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Sailboat Diaries Why I'm Leaving America by Michael Fielding
July 20th, 2012
Goodbye, America.
For as long as Iíve lived youíve been my only home. Iíve had a wonderful life here.
Your inhabitants are almost universally kind, and Iíve become lifelong friends with many
of your citizens. All of my family lives here, everyone I have ever known or loved, and I
will miss them all a lot. But after 22 years, I feel impelled to leave.
According to your founders, ìWhen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary
for one [person] to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another
and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the
Laws of Nature and of Natureís God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of
mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.î
Well, I certainly wouldnít want to be disrespectful.
At first glance, you look like the greatest of all social systems. You seem like a stable
and sturdy structure. People look at you and see strength. They see freedom and opportunity,
democracy and unity. But a peek behind the curtain reveals a scared old man, desperately
trying to maintain an illusion. Your size and complexity hide a simple truth: that you
donít physically exist. You are nothing more than a system of human interaction; not a
thing in and of itself, but the result of a widespread pattern of behavior. You emerge
from our beliefs, and the actions they compel us to take.
We learn our roles and play them well. The guards act like guards, the judges act like
judges, the cops act like cops, and we all pay our taxes. You exist because individuals
behave as if you did. Of course this seems patently obvious, but it has some frequently
overlooked implications. There is an inherent problem with this sort of system, a cancer
written in your genetic code, an inoperable tumor that spells your demise.
The mistake is so subtle that generations have failed to identify it. Your creators
devised a way to hide it for centuries. They separated your powers, pitted ambition against
ambition to mask your fatal flaw. As long as people were content, as long as your tyranny
was well hidden, the problem went unnoticed. But it was there all along, metastasizing
beneath the stars and stripes.
The problem is choice. I alone control my actions. Your system depends on us adhering
to a certain pattern of behavior, but we each have the power to reject it. You will only
survive as long as individuals believe you exist and act accordingly, but you cannot
compel the choice. You can never take away my ability to choose life without you, to
ignore your behavioral suggestions, to act on my own.
Oh but of course, you tried your best to conceal this fact, to convince me I needed you, to
give me faith in your existence, to make me fall in love with you, to count you as my
own. You started young, indirectly at first and then directly through my ìeducationî.
For thirteen years I was forced into your indoctrination facilities, and social pressure
pushed me into another three and a half. Without a doubt I learned many useful things. I had
many wonderful teachers who only wanted what was best for me. I am grateful for their wisdom.
Far more sinister were the unspoken lessons. Structure matters more than content; your
hidden messages are far more powerful than what is said aloud in lecture. For more than
a decade you required my direct submission to your representative at the front of the
class, using all the silly threats that work on a child. You taught me that knowledge is
obtained from authority, that all problems have answers in the back of the book. You
judged me constantly, trying to teach me to look to others for approval, trying to make
me conform. You lead me in the pledge of allegiance over 2,000 times. But worst of all, you tried
to parent me. You tried to make me realize a familial bond with you, to make me believe
you had my own interests at heart. You tried your best to make me choose you, but it didnít
work.
The more you try to coerce my affection, the more obvious the ploy becomes. All the ridiculous
forms of manipulation that go unseen by the masses are the red flags of malicious intent.
My obedience isnít for my protection, but for yours. You donít want me to see the choice
because that leads directly to an investigation of merit. No longer are you a parent that
must be respected, but a business transaction that must be evaluated. Well America, your
benefits donít outweigh your costs. You do more harm than good.
I recognize your advantages. I understand you have rivals who treat their citizenry
far worse. Raised in another land, itís possible I would have never received enough information
to understand my situation. And for that, I thank you. But itís not enough. Your existence
relies on a mortal sin, and no amount of bribery will sway me to forgive you for it. No number
of schools, hospitals, roads or defense networks could ever justify your systematic use of
aggressive coercion.
