Tag Archives: individual rights

More Questions From the Alien

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I know most people find it absolutely inconceivable that we can exist without a government to run things. Personally, I just can’t understand that mind frame. I just don’t get it.

Why do so many people think they can’t figure out how to run their own lives without some far off ‘leader’ making all the important decisions for them? I mean it’s ridiculous right?

Here in the USA, ‘the most free country in the world’, our government saddles us with hundreds of thousands of ‘laws’. The Code of Federal Regulations had over 34,000 pages (and weighed 340 lbs) in 2011!!!

Our leaders force us to follow their directions in everything from deciding what we can do with our own bodies (can’t decide what to eat, drink, smoke, etc), to what we can do with ‘our’ property, to what we can do for a living (and how). Their interference is never-ending!

We have laws to: fine or imprison us for drinking raw milk, force us to drink fluoridated water, regulate the amount of water you can use to flush your toilet, force you to tie yourself up every time you get in your car (seatbelt), force you to use expensive and shorter lasting lightbulbs, fine or imprison you for collecting the rain water that falls on your property, throw you in prison for using a harmless plant (marijuana), force you to pay them (government) in order to start a business (extortion), force you to pay them in order to get a job (extortion), force you to support a corrupt and exceedingly expensive medical system (obamacare), allow ‘our leaders’ to get away with NOT following the ‘laws’ they FORCE the rest of us to follow!

And there are hundreds of thousands of others. 🙁

Yet, some people still believe that all this is somehow necessary. I will continue to ask WHY? Since it really is NOT necessary, no not at all! People existed in peaceful societies long before there was any such thing as ‘government’.

No, we do NOT need the government to ‘build roads’, ‘educate the children’, ‘catch the thieves/bad guys’, etc. People were perfectly capable of doing all those things (and everything else they needed to do) without any government.

I’ve been a libertarian ever since I understood what the word meant (nonaggression principle), and really since I was born. I never understood the need for ‘authority’ and have fought it all my life.

I KNOW I can run my life better than anyone else can. Yes, even tho I’ve made mistakes and will surely make more. I STILL know that no one else could’ve done better. Period! I understand that works the same for everybody on this planet (and everywhere else!).

It is simply impossible for anyone else to have all the knowledge that I do about my life (same for everybody else). Without perfect knowledge, there can be no perfect decisions. Since I have the MOST perfect knowledge, then my decision is the BEST one possible. Period.

Until there is some all knowing, all powerful, perfect being (some say there is- God- but that’s another issue I don’t want to get into now), then there is NO justification for letting ANYONE else control YOUR decisions about YOUR life. PERIOD!

The US Constitution tried to create a ‘proper’ government. One where the PEOPLE were sovereign, as they should be. The principles behind the Declaration of Independence and written in the Bill of Rights were a great start for a great country.

The first ever formed specifically and only to guarantee and protect the rights of the individual. Our founding fathers understood that those rights were inherent to every human being and did NOT come from any government.

Too bad we’ve decided to disregard all that stuff. We’ve decided to throw our heritage of freedom and individual liberty in the garbage and become like every other socialist country in the world (most of them failures in many ways). It’s just a matter of degree.

We used to understand the difference between individualism and statism. Not any more. We’re all statists now, everywhere around the world. We’re lucky we’re still living on what we were able to create when we were still fairly free and able to be creative. Those days are fading fast.

I liked how the little alien from my post the other day asked such great questions. Here it is again with some more to make you think…

Tuesday Meetups: Government Explained

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I was at our weekly Tuesday Meetup of the Campaign for Liberty. Last week was one of the better ones we’ve had in a while. We watched a couple of pretty good videos. Here’s one…

We all got a good laugh out of it. I would love to see this thing played in every school in the country. We really need to do something to get people to think about this kind of stuff!

Personally, I’ve never understood why so many people think they need someone else to tell them how to live their lives. Or why so many people think that someone else actually has some sort of right to do it.

As a libertarian, I believe every person has the absolute right to live their own lives in the best way they can. The way they choose. They have the right to do anything they want, as long as they don’t hurt anybody else.

