From the Freedom's Phoenix Online Newspaper.
"Paradise is exactly like where you are right now… only much, much, better."
Laurie Anderson
What if I told you that we're already living in Galt's Gulch?
What if I told you that we don't actually need to find a bunch of like-minded people and go in on a big piece of land together, far away from everyone else, and build our own societies from the ground up?
Not that there's anything wrong with that of course.
But it's not necessary. We already have the tools at our disposal - most of them anyway - to create and maintain free societies right where we are.
COMMON LAW:
Volumes have been written, some of them very very good, about how a stateless society might operate, how rights might be protected and crime dealt with in the absence of a monopoly on violence and the justice system.
But we already have a body of law that upholds the rights of individuals, protects their property, and defends contracts. It exists in stark contrast to the multitudes of laws created by politicians and their cronies – laws that often directly violate this older and more fundamental body of law. And it is enforceable.
Dale Brown, founder of the Detroit Threat Management Center, understands this. When he saw police failing to protect people from crime in one of the worst neighborhoods of Detroit, he moved in and started doing it himself. As he told Tom Woods, back in 2016:
"Any citizen can take someone into custody if they commit a violent act,” said Brown. “(I’ve learned better ways of crime prevention) because I have to. I'm accountable. I have no qualified immunity. That means, if I put my hands on someone it has to be legal. There has to be a way for me to explain it as a civilian. As a result, we've had no court date in 20 years. No lawsuits... in 20 years.”
Brown's methods rely on common-law principles. He and his Threat Management team only take action against those committing genuine crimes against people or their property. Because they are not agents of the state, they do not enforce laws against drug use or other victimless "crimes." And they employ the power of citizens' arrest, which is available to all of us.
Imagine how our world might look if there were Threat Management-like operations in every city. With the abject failure of police departments to protect people and property, their willingness to commit violent actsagainst those they are sworn to protect, and their inherent lack of any real accountability, private solutions like this have never been more necessary.
Others are using principles well established in contract law to hold accountable those in positions of power, using tools such as the Notice of Liability to stop city governments, school districts, and other entities from committing acts of trespass, for example; or
We do not need to establish a brand-new system of laws in order to begin protecting ourselves from political aggression.
PARALLEL INSTITUTIONS:
Likewise, we do not need to isolate ourselves in order to create parallel institutions and services to replace the crumbling state-dominated ones. Nor do we need to isolate ourselves geographically in order to build real, in-person communities based on a respect for individual liberty.
For many years, alternative-medicine practitioners and others have operated under private membership associations (PMAs), serving members only and not the general public. Their PMA status places these operations outside of the jurisdiction of much of the regulatory state, creating a space within which free-market activity can flourish.(For more information about PMAs, or to establish one yourself, see here and here. Here's ours.)
Meanwhile, creative ways are emerging to assist people in exiting broken systems, forging new ones, and connecting with others who wish to do the same.
Read the rest here.