When considering the aspects of individual liberty we have to focus on the individual person who owns said liberty. We can look at the idea of secession as a means for both obtaining and retaining more autonomy and freedom in our lives. Breaking away from the “conventional wisdom” of the collective may seem like an insurmountable task, but it’s totally worth it.
It is my hope to help you break out of a cycle of dependency, one piecemeal task at a time. A few ideas in the following list are but a few things you can do as an individual to secede from the state’s coercion and reinforce your autonomy.
HOMESCHOOL
What is government school except for a state funded indoctrination camp that teaches your children how to obey arbitrary rules and submit to a perceived authority? Why would any liberty minded person send their progeny to take that kind of abuse… for 13 years?! This is madness!
More and more people these days are choosing to homeschool (or even unschool) their children. There are countless reasons for the incline in the number of homeschoolers. Some people pull their kids out of government schools for religious reasons while others simply believe that they can do a better job educating their own children. Personally, I don’t want my kids to have their creativity, curiosity, and agency sucked away from them by a state funded indoctrination camp. Your mileage may vary, and that’s ok.
With each passing year it’s becoming much easier to homeschool, or unschool, our children. It’s definitely much easier today with services like Kahn Academy, YouTube, and ABCya for a young kid to learn at their own pace, whenever they want, for free. Self directed education doesn’t stop there though. Check out services like Udemy, Coursera, Skill Share, and others for further education for young adults and, well, maybe even a 35 year old podcaster/truck driver. Self directed learning never stops. We covered our thoughts on homeschooling in episodes 05 and 41 of the podcast.
Whatever your motivation, homeschooling is an outstanding way to secede from the centrally controlled apparatus of “government schooling”. It’s also a great way to focus more on having a meaningful relationship with your kids. After all, it’s your responsibility to make sure they grow up to be decent human beings; not some cog in a machine that only exists for someone else’s benefit.
JOIN A CREDIT UNION
I love credit unions. I’ve been with mine for almost 20 years. Credit unions can be a great way to save money because their rates are almost always better than that of a conventional bank. A credit union offers many, if not all, of the same services that a regular bank does. They just do it better.
You can think of your credit union as a cooperative, or a member owned organization, that operates much like a not-for-profit organization does; because that’s exactly what it is. Credit unions are incentivized to perform better for their members because the members run it. There is no board of directors on the 68th floor of a skyscraper hiking up rates to pad their profit margin. There’s also no board of directors that can go crying to the federal government for a bailout.
Choosing to pull your money away from as many layers of state control as you can will inevitably lead to better control of your funds. This step toward financial secession will afford you more autonomy in your finances. We’ll go a bit deeper on how you can secede from the dollar all together in the next part.
USE CRYPTO-CURRENCY
Crypto-currency is more than just magic internet money. It’s managed in a similar way that today’s US dollar is, but only in the aspect that it’s kept on an electronic ledger. By the way, that’s a ledger that decentralized, immutable, and distributed all across the planet.
Crypto-currency is not only becoming more popular. Its actively making people’s lives better across the planet. There’s countless startups that are building their businesses on blockchain technology. One in particular that I like is Coin Text. Money truly is the killer app, and these guys are helping to bring economic prosperity to a few of the poorest and most oppressed corners of the world.
There are many reasons one might invest and do business in crypto-currency. I’m invested in a few different currencies myself. I believe in the potential service that each one can provide. I like the privacy aspect of a couple of the different privacy coins. I like the fact that regulators all over the planet have no clue how to handle crypto-currency. I believe that crypto is not only the money of the future, but the money for free individuals. Mostly though, for me, it’s the mechanism that I see that can help me minimize my (forced) contribution to foreign wars of aggression and the police state at home.
I truly believe that to secede from a corrupt nation’s monetary system is to take a great deal of power away from it. The fruits of my labor are mine to do with as I please, taxation is theft, and I mean to starve this machine.
If you’re new to crypto and you want to get started today, I recommend getting your first $100 worth on Coinbase. They’ve been around for a while, and they serve their purpose well. While it’s not the ideal platform for the seasoned crypto-anarchist, it’s a really good place to start.
MAINTAINING YOUR HEALTH
I talk quite a bit about self ownership. Realizing that I own myself isn’t enough though. My body is mine, it’s a temple, and taking care of it properly often means more individual responsibility.
Eating better allows one to secede from the system that subsidizes large farming programs. Such programs are propped up by tax dollars (theft), and are inefficient at best. Not to mention that roughly 80% of the funds of The Farm Bill go to food stamps. I would much rather spend my money on local meat and produce…like any good Agorist. Farmers markets and local butchers are great for this.
There are other reasons to buy local, fresh, organic, or whatever you call it. Most of the food approved by the FDA available for purchase today isn’t good for you. In fact, a great deal of it is poison. A steady diet of FDA approved poison is a sure fire way to keep you in the doctor’s office and on FDA approved medication for a long time. It’s not a bad business model if you think of it; and have no soul. Legally poison folks, regulate healthcare, capture the market and retain a monopoly on approved medicine, and repeat. We’ve covered this on the podcast in Episodes 21 and 37.
One of the most powerful things a free individual can do to secede from a system that steals from it’s people to poison them is the take full responsibility of taking care of one’s self. Seceding from FDA control in the fast food line, the grocery stores, and the pharmacy is a powerful way to take control of your own health and gain back your autonomy.
SIDE HUSTLE
I can’t stress enough how important a side hustle is today. The days of putting in 30 years and getting the gold watch are long gone. I don’t like to throw around the term “wage slavery” very much, but it seems that most people have gotten themselves into a situation that can be defined by no other phrase. Side income is an essential key to gaining autonomy and seceding from a grind that you have minimal to no control over.