So far, no one has ever been able to give me a good reason for not having things that way. A lot of excuses, a lot of fears, a lot of “what-ifs”, but no reasons.

I’d really like to see someplace, even just one place in the world, try to form a society where people could live that way. The US tried. They came very close when they came up with the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. But they never truly followed it. If they had actually treated ALL people the way they said they should, we might actually have a free country today. Too bad they weren’t ready to go that far. 🙁

I do see a few people around the world trying. The Seasteaders, the Libertarian Party, the guy over in Europe who’s trying hard to create a really free country, even the Freedom Ship was originally intended to be a place where people could have real freedom (tho it seems to have mutated).

I’d love to be able to find somewhere like that to move to, so far they are all out of my reach financially at least. In the meantime, I keep on trying to find ways to make things better here, but it sure does get frustrating.

Videos like that help cheer me up, for a little while. 😉

Carl Miller – Right to travel without a license plate

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I agree with this guy in principle. We should NOT be forced to get a license plate. I have argued against being forced to get a drivers license in order to use the roads I have PAID for, the car I BOUGHT, the gas I PAID for. There is NO justification under constitutional law for the state (or any other government agent) to FORCE me to submit, to BEG their permission to travel freely!
I was BORN with the INALIENABLE RIGHT to TRAVEL. FREELY! That means I can move along a public road or any other public space without interference as long as I am not bothering anyone else. That goes for the airways too! The TSA and all its bullshit security theater is a HUGE violation of my rights and IS totally unconstitutional in every way! Where’s the warrant? Where’s the probable cause? What right do those government thugs in uniforms have to restrict you in ANY way in YOUR RIGHT to travel? The answer is NONE! They have STOLEN your rights from you!

All About Me

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Todays prompt from the Daily Post is to write a post explaining “why you chose your blog’s title and what it means to you”.

I chose to call my blog “Captain Jills Journeys” for a couple of reasons.

I wanted to write a travel blog, since I love to travel and I’ve gone to a lot of interesting places (and hope to go to a lot more). So I tried to come up with words relating to that. I picked the work ‘journey’ because it sounded good with my name (Jill). I was also remembering how I used to write in my journal every day for years as I sailed around on the school ships. Journey- journal… which one? I wanted it to be about more than writing, so- ‘journey’ it is! 😉

So why call it Captain Jills Journeys (rather than just Jills Journeys)? I’ve spent most of my life on the water and worked my way up the hawsepipe to earn a captains license (finally managed an unlimited masters license a few years ago). I figured I would wind up blogging about boats and working on the water along with the travel. After all, one of the main reasons I started working at sea was the opportunity to see the world (and get paid for it!).

I also liked the alliteration and the sounds of the J’s together. It makes a short sentence and sounds cool. 🙂

I added on the tag line “she sails the seven seas in search of FREEDOM” to explain more fully what my blog (and me) are all about. My passions flow together in that sentence. I love to sail. I love to travel. And I am very intensely concerned with the issue of freedom.

Liberty and justice for all. Human rights. Individual liberty. However you want to say it. I very fervently believe that every person deserves to live the best life possible, that they should be able to chose to live the way they think is best for themselves. I do not think people should have to bow down to ANYONE.

We should all be equal under the law and any and all governments should obey the principles the US government was founded on (and no longer has any respect for). To PROTECT the “god-given” (or NATURAL) rights of the people. I just do not understand why so many people seem to feel that others have some sort of right to rule over them. I just don’t get it.

I am looking for some place in this world I can live free. I hope one day to find a place to settle down with other like minded people. A place where everyone is content to just “live and let live”. Most people think that’s some kind of fantasy, that it could never happen. So they won’t even TRY. I will at least keep on trying.

Self Ownership

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This (principle of self ownership) is what I was referring to in my earlier post (treasure).Yes, I REALLY DO treasure freedom and individual liberty above everything else.

Please watch the little video and let me know what you think. I’d appreciate hearing your objections (if any).

Also any thoughts on why you think we have (as a society) come SO far from this principle.

Thanks. 🙂

Frog in Hot Water

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The Tribal Mentality.

tribalmentality

Here’s another excellent article from The Dollar Vigilante. It was written by Latin America Editor Adil Elias (check the link, you can read it in English or Spanish). I’ve subscribed to TDV for a while now and I always enjoy reading their articles. I like to hear from all of their writers and enjoy hearing about their adventures.

