Memorial Day, 2017 United States of America
Memorial Day is a holiday where the armed forces and like are supposed to be remembered for the sacrifices they make concerning freedom. So what sacrifices? Normal lives? Unregulated lives to maintain discipline? What?
Such individuals are meant to be seen as protecting freedom or being willing to take up arms against tyrants who will see us without it. Unfortunately, no nation funded with taxation can be free of such tyrants. Proclaimed services of peace keeping are imposed upon others without their consent. And it is this idea which is the most difficult for so many to understand a solution differing from the current status quo or vicious barbarian overlords, some tyrannical and mindless redcoats, hordes of overzealous Japanese soldiers, or perhaps the culturally strange and hive mind stereo typed Chinese who systematically will wipe us out!
The idea of freedom is meant to represent the absence of unwarranted coercion. The idea of freedom is meant to symbolize the potential respecting consent has to out produce the demands of threats to comply. Yet freedom as is experienced today in the United States is not the same kind of freedom it was thought of so many years ago when the various states of the war torn Union in mid to late 1800s understood it. Where is the peaceful choice to say no to taxation without the morally bankrupt and philosophically vague and inconsistent rebuttal of, “If you don’t like it you can leave?”
Of course if you refuse to pay taxes, the agents of government will come take you and your stuff away! Should you resist, those same agents of government believe they have the power to kill you in their self defense. Now what kind of freedom is that? Freedom to obey and live to obey another day; or is it to risk your life because they refuse to understand how they could better improve their own lives as order followers which doesn’t require hurting other people?
Essentially the freedoms protected by the armed forces of the United States and the like boil down to this:
-freedom to obey and have the order givers and order followers determine when you will die.
-freedom to disobey and have the order givers and order followers determine when you die as a matter of show to the remaining obedient as to why they should continue their compliance; or apathy.
I understand that such wording is crass. That is what the hard-nosed logically consistent people see in the beginning of their comprehension of what taxation is. The truth is that people in the armed forces and legislatures of the governments of the United States all have nearly infinite reasons for doing what they do. Rare is the individual with the intent to take over the government to rule the world like a cut-n-dry movie villain. All the reasons invoked to be dutiful agents of government consist of something positive for society and or themselves. And of the reasons for themselves are gainful employment and college money and benefits to simply escape poverty induced by the unintended consequences of taxation and its offspring, regulations.
They desire to perform good things but somehow never understand or reject the importance of a clear path of philosophical thought progression. Why and how this happens is the barrier to more efficiently understanding the importance of peace and how to effectively use such an idea. The fundamental reason this occurs for the overwhelming majority is rooted in the fact that these people want to do good.
They see something that is accepted. They see something they understand from a limited perspective. They see something they can work with but do not fully understand how it actually works, let alone its purpose. And then they end up doing more harm than good. Yet they make justification after justification as to why the harm was necessary because they don’t want to be held responsible for creating a new problem by using philosophically and economically destructive means to solve a previous problem.
The model taxation in the United States is more representative of feudal lords and fearful serfs than of fully consent respectful property owners renting their land and buildings to fully coherent individuals; even if both sides do not intend to be lords and serfs. The mantra of ‘you can leave if you don’t like it’ is common to hear from those whom say we require government, even minimally, in order to maintain peace. The truth is that peace doesn’t require violence or coercion to be maintained.
Peace requires reason to be maintained. Government violence imposed to give destructive authority to it is the idea which spoils and negates the noblest intent of government, limits the potential of peace government can bring. Peace is not even the goal we should be seeking. Peace is the means we should be using in order to achieve the infinite goals we all have to make our lives wonderful! We all have the same goal, to maintain and improve the quality of our lives.
(Even suicidal individuals and depression prone individuals because the maintenance and improve of life is the lowest common denominator of all Humanity. Depression and negative emotions which justify suicide and harming others are just anomalies of cognitive impairment derailing the full potential to problem solve; thus the unclear logic of ending one’s life to stop the suffering improves the quality of it by stopping the life.
This is the kind of logic behind needing to wage war to have peace. It means that the ability of advocates of government to understand the idea of peace, morality, and freedom is limited by something. Their ability to comprehend such ideas and problem is limited. And what could limit their abilities to make them similar in impaired cognitive means to depression and suicide prone individuals? Fear and obedience training through indoctrination of government mandated and approved studies.)
Peace is the means to achieving greater potential and greater rewards for creating what we want to maintain and improve the quality of our lives. Peace is what government advocates and their law enforcers and their armed forces personnel say they fight for. But if and when we have any peace, what do we do with the peace?
That is the issue with the logic of needing government. There is a justification of violence to be employed to give government teeth. People acting on behalf of every government as law enforcement and armed forces personnel are allowed to be violent. This is philosophically inconsistent with the noble intent of government sold to the governed.
This is an important concept when one understands that bad laws can be imposed upon good people with violence but good people must employ peace to stop those same laws lest they become law breakers. And the answer is always with a set of rules, such as the Constitution of the United States.
Just as government rule has teeth to be noble in invocation to stop the bad people, so too must the good people have teeth to stop the bad people in government. But here is the dilemma:
Taxation is not voluntary. Because people must exit the jurisdiction of the taxing entity or be jailed or be killed resisting there is fear imposed upon the proclaimed ‘free to leave’ taxed. That is tyranny. That is not freedom. That is how the law enforcers and armed forces are paid. There is nothing peaceful about that. And that is what Memorial Day in the United States ends up celebrating!
Seems like something is inconsistent with the philosophy invoked by so many, enjoyed by so many, and defended by so many!
If the troops defended freedom, they do not necessarily have to be shooting at Washington D.C. They just have to stop accepting the money for their services paid with taxes AND stop serving people who do not want their services.
It’s that simple!
So this Memorial Day, how about celebrating all the Firefighters who voluntary or are paid with donations instead. We don’t need to shame those who do not understand. We only need to not celebrate them. That’s all.
There is a difference between being a mean spirited or verbally combative dissenter and being a peaceful dissenter. The choice is yours if you understand the importance and reason why peace is invoked.
Happy Memorial Day to all who serve others through voluntary interactions free of coercion, fear, guilt, and aggression!
-JLD
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