by Frederick Mann
© Copyright 1993 Terra Libra Holdings, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Disclaimer
Terra Libra does not challenge or threaten the authority of any
legitimate government. This report constitutes only the
communication of information in accordance with the right of free
speech. This report does not constitute legal or tax advice.
Anyone seeking such advice should consult a competent
professional. Neither the author nor the publisher assumes any
responsibility for the consequences of anyone acting according to
the information in this report.
Freedom Resources
Certain resources are potentially available to Terra Libra. To
expand Terra Libra, we need to shift some of these resources into
Terra Libra. In some cases the resources need to be combined. For
example, a Libertarian needs to learn the freedom technology of
how to surrender to the "terrocrat" (terrorist
bureaucrat, or coercive government agent) only the minimum that
is absolutely necessary. The following is a hierarchical
classification of some of the freedom resources potentially
available to Terra Libra:
Freedom Resources
Freedom-Oriented People
Freedom Technology
Freedom Media
Capital Owned by Freedom-Oriented People
Businesses Owned by Freedom-Oriented People
Resources Owned by Freedom-Oriented People
The Terra Libra Shift
In Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, John Galt said in his radio
address:
"If you find a chance to vanish into some wilderness out of
their reach... build a productive life of your own with those who
accept your moral code and are willing to struggle for a human
existence. ... [R]aise a standard to which the honest people will
repair: the standard of Life and Reason. Act as a rational being
and aim at becoming a rallying point for all those who are
starved for a voice of integrity - act on your rational
values."
"... Such is the future you are capable of winning. It requires a struggle; so does any human value. All life is purposeful struggle, and your only choice is the choice of a goal."
The Terra Libra shift has seven elements:
The idea behind the Galt's Gulch proposed by Ayn Rand is that a group of producers move away into some wilderness and start their own civilization in accordance with their own moral code and values. The difference between Galt's Gulch and the Terra Libra shift is that you don't have to "vanish into some wilderness." Most people can achieve a high degree of freedom right where they are now. It requires a change in attitude (the determination to live free), education (learning freedom technology), creating a support network (to access experts in freedom technology), and a change in action (implementing freedom technology). It involves a withdrawal - to whatever degree is appropriate for you - from the statist slave-economy. With the Terra Libra shift, you can effectively move out of the reach of terrocrats, while staying right where you are. You inspire others to do the same, because the more people who shift into Terra Libra, the stronger become the Terra Librans and the weaker the terrocrats.
Examples of the Terra Libra Shift
The most basic example of the Terra Libra shift is to practice an
occupation which enables you to be paid in cash: Babysitter,
Groundskeeper, Landscaper, Gardener, Plumber, Elecrician,
Carpenter, Language Teacher, Music Teacher, Private Tutor,
Mechanic, Handyman, TV/VCR Technician, Carpet Cleaner, Janitor,
Flea Market Operator, Garage Sale Entrepreneur, Professional
Gambler, Mail-Order Entrepreneur, etc. There are hundreds of
activities that can be started as hobbies and turned into true
free enterprise businesses.
You may also want to set up a Trust to increase your privacy and safeguard your assets. And you could find out how to use bank accounts without compromising your privacy. Following are some examples of how others might implement the Terra Libra Shift:
Independent Consultant (computer and other professionals)
Business Owner (Some Employees Freedom-Oriented, Some Not)
Doctor's Practice
Statist Corporation Employee (Applies to 50 American States)
Private Currency Financial Services Organization
Immortalist / Cryonicist
Permanent Tourist
In most countries of the world, freedom-lovers can use variations of the above to live, work, and/or operate businesses, relatively free from terrocrats. I have personally used these methods to live free for nearly 20 years in several countries. My interaction with terrocrats has been minimal. For example, during over five years in the U.S.A. I have suffered only two incidents of direct coercion. I was stopped by cops twice while travelling, once for "looking suspicious" in Las Vegas, once for allegedly speeding in Scottsdale. On both occasions the cops let me go after a few minutes. Generally, the only type of coercion I have suffered from is being charged sales tax when I purchase items.
In general, the freedom-lover who practices freedom technology judiciously is far less at risk from coercion than the "obedient slave" who toes the terrocrat line.
Notes on Personal Power
The key factor that determines the extent to which you will
implement the Terra Libra shift is your personal power. In order
to increase your personal power it may be useful to examine the
evolution of personal power.
Consider how much power an individual had before humans learned to utilize fire, before the bow and arrow were invented, before agriculture was practiced, before the horse and ox were domesticated, before the wheel was invented, before reading and writing?
Then consider how much power an individual had 150 years ago: no cars, no telephones, no radio, no TV, no planes, no copy machines, no computers.
Now consider how much power an individual has today. I can walk into a building and collect a week's food in exchange for a few pieces of paper. I can pick up my phone and speak to someone on the other side of the world. I can travel to almost any city in the world in less than 24 hours. I can write things on my computer and send them to thousands of others by pressing a few buttons. A group of individuals can build a huge dam or fly a man to the moon.