Coercion is ìthe practice of forcing another party to behave in an involuntary manner by
use of threats, intimidation, fraud, or some other form of pressure or force.î Making
someone do something they wouldnít out of their own free will. Aggressive coercion means
the initiation of such action. Threatening someone who hasnít threatened you, defrauding
the trusting, harming an innocent; the initiation of force.
Coercion is your single purpose, your only weapon and your only form of control. A government
IS a monopoly of the ìlegitimateî use of aggressive coercion; a monopoly over the initiation
of force IS a government. Hear it straight from the horseís mouth. When all you have
is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
Itís not your fault. You were created with one lever, so every time the people wanted
change you pulled it. When people got scared about retirement, you gave them Social Security.
The price: enslaving the next generation. You put the bill on the backs of their children
before they were old enough to vote, and the only choice you provided was pay up, leave
or live in a metal cage. When people got scared about flying or drugs or ***, you
pulled the lever and made more threats. All of your rules are coercive. Every single piece
of legislation is ultimately backed up by a threat of physical violence. Every law is
a gun under the table, and I donít negotiate with terrorists.
I will not support the use of aggressive coercion as a solution to social problems, even implicitly
by voting or paying taxes. It causes far more problems than it solves. This isnít a belief
that was handed down to me as many of your citizens obtained their ethics. My belief
that that coercion is undesirable and ineffective isnít based on faith, and Iím open to the
possibility that Iím wrong. But this is the conclusion of my sincerest attempt at an objective
search for truth. It is a conviction forged with evidence and reason. I donít believe
aggressive coercion is wrong because anyone says so; I wonít support its use because
of the way it affects humans as individuals and societies.
This probably seems like a radical and unsubstantiated belief to you. Itís certainly an uncommon
principle within your borders. It might be unusual, but popularity has no bearing on
truth. On the scale of individual interactions, itís clear that receiving threats is not
desirable. Nobody wants to be coerced, by definition. But what if threats can be used
for the common good? What if the negative effects of coercion to a society are outweighed
by its benefits? The more I learn about the world, the more I realize that this is not
the case. Coercion inhibits the evolutionary search of the free market, it prevents us
from trying out new solutions to social problems and from recognizing failures. Iím convinced
itís the cause of almost every problem you purportedly use coercion to solve.
Of course, your greatest supposed benefit is the defense you provide. But what noble
defender extorts payment from its clients? How could you possibly be defending us when
YOU are our greatest threat? Like the Mafiaís protection racket, our greatest danger presents
itself when we refuse to pay. There is only one entity that has ever threatened me with
death or imprisonment, and that is YOU. No foreign government, terrorist organization
or even a criminal on the street has ever threatened my life or freedom, only you America.
Granted, you provide defense from some of your smaller competitors. You imprison lesser
thieves and murderers, a charade to prove your worth. Clearly these are problems that
any society must deal with, but ceding the power of legitimate defense to a single entity
only exacerbates them. Without feedback such as prices and profit, no one has any idea
what methods are effective or desirable. Granting a monopoly of defense is like giving all the
guns to an army of deaf men and acting surprised when they donít respond to our shouts. People
deserve a distributed, voluntarily-funded defense network that utilizes free exchange
to find the cheapest, most desirable and most effective methods of preventing the initiation
of force. Imprisoning tax evaders and drug users while bombing innocent civilians in
the Middle East is NOT defense, and I will not allow you to fund your crimes with any
portion of the fruits of my labor.
Almost every social problem can be traced back to your gun in the room, pointed at us
under layers of abstraction and legalese. The most subtle, and most deadly, was the
corruption of the price system. You enslaved us with the strongest chains known to man:
a debt-based monetary system. You deprived us of accurate value measurements. You prevented
us from equilibrating supply and demand. You tilted the scales in the market, and threw
off all our transactions. You prevented us from acting rationally by quietly replacing
our money with a cheap replica, and forcing us to use it.
But your tyrannical nature isnít the only reason Iím leaving, especially not why Iím
leaving right now. Iím not only fleeing your coercion, but the inevitable economic collapse
your inhabitants are only beginning to appreciate.
