(English is not Oskari's native language)
Let us imagine an ideal society. No taxation, no bureaucratic management, a free economy based on a gold currency, free gun-ownership, independent families, and healthy communities.
There is only one obstacle to this ideal: the modern state and its centralized power. The essence of the state is institutionalized aggression, and the effects of centralized government logically follow. The state destroys private property, wastes scarce resources, undermines local and traditional values, and destroys families by taking the children away from their parents and by putting them under the degenerative influence and socialist indoctrination of public school teachers. If our principles mean anything to us, we must fight back.
No state is invincible. Ultimately all government rests on popular opinion. Yet we must avoid the usual mistake: the top-down reform, i.e. voting, being active in a party, and attempting to influence politicians and government bureaucrats. Such a strategy only adds to the legitimacy of the state and is likely to hasten further centralization of power. What we need is something different. We need a localist, bottom-up reform. We cannot destroy the state in an all-out attack but we can starve it with piecemeal withdrawal of support and resources.
There are several ways in which you, your friend and your neighbor can work gainst state power--and do it on a personal level on an everyday-basis. Carry your own gun. Organize neighborhood watches. Protect your privacy--your mail, your personal information and your address. If possible, use gold instead of paper. Avoid public courts, and use arbitration instead. Home-school your children. Defend the traditions of your home-town and the values your family. Resist the degenerating influence of the egalitarian mass-society, and defend the natural and civilizing hierarchies based on family and property.
Protecting our own lives and properties is a fundamental step. However, it should only be the beginning. We can do more. We cannot shoot the state down, of course, but we can make ourselves, our neighbors, and even our home-town independent from it. This is all we need in order to starve the state to death. Our goal is simple: the creation of strong and independent localities--cities, towns, neighborhoods--that want to do no more business with the central government.
The localist-secessionist strategy is simple and fundamentally compatible with human nature. It is only natural to mind one's own business and to nurture one's family and neighborhood. Localism can therefore easily gain the support of a large number of people irrespective of their specific ideals. The localists need not be libertarians. They only have to be decent, responsible and hard-working men and women. Taking care of oneself, one's family and one's neighborhood is what any decent people would do.
Our ultimate goal--secession--is the natural outcome of localism consistently carried out. There is no need for political activism: just take care of your own business, create a network of secessionists communities, and you will lay the foundation for a peaceful secession.
Such a decentralization of power would destroy the legitimacy of the state once and for all. Local decision-making would completely undress the emperor. Every sane person would now see the absurdity and immorality of taxing production and rewarding incompetence, indolence and destruction. Most importantly, localities that would continue violating private property rights would see their productive members vote with their feet. The socialists could still stick to their policies in their own communities but they would have to face the social and economic superiority of the free-trade, private-property communities.
The state is mighty but vulnerable. Just as Communist Russia collapsed under economic failure, the social-democratic states of the West are struggling with economic mismanagement and huge public debts. The inevitable economic bankruptcy can be hidden and postponed by massive inflation and further centralization but it cannot be made disappear.
Once hard-working taxpayers begin to realize the real state of things, a secessionist revolution will be on its way. That is when the seeds of localism will bear fruit: neighborhood watches, gun-ownership, traditional values and secessionist ideals will become wide-spread in every decent family and healthy community. The central state would still try to demonize the secessionists and undermine their position of the determined secessionists with economic blockade and covert operations. But it would find it hard to legitimize such actions once a strong communal support for secession would be established at many locations. Just imagine a large number of independent free cities--a multitude of Hong Kongs, Singapores, Monacos, and Lichtensteins--strewn out over the entire continent! If only we are strong and consistent with our principles, it could one day become reality.
A war against the state--against power, exploitation, and corruption--is a never-ending struggle between good and evil. However, as long as we respect the dignity of each individual; as long as we value private property; as long as we care about the freedom of our children, their children, and all the generations to come, we can never give up. We must fight back--and indeed we can.
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