two, you can’t just disobey out of fear. You have to feel like I have the right to control you and that you are obligated to obey me.

As it happens, that is quite literally what the word “authority” means. Authority does not mean the ability to control somebody by force. Most of us have, if you have a gun, yeah, I can make this person do things, but that’s bad. Authority means the right, the moral right to control people, not just the ability. So if you believe in political authority at all, regardless of type or size, then you have to believe that certain people have the right to do immoral stuff and control people, and that it’s immoral for people to disobey them.

I mean, you wouldn’t want to be one of those despicable lawbreakers, would you? That isn’t just dangerous, it’s bad, right? Obeying the law is good, disobeying is bad. How many zillion times have we all heard that?

Okay, well, what is… It isn’t just don’t rob people and don’t murder people.

Well, law is how the duly elected congressional representatives enact the will of the people by way of the law.

No, as I said, we’re not going to do the bullcrap euphemisms and vague rhetoric. What literally is this thing called law?

Now, there are laws of physics and stuff. We’re not talking about that. That’s actual physical reality.

Law is commands—commands backed by threats of violence. A bunch of politicians did some rituals, put some words on paper, declared it to be law, and then they send violent armed enforcers after anyone who’s caught disobeying. That is the obvious, literal, undeniable reality.

But even just phrasing it honestly and literally makes a lot of people uncomfortable. That’s because when the reality of the situation is clearly expressed, everyone can see the obvious evil and insanity of it, which is why they have to talk about all the fluff. And just like you all saw the insanity when that was part of my brilliant plan for our new colony, everybody who hears it described literally goes, “Oh, that’s not what I want.”

Why do you keep voting for it?

The difference is anybody who hears me suggest it knows that I’m kidding. I hope. But the vast majority of human beings on this planet have been indoctrinated from birth to believe that when the exact same thing is done by way of longstanding, official, traditional political rituals, that it must be legitimate. It must be righteous. It must be sane. It must be necessary. It’s not.

Now, the fourth and final point. The fourth and final point of my bonkers plan is that I get to change my mind whenever I want. And when my rules change, morality changes with it. That’s how powerful I am. Even if my commands and demands are arbitrary and constantly changing, and different at different times and in different places and for different people, you are always bad if you disobey me. And you are always deserving of whatever punishment me and my enforcers dish out if you disobey. That was my plan, okay?

How does that compare to government?

In this country, in the beginning, drinking alcohol was legal. Then alcohol prohibition happened, and it became illegal—against the law. Then later, it became legal again. Therefore, to believe that obeying the law is a moral imperative, you have to believe that morality changes when the politician’s scribbles change. You’re a perfectly fine, upstanding citizen one day, but then—

Even though you didn’t change anything about what you were doing—the next day, you’re an immoral, despicable criminal because some new law was passed. Some new substance was outlawed. Some new firearm restriction was enacted. Some new random, obscure regulation change that you didn’t even know about happened relating to your field of work.

So you accidentally and unknowingly became a bad person.

By doing the same stuff you’ve done for years after some new arbitrary crap was spewed out by some bureaucratic parasite you’ve never heard of. And we’re supposed to believe that this is a legitimate and sane way to view reality? To believe that right and wrong can change based on the whims of corrupt political parasites?

So, of course, I trust all of you. Every night, read the Code of Federal Regulations before you go to bed. It’s only a couple hundred thousand pages to make sure you’re being a good, law-abiding citizen. And that’s just at the federal level. There’s still state and local and all sorts of… Make sure you keep up with that, because otherwise you’re a bad person if you accidentally do some random thing that doesn’t match some random rule you didn’t know existed.

Also, make sure you keep up to date with all of the laws of every country, every state, every town, every county, every locality you ever pass through, since you also have to believe that morality randomly changes from place to place when you cross invisible, imaginary lines.

Sure, you can be a respectable, moral person smoking marijuana here in Arizona. But if you do the exact same thing 100 miles north of here, over that magic line between Arizona and Utah, then you would be a despicable criminal and lawbreaker deserving of the violent assault and caging that will be inflicted upon you if you get caught. You horrible villain.

You have to believe this if you believe in political authority. And it’s bonkers.

Now, when we were imagining our new little colony in the woods, you all thought that my suggested plan, me as an all-powerful tyrant with the ability to do evil, was a stupid plan. In fact, you kind of chuckled at it, which I was a little offended by. And so would pretty much everyone else on the planet.

So why, when those in government do the same thing, do most people accept it and think it’s legitimate and even essential for society?