But also consider how much power an individual might have 10 years from now. By then individuals will probably have largely overcome death, and will be able to extend their lives almost indefinitely. There will probably be several space colonies. A group of individuals will probably be able to "terraform" Venus so it becomes suitable for human habitation. Space migration to the planetary systems of other suns may have become a reality.
We have developed technologies that provide individuals or groups of individuals with awesome powers. The rate of increase of human technological power will probably continue to accelerate.
What distinguishes humans from other animals, what provides us with our phenomenal evolution of personal power, is our increasing use of tools. We can think of a "tool" as anything we use to increase our personal power. In this wide context, everything we build or manufacture and all our economic, social, and political institutions are tools. We can create the tools to achieve practically everything we can imagine or conceive.
So why do we suffer from petty pathetic little problems like crime, drug addiction, depression, suicide, rape, child abuse, murder, terrorism, government, state education, brainwashing, war, monopolies, inflation, poverty, homelessness, pollution, famine, etc., etc., etc.? Why do conscious humans with the ability to reason indulge in such idiocies?
Could the reason be that many of our economic, social, and political systems have been knowingly or unknowingly designed to destroy personal power? Coercion is essentially the overwhelming of the will of another. Coercion destroys personal power.
Or could the reason be that our minds are all fouled up? Could our minds be so full of human failure programs that no matter how hard we try to solve the petty pathetic little problems, we just go around in circles? Could it be that up to the advent of Terra Libra, everyone who has attempted to straighten things out has really attempted to do so from within the old unworkable economic, social, and political systems?
Our parents, teachers, preachers, psychologists, politicians, writers, and journalists have so filled our heads with human failure programs that no matter what we try, we get dragged back into the old unworkable systems. These human failure programs stem from all the times we were told: "No!," "Stop!," "You can't do that!," "You'll hurt yourself!," "You're a naughty child!," "It's against the law!," "You must share your toys!," etc., etc., etc. What if "government" is no more than a grown-up version of these infantile human failure programs, clothed in rhetoric and legalese?
Terra Libra is a complete jump out of the old unworkable systems. I declare my self-ownership, my individual sovereignty, my freedom. I declare that I'm not subject to the stupid rules of the old unworkable systems. I find creative ways of living my life accordingly. I tell people it is futile to try to oppose or change the old unworkable systems. Just jump out of the old system, join me, and let us create a new system. If our system works, people will soon flock to it.
To the extent that I submit to the coercion of the old system, I perpetuate it. By paying unnecessary taxes I finance the old unworkable system. And what do I achieve when I vote? What would happen if nobody voted? When I vote, do I express my personal power, or do I relinquish it?
The power of the old system is based on lies and naive victims believing those lies. Paradoxically, opposing or trying to change the old system tends to reinforce its power. We are now entering the realm of advanced freedom technology. The old system in its entirety is really a fraud and a hoax. It is really a nothing that pretends to be a something. If you try to oppose or change it, you are reinforcing the false belief that it is a something. You are, in fact, making a something out of a nothing.
This will become clearer once you have read Reports #TL06: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude and #TL07: The Constitution of No Authority.
The Spooner-Insight
Difficult as it may be to grasp, the British Empire was always a
nothing. Gandhi subconsciously realized this, and it enabled him
to drive the British out of India. Gandhi the individual was
superior to the nothing British Empire. The "powers"
that maintained the Berlin wall were really a nothing all along.
When enough people stopped regarding the nothing as a something,
nothing could (not) keep the Berlin Wall standing. The Soviet
Empire was a nothing all along. When enough people lost their
respect for it, it collapsed overnight. One day, seemingly, there
was a Soviet Empire. The next day there was nothing. The reason
that the transition from a "seeming something" to a
nothing was so quick and complete is that the "seeming
something" was really a nothing all along. The "seeming
something" endured only as long as it did because naive
people believed in it.
Lysander Spooner was a lawyer and a freedom fighter who lived during the 19th Century. He used impeccable and irrefutable logic to demonstrate that the political institutions of his time were really nothings. I call this the "Spooner-insight."
For us to grasp the Spooner-insight is extremely difficult. From earliest childhood, at school, constantly by the press, radio, and TV, we are brainwashed with messages to convince us that our political institutions are somethings. We are all so brainwashed that even for our most ardent freedom-lovers the Spooner-insight is difficult to grasp. Once you have studied Reports #TL06: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude and #TL07: The Constitution of No Authority you may grasp the Spooner-insight more easily.
The Debilitating Fear of the Tax Collector
For thousands of years the perpetrators of nothing political
systems have used tax collectors to terrorize their victims and
to brainwash them into believing that their systems were
somethings. That is why you are informed by the press, radio, and
TV about people whose property is confiscated and auctioned off
by the tax collector, people who burn their houses rather than
let the tax collector seize them, people who are jailed by the
tax collector, and people who commit suicide because of being
terrorized by the tax collector.
To implement the Terra Libra shift, you may have to overcome your fear of the tax collector. Many freedom-oriented people suffer from a debilitating fear of the tax collector. As a result they think and talk freedom, but they live slavery. They finance their slave-master.