We talk quite a bit about Agorism here. The Agorist is indeed the black market shadow warrior when it comes to side hustles. We can take a page or two out of this free market hero’s book to demonstrate what makes a good side hustle. We’ve also covered it in episodes 28 and 35 of the podcast. We’ve covered Agorism in episode 47.
There are countless ways you can make side income. In 2019 it’s never been easier to start an ecommerce hustle. Platforms like WordPress, Amazon, eBay, Shopify, Etsy, BitBacker, and many more have proven to help folks turn a buck online. There are ways to better serve your local community as well, like growing microgreens, raising livestock, or something involving arts and crafts; pretty much anything you can sell at a local farmers market or flea market. My son loves working with wood, and he’s actually made money serving a few local customers. You can do local cleaning gigs like driveways, pools, houses, or cars. These are easily done with a small investment of whatever a pressure washer and some soap costs. The lists goes on and on, and is only limited by one’s imagination and/or laziness.
SECURITY
The more you can do to take your safety and security into your own hands, the better. It seems that the more power today’s police departments have the more that power tends to be abused. We see this abuse in the forms of ever increasing revenue generating schemes, an unending list of completely arbitrary laws and regulations, and the willingness of today’s officers to escalate any confrontation to the point of shooting a man, or woman, or child, or even the beloved family pet. With today’s obvious abuse of state power, what exactly is a man’s motivation for him to put his trust in local law enforcement?
Let’s look at a few examples of why you shouldn’t trust the police to have your best interests in mind. They beat up teenage girls in school. They shoot and kill your service dog. They shoot and kill your regular dog. They taser, beat, and sick dogs on innocent people that “fit the description” of a suspect. They will beat you within an inch of your life in the middle of a medical emergency. You can add this next one to “reasons to homeschool”. They brutally rape 6 year old girls in public schools. To top it all off, their in-justice system covers their criminal behavior, like this instance in Wichita, KS in December 2017. The moral of the story is that you can’t trust agents of the state to protect or defend you. It simply isn’t their job, or obviously, in their own interests.
There are ways you can take more control over your own safety and well being though. I’ll cover a few that I personally use myself. However, the options out there for people with different skills, abilities, and budgets make the possibilities virtually endless.
The first, and most obvious to liberty-minded folks, is guns. Yes, I know, it’s the obvious first choice. It really is the best first line of defense to have on your person though. Even when we’re giving police and first responders the benefit of the doubt, we still say “when seconds count, police are minutes away.” Getting a firearm that fits well with your lifestyle and ACTUALLY TRAINING with it is, in my opinion, the best thing you can do to ensure your personal safety and the safety of the ones you love.
Dogs are man’s best friend, for a reason. I hope you’re a dog person, because I highly recommend having dogs at home for protection. Yes, dogs, plural; inside dogs. We have two. The older one is a cute, furry little asshole that barks at anything that sounds like it moves on our property. The other one is 70lbs. of purposely trained Doberman. They’re both house dogs, and they both have a job to do. The Doberman also knows that people are allowed to pet her ONLY after I’ve invited them in and introduced them to her. Her name is Kimber, and she’s a very important member of our family.
Cameras are a good idea. They’re a great deterrent for would be burglars, and they give you incredible peace of mind. With today’s technology getting better, and the wonders of capitalism making these technologies cheaper, there are some great options on the market that are super affordable. I have an 8 camera system that’s high definition and has an infrared mode to see at night. The system has a 2TB hard drive and I can pull up the feed on my smartphone from anywhere I may be on the planet. I should probably mention that I got this system for under $300, and I was able to instal it myself. I recommend that you look into doing the same.
There is much more you can do to beef up your security, take control of your own protection, and secede from the state’s protection racket. Have good relationships with your neighbors. Love them and be helpful. Have plans for emergencies, and actually practice your plans to make sure everyone gets it. The more you can be self sufficient, the better off you’ll be.
VOTE WITH YOUR FEET
This one’s pretty simple. If it’s hard for you to enjoy your idea of personal freedom where you live, move. Seriously, secede from your community and find greener pastures.
I know, I know, it’s never that easy. There’s a lot involved in uprooting one’s life. I get that. This is where a simple cost-benefit analysis could help you make that decision. You’ll have to really sit down and work out a number of real issues that will have a real effect on your life. Is it easy for me to leave my job? Can I find comparable work somewhere else? How far away from my family am I comfortable with moving? Will my kids adjust well? Where would be a good fit for my idea of a better ecosystem for gaining more autonomy? What liberties are seen and unseen? For that matter, what hazards are seen and unseen?
For as long as humans have been making tools and forming tribes, individuals have been voting with their feet. There’s no reason that you can’t do the same. If you’re like me, you do your research and you don’t mind forums. A wonderful resource for those interested in such an undertaking is a forum called Walking To Freedom. I recommend that you give it a once over.
IN SUMMATION
It’s a real chore to gain more autonomy and individual liberty these days. To make and shape one’s own beautiful idea of individual liberty can be as laborious and tiresome as heating and pounding metal all day long; hence the branding. The end product is more than worth it though.
It can be difficult to turn away from the easy way out, the offer for an organization to take care of you, the conventional wisdom of the herd, and the road that’s known and well traveled. These options, in my educated opinion, will only lead to an individual toiling under someone else’s motives, profit, and agency. That’s no place for a free individual to be. The free individual should strategically move away from such situations as efficiently as humanly possible. That’s why I’m calling for secession. I’m calling for you, and folks like you, to individually secede from the collectivist nightmare. Sharpen the mind, fill the soul, feed the brain, and forge your liberty.
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