Now, for our little society in the woods, I could modify my plan slightly so I’ll let you choose between two power-happy megalomaniacs. So, you can decide which one of us you prefer, and I’ll pick the other one too and make sure he’s equally power-happy and stuff. You get to choose which one of us will violently rob and dominate you. You’re still gonna be dominated and robbed and extorted and controlled and bossed around and all that fun stuff. But hey, if you get to pick which person abuses and victimizes you, that makes it okay. Right?

Again, in the setting of my plan, nobody would accept such lunacy. And yet, most of the world praises democracy as the ultimate height of civilization. As long as the human livestock is allowed to bicker over who violently subjugates and exploits them, well, that’s as good as it gets, right? We choose our abusers so that counts as being free, right? No, it doesn’t. Duh.

Now, I must make a brief tangent here into the realm of human psychology, because most people, having been raised to believe in government and political authority, have been taught that good people happily and proudly pay their taxes and obey the law—including thousands of arbitrary random laws we can’t possibly keep track of.

They don’t want to have to question their entire view of reality, because that’s uncomfortable. Usually, it’s not very fun. In fact, for the vast majority of people I know who are now voluntarists, myself included, it was an awkward, uncomfortable process to look at my own belief system and go, Do I really believe this?

Why would I believe that?

That doesn’t make any sense. It took me years to just go: That doesn’t make sense. Because when someone’s deeply indoctrinated into a belief and doesn’t even recognize that it’s a belief, it’s really uncomfortable to actually look at it.

So, what some people are going to do when they hear this dangerous extremist rhetoric I’m saying up here, when I’m questioning the need for a violent parasitical ruling class—I mean, legislative representative government—their brains are going to start throwing excuses at it. They’ll try to justify why our system isn’t like what I described and how this is a free country, and the government here represents the people, serves the people, and is just doing the will of the people. And even if it kind of sucks, it’s still the best around, and all sorts of other dogmatic hogwash.

So I would humbly ask anyone listening to this to try not to go into knee-jerk emotional excuse-making mode. If your beliefs about government are rational and moral, then you ought to be able to answer my silly, fringe, ignorant questions easily, right? If I was up here suggesting that two plus two equals five, you wouldn’t have to get emotional and storm out of the room. You could, I hope, calmly demonstrate my error.

So, to keep things simple, let’s do this: Imagine that you get to decide your ideal government. For some reason, everyone else in the world has agreed to have you put together what you think would be the ultimate, most effective, fair, and efficient form of government. The world is counting on you to reboot humanity. All these problems we’re seeing, you can save the day by deciding what government we should have.

So we don’t need to complain about what government is right now, and we don’t need to get stuck bickering over political parties and candidates. Because for this little mental exercise, you get to decide it all, all by yourself. The structure of government, the way it functions, who gets to hold various positions of power—all of that is completely up to you and only you. We’re completely overhauling society, and you get to be the political architect, the master planner, the one in charge. Anything you want.

So, with that in mind, I have some questions for you about how things would be under your ideal political system and government—not under the mess we have now. Now, you don’t have to answer out loud; just think about it.

Maybe you’d have your government focus on doing inherently justified stuff like organizing defense to protect the innocent from aggressors and to protect the country from scary invading armies and stuff. I mean, what could be wrong with that? So you hire and train a bunch of righteous, brave, strong people who can defend us all from the bad people. Sounds good.

Okay, I have two questions.

First, do you force people to fund your version of protection whether they want to or not?

Because you have to admit, if your method of protecting people from thieves and robbers starts with you literally robbing them, something’s a little bit off. And that’s what every government does by way of taxation. We will protect and serve you, but first we have to take a bunch of your money and hurt you if you don’t hand it over for your protection.

Isn’t that exactly what the mafia does? And they call it a protection racket. And everybody recognizes, that’s not okay. That’s not good. You’re not protecting me. You’re the thing I need protection from.

My second question about your ideal government: if you’re trying to protect people, whether from armies or just local nasty people, do you allow competition?

If someone else shows up offering protection services to people who want to purchase those services, and if defending people is inherently righteous and someone else can do a better job than you and your government at a lower price, are you going to send armed thugs to forcibly shut them down and stop them from doing that?

Because once again, that’s just you being the mafia while pretending to protect people.

Now, maybe your ideal government is also going to create lots of good things like infrastructure and roads and schools and so on. Who can object to that? How are you paying for it? Are you politely asking people to donate? Or will you be using the force of government to make people fund these plans of yours whether they want to or not?