Sometimes reading a post makes me laugh, sometimes it makes me cry (seriously), sometimes it infuriates me, but it always holds my attention and makes me think.

It usually makes me think about how the HELL did we allow our freedom to disappear? Yes, the foreigners still flock here, they believe our propaganda. And yes, we are better off and more free here than if we lived in Somalia or North Korea. But we have lost SO MUCH. We were once the envy of the world. Now, not so much. 🙁

I know what’s happening, it’s like the story about the frog in a pot of boiling water. Throw him in when the waters at room temperature and he’s just fine with it. Turn up the heat very gradually and by the time the water’s hot enough to concern him, it’s too late and we have frog legs for dinner.

That is exactly what has been going on here in America with regards to our freedom. I know in some ways our freedom has been increasing. I can say that about communications for example. In lots of ways, things have improved in the last 100 years. We have telephone, fax, mobile phones, TV, computers, and internet.

All of those things have given us so many choices and improved our lives. Those things have increased our personal liberty. But that same technology is also being used against us in a lot of different ways.

Most people paid no attention to the fact that the US government has been increasingly violating our privacy. Edward Snowden took huge risks to break the news (again, since nobody paid attention any of the other times these spy programs have been reported).

No one had any major problem with the FBI wiretapping criminals, but now the ‘authorities’ capture EVERY SINGLE PHONE CALL from EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US! Same with everything you ever do or ever have done online. Same with tracking everywhere you go and everything you do. Everything you buy and everything you read. What you do at home and who you do it with.

We are living in a world to rival the worst nightmares of George Orwell and Franz Kafka. Yes, seriously! We have the technology, the money and the means to allow ‘our’ leaders to transgress against us in the most invasive ways.

1984 was supposed to be a WARNING, not a road map!!!

Our ‘leaders’ have decided it’s right and proper that they spy on EVERYTHING WE EVER SAY OR DO or even THINK! They are even collecting our DNA!! Of course, it’s all for our ‘own good’.

Really?

And do you REALLY want to live in a society where the people ‘in charge’ have access to all that information? To be used for any purpose they desire, to sell it to whoever they feel like, or to use it against us? The way I look at it, it is OUR information, it belongs to US and I did NOT give permission for anyone to use ANY of my information other than the people I specifically give it to.

I do NOT want my location tracked with cameras in every store, bank, street corner, and public place, cel phone triangulation programs and RFID chips! I do NOT want red light cameras, toll booths, license plate scanners, and black boxes (now required to be installed in all new vehicles) tracking every trip I make!

I do NOT want every conversation I make, every comment and keystroke I make, every item I buy, every person I associate with, every book I read, every club I join, every show I watch, etc. recorded and stored for all time!

I do NOT want my medical records spread about the internet for anyone to see, just because some kid with a bug up his ass wants to pay me back. I do NOT want my credit screwed up for years because (even) one bad apple in any of the dozens of companies I deal with abuses my social security number!

I do NOT want to live in a society where people have to think about ANY of these things going in in their lives. I could not call anyplace that did that kind of thing a civilization, it is the complete opposite of a civilized society!

I do NOT want to live in a place where people censor themselves and live in fear of being caught out, violated, spied on and blackmailed over any little thing. That IS what happens when people have no respect for personal privacy. Look at the historical record.

Take a good look at Nazi Germany. Take a good look at the Soviet Union. Take a good look at the Chinese and their Great Leap Forward. There are many, many examples.

I hope you’ll read the article in the link. I really can’t do it justice. I hope you’ll think about what he says about the organization of society and the way our ‘leaders’ function. I hope more and more and more people will think it over and decide to take back their lives and their freedoms from the power hungry thugs who somehow have managed to take over almost the entire world.

We will never have a decent world until we deal with these people. We all deserve to live in a world of peace, prosperity and freedom. I see some signs of change. The internet is a huge help in spreading the word, that YES, it IS possible! Let’s make it happen!!!

Here’s to a new awakening in the new year!