In the U.S.A. we are fortunate that practically everything the tax collector does is unconstitutional, illegal, and fraudulent. Methods with a high degree of workability have been developed to defeat the tax-thief. You may occasionally hear of the "tax protestor" (usually a blunderer) who is jailed, but the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) doesn't tell you as loudly about the tens of millions who don't submit to their theft and robbery and get away with it.
As an informed individual, your chances of beating them
are very high. Tax attorney Donald W. MacPherson (Tax Fraud
& Evasion: The War Stories) calculates the chances of an
individual being prosecuted in any given year being about 1 in
70,000; and the chances of being jailed at 1 in 146,000. As a
general rule, the IRS goes after the "easy pickings."
In reality you don't deal with the "IRS monster," but
with individual bureaucrats - often not the most competent
individuals. Once you know the major weaknesses of the IRS - the
soft belly of the monster - you have little to fear. To the
informed individual the IRS really is a paper tiger. Inform
yourself by reading the following books:
(a) Congressman George Hansen: To Harass Our People: The IRS
and Government Abuse of Power (Positive Publications, Box
23560, Washington DC 20024).
(b) Donald W. MacPherson: Tax Fraud & Evasion: The War
Stories (phone 1-800-BEAT-IRS).
(c) Mitch Modeleski: The Federal Zone: Cracking the Code of
Internal Revenue (Account for Better Citizenship, c/o
PO Box 6189, San Rafael, California Republic, PZ 94903-0189/TDC).
(d) Irwin A. Schiff: The Biggest Con: How Government is
Fleecing You (Freedom Books, 60 Skiff St #300, Hamden, CT
06517).
(e) Irwin A. Schiff: The Federal Mafia: How It Illegally
Imposes and Unlawfully Collects Income Taxes (Freedom Books,
60 Skiff St #300, Hamden, CT 06517).
(f) Alan Stang: Tax Scam: How the IRS Swindles You and What
You Can Do About It (Mount Sinai Press, Research
Publications, PO Box 84902, Phoenix, AZ 84902).
Whatever country you live in, you can use variations of the Terra Libra shift, as described in this report, to beat the tax collector with little risk, and to live as free as you wish.
The Challenge to Overcome
There are three basic reasons why freedom-lovers don't live free:
The first reason is simply a lack of practical knowledge. The answer is to inform yourself, educate yourself. You have to take total responsibility for your knowledge. You have to study the Terra Libra reports and much more. Don't expect freedom to be given to you on a silver platter.
The second reason constitutes human failure programs. The answer is increasing personal power - replacing human failure programs with human success programs. You may want to study Report #TL12; How to Achieve Emotional Control.
Government is not the problem here. Paradoxically, the worse government becomes, the better! The higher their taxes, property seizures, and other violations, the more attractive Terra Libra becomes as an alternative.
The problem is human ignorance, fear, and weakness. The solution is to get freedom technology into people's heads. But how do we do that? I can only get freedom technology into my head. I can change myself, but I can't change anyone else. They have to change themselves. But I can make freedom technology available to people.
As Terra Libra grows - particularly the Freedom Technology Resource Guide (#TL02), the Freedom Technology Directory (#TL02A), and other Terra Libra publications - it will become easier for people to see that there is a wealth of freedom resources available.
America represents the world's greatest freedom resource because of these reasons:
Developing Thinking Skills
The third reason freedom-lovers don't live free is that they are
deficient in thinking skills. Imagine that someone has two
weapons: thought and force. Imagine further that when confronted
with a problem or obstacle, a person will first attempt to use
thought. If thought doesn't work, the person will resort to
force.
The freedom-lover, having renounced force, has only one weapon: thought. Terrocrats can get by with minimal thought, because they can always fall back on force when thought fails. Freedom-lovers, if thought fails, have nothing to fall back on.
To succeed, freedom-lovers have to develop their thinking skills to a level that enables them to overcome both the thought and the force of the terrocrats.
Many people are so deficient in thinking skills that they don't even know that there is a subject called "Thinking Skills." Recently I met with an author who claimed he had "discovered the secret of the cosmos," as well as the "single cause" of and the "single solution" to all human problems. He claimed that to implement his "solution" people had to develop "accelerated thought."
I said to him that for people to develop "accelerated thought" they would have to systematically learn thinking skills. He gave me a blank look and said, "There's no need to teach people to think. They just do things, think about what they do, and from that they learn how to think!"
The development of thinking skills is covered in Report #TL11: How to Increase Your Intelligence, and a series of future reports to be written.
If the quality and range of your thinking skills are deficient, you will suffer coercion. As long as people can't think, they will substitute coercion or force for thought. This also tells us that for Terra Libra to succeed, a significant portion of the population of earth will have to learn thinking skills. The main thrust of our efforts have to shift to teaching people thinking skills.
Maybe, the main reason why all efforts up to now to teach freedom have met with limited results is that people can't learn freedom if they can't think. Before we can teach freedom, we have to teach people how to think. And we have to start with ourselves.
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