Because if you’re doing that by way of taxation, that’s not you generously giving anyone anything. That’s you spending other people’s money without their permission and then expecting them to be grateful for that. Which, by the way, is the foundation of every political campaign ever: generously giving away stolen loot. The Democrats do it, the Republicans do it, everybody does it.

So, in your ideal situation, would you allow competition?

Someone else shows up saying they can build a better road, train system, school, or whatever, for a better price. If enough people want to pay for that, what do you do? Does your ideal government interfere and forcibly forbid them from doing that? I could keep going, but hopefully, you understand the pattern here. Whatever you would try to use political power for, are you going to use force to make people fund it and use force to stop people from offering better services?

Because if you do that, you’re just an immoral thug and an enemy of freedom and humanity, like every other government in the history of the world.

Now, maybe you’ll proudly say, “No, I wouldn’t force people. I would allow people to decide if they want to fund the services I provide. And I’ll allow competition. I’m not going to be authoritarian and coerce anyone into funding it or going along with my version of what should happen. I’ll give my plans, and people can decide whether to support them or not, but I’m not going to threaten to beat them up, cage them, or take their money.”

Okay, if that’s your attitude, first of all, good for you. I commend you for your moral principles and your respect for other people’s freedom. But I would, however, point out that if you do that, you aren’t describing or planning government anymore.

Now you’re just doing stuff you already had the right to as a mere peasant. You’re coming up with ideas, seeing who wants to go along with them, or be involved, or help make that happen. By not forcing people to go along with your agenda, you gave away your power, and you stopped being government.

Again, good for you, but that would demonstrate that your ideal preferred government is zero government and instead voluntary organization and cooperation. That happens to be mine too.

Okay, brace yourself for the scary part because there’s a word for not having a violent parasitic ruling class. The word is anarchy, which literally means rule by no one. Monarchy is rule by one person, oligarchy is rule by a class of people, anarchy is rule by no one. It doesn’t mean no cooperation, it doesn’t mean everyone scatter and run off into the woods, it doesn’t mean every man for himself, it doesn’t mean no organization. It only means that nobody has special rights, nobody has an exemption from morality.

In short, to be an anarchist (Voluntaryist) literally just means that I don’t think anyone should be given societal permission to be evil. That is all that it means. Why is that seen as extreme by so many people?

Now, that’s definitely not what you’d think anarchism means. If you base it on how the state propagandists talk about it in the media, it’s chaos and mayhem. Hmm, who benefits from people thinking that not having a ruling class means chaos and violence and mayhem?

Maybe people who want to rule you?

At the beginning of this extremist rant, I assert that a whole lot of basically good people as a result of their beliefs are actually a huge part of the problem. To be blunt, the belief in authority tricks otherwise decent human beings into becoming agents of evil. And I do not use that word lightly. Back to you coming up with a master plan to impose on the world.

If you really and truly believed that you had every moral right to forcibly control and extort and the rest of humanity, would you treat them as equals? No.

Would you commit a bunch of immoral authoritarian oppression? Yeah.

Why wouldn’t you? If you have the right to rule and everyone else has the obligation to obey you, then you don’t view them as equals. You don’t view them as free, self-owning human beings. You view them as livestock, and that’s exactly how everyone in political power necessarily views you.

If someone thinks they have the right to tax you and control all sorts of decisions and behaviors, if they sought out a position of power from which they can dominate you, then they do not view you They view you as a subject. Now, we’ve been bombarded our entire lives with all manner of rhetoric and mythology designed to hide the true nature of this arrangement.

We’re told that government is, oh, we as a people make the decisions. No, it isn’t. Well, it’s a body that represents us and carries out the, no, it’s not. It’s how we all get together.

No, it isn’t. Setting aside the silly mythology we’re all taught to mindlessly parrot, what actually is government? This is key because once people recognize what it is, they don’t want it anymore.

Government is simply a bunch of mere mortal human beings wielding political power, telling the rest of us what to do, what not to do, dictating how much money we have to give them and how much of the fruits of our labor they will allow us to keep. And if we disobey any of their arbitrary commands, they send armed enforcers after us. That’s what government actually is: a violent, immoral, parasitical ruling class.

But wait, here’s the thing — the problem isn’t even the politicians, as slimy and corrupt as they are. If there was just a relatively small group of psychopaths saying, “We’re in charge,” we could all just say, “Who cares? We don’t recognize you.” They could be ignored, and life could go on. The problem isn’t that power-hungry psychopaths think they have the right to rule us; the problem is that most of us believe they have the right to rule us, and think we are obligated to obey whatever arbitrary nonsense they make up and call “law.”