I better explain that phrase. ìEconomic collapseî means a reduction in economic complexity:
a decrease in specialization, a slow down in trade, brought about by a loss of confidence.
Itís not a fantastical, delusional prediction. Your economy is based on a con game that cannot
be sustained.
Your monetary and fiscal problems are rivaled only by the artificial complexity of your
financial system. But at its heart, the problem is simple: Everything is based on the assumption
of infinite exponential growth. For a long time, that assumption was never tested. We
could stick straws in the ground and produce energy for pennies on the dollar. The underlying
economy actually grew exponentially. This allowed the Ponzi scheme of your fiat currency
to survive a little longer than usual. For a while, the growth of the money supply reflected
the productive capacity of your people, enabling an astounding degree of complex specialization
and trade. But the era of cheap energy has come to an end. Like any population that finds
an untapped resource, we went for the easiest parts first. Now all the low hanging fruit
has been eaten, and we can no longer increase annual global oil production. We have generations
of social arrangements built on assumptions that are no longer valid. Your money supply
is expanding faster than ever, but it no longer mirrors the productivity of your citizens.
It is being artificially expanded to paper over the cracks in the dam. Your puppeteers
have made more promises than could ever be fulfilled, and they are printing money to
pay off their debts. This never ends well. Regardless of whether you print your way into
hyperinflation and currency collapse, or default on your debt, itís clear your path is unsustainable.
Collapse is mathematically guaranteed, and itís not something to play chicken with.
Iíd rather be ready a decade early than a day late.
Some might think I should work to save you instead of leaving you to crumble. The ship
is sinking, and we either need to make repairs or head for the lifeboats. But I took a look
at your blueprints, and you were never structurally sound to begin with. You were constructed
with fundamental flaws. Moreover, I believe weíre past the point of no return with this
monetary system, and the dollar isnít worth saving. The mainstream media is the band playing
on the Titanic.
ìThere is no means of avoiding a final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion.
The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary
abandonment of further credit expansion or later as a final and total catastrophe of
the currency system involved.î Ludwig von Mises
I donít want to be here to witness your darkest hour. We will all have to face this paradigm
shift, but I want to confront it on my own terms. I want to meet it with consciousness,
integrity, and a sense of purpose. I donít want to wake up one day and have a rough transition
thrust upon me. I want to make that transition now, and sleep through your collapse.
[I wrote my first draft of this in December 2010, and I've been pretty concerned I wouldn't
be able to get ready in time. While "extend and pretend" was the worst policy for the
American people, it did provide me with time to prepare myself, and for that I again thank
you.]
America, I never signed your social contract. I never agreed to taxation, even with ìrepresentationî.
I refuse to recognize the legitimacy of an organization founded upon aggressive coercion.
I donít recognize your laws and I donít recognize your property claims. Iím not leaving
because I canít live here with my principles, Iím leaving because you physically overpower
me. I stand a much better chance fighting for my freedom outside your territory, and
I donít believe itís cowardly to admit that. I see no value in your Federal Reserve Notes,
and I sure as hell donít owe you any. Your debts are not my own. Your battles are not
mine to fight. I will not allow you to enslave me any longer.
I donít know what the future holds. I may be underestimating the difficulty of life
without you, or your vengeance towards dissidents and deserters. I could very well come to regret
leaving your borders, but right now I highly doubt it. All I can do is make the best decision
with the information I have, and the only logical conclusion is that life will be better
without you. Like your people are so fond of saying: freedom isnít free; but Iím more
than willing to pay the costs, no matter how high they might prove to be.
PS. I donít believe information can be legitimately owned. I donít own these paragraphs anymore
than I own the words theyíre composed with, or the letters forming the words. Nothing
here is copyrighted. Feel free to copy and distribute this however you wish.
Many thanks to my good friend Benjamin Gilliam for helping me review and edit.