All of their power comes from their victims imagining them to be legitimate authority. And if you really and truly believe that government has the right to use force, why wouldn’t you ask them to go rob other people to give you free stuff? If you were to do it, it would be bad, but somehow it’s good if they do it. Why wouldn’t you ask them to do that?

When people talk about political corruption, I have to chuckle. The term is redundant. There is no other kind of political action. The difference is that when someone else uses government force to serve their interests at the expense of your freedom and prosperity, you call it corruption. But if you can find a way to use government force to serve your interests at the expense of other people’s freedom and prosperity, you call it good representative government. It’s the same damn thing.

The political parasites will keep us at war with each other forever until humanity figures that out and we stop asking them to rob and violently dominate our neighbors.

I’m going to wrap this up with something so simple that most people will think, there has to be more to it than that. With all the convoluted, twisted, perverted political babble out there, I want to leave you with one obvious concept. Something so clear that even little children should be able to understand it, and it holds the key to rebooting humanity and instantly removing the vast majority of injustice, violence, and oppression in the world. Ready for it?

This is super advanced, so pay attention: If you shouldn’t do something yourself, then don’t ask anyone else — including government — to do it for you.

As basic and obvious as that sounds, and as quickly as everyone thinks, well, yeah, of course, the sad truth is that a grand total of zero voters actually abide by this. They all vote to have the government do things they know would be wrong if they did them themselves. Zero people who believe in government, of any kind or size, abide by this principle.

But if humanity could actually grasp this painfully obvious idea — and then act on it — the world would be drastically different in an incredibly positive way. The vast majority of oppression would disappear. War would be over.

So once again, I leave you with the ridiculously simple solution to most of humanity’s problems: If you shouldn’t do something yourself, then don’t ask anyone else, including government, to do the same thing for you.

The rest of the Liberty on the Rocks – Sedona – The Voluntaryism Conference presentation are available at Sedona.ArtOfLiberty.org and https://watch.civl.com/programs/the-voluntaryism-conference-2024

About Larken Rose

For decades Larken Rose has been an outspoken proponent of the principles of self-ownership, non-aggression and a stateless society. An author of several books, including “The Most Dangerous Superstition” and “The Iron Web,” and the primary screenwriter of the recently-released “Jones Plantation” film, Mr. Rose has produced hundreds of videos and articles and given dozens of talks, dissecting and exposing the irrational and destructive nature of the belief in political “authority.”

Larken’s Websites
http://www.therosechannel.com
http://www.youtube.com/larkenrose
http://www.jonesplantationfilm.com

About Liberty on the Rocks Conference & The Art of Liberty Foundation

Is the biggest secret in American/ international politics that “government” is illegitimate, immoral and completely unnecessary? Voluntaryism, REAL Freedom, is the only moral political philosophy on the market. Every other political “ISM” including socialism, communism and constitutional republicanism has a ruling class that has rights that you don’t have, an illogical exception from morality, and “voting” is so easily rigged by monopoly media, moneyed interests, and the organized crime “government” itself counting the votes with unauditable black box voting machines and mail in ballots that it is, frankly, a joke to think your vote maters or will even be counted

The Art of Liberty Foundation, a start up public policy organization exposing the illegitimacy and criminality of “government” from a principled voluntaryist perspective, is also educating the public on the 2nd biggest secret: We don’t really need “Government”! In a Voluntaryist world of REAL freedom, all the legitimate, non-redistributive services provided by monopoly “government” would be better provided by the free market, mutual aid societies, armed protective service companies, arbitration providers, insurance companies, non-profits and genuine charities. The world would be much more harmonious and prosperous under REAL freedom! This year’s Liberty on the Rocks conference brought together some of the most respected economists, legal experts, political philosophers and academics to explain spontaneous order and how the free market would better provide everything from roads to military defense to air traffic control without the waste, fraud, abuse and extortion of monopoly “government.”

Go paid at the $5 a month level, and we will send you both the PDF and e-Pub versions of “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed! and a coupon code for 10% off anything in the Government-Scam.com/Store.

Go paid at the $50 a year level, and we will send you a free paperback edition of Etienne’s book “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed! OR a 64GB Liberator flash drive if you live in the US. If you are international, we will give you a $10 credit towards shipping if you agree to pay the remainder.

Support us at the $250 Founding Member Level and get a signed high-resolution hardcover of “Government” + Liberator flash drive + Larken Rose’s The Most Dangerous Superstition + Art of Liberty Foundation Stickers delivered anywhere in the world. Our only option for signed copies besides catching Etienne @ an event.