The only suggestion I’d make refers to the example about Microsoft versus OpenOffice. There’s at least enough freedom for us to be able to obtain a decent alternative to Word at no cost. Corporatism isn’t invincible. We should emphasize that too.

Chris and Joel, the reason Sowell’s column rubbed me the wrong way is that his defense of wealth and profits is so devoid of context as to be utterly misleading. If Sowell agrees we live in an economy dominated by welfare for the rich, where most large concentrations of wealth and most large profits result from state intervention, then why the knee-jerk defensive reaction in defense of wealth and profits against those who attack them? Regardless of whether he’s acknowledged corporate welfare and socialism for the rich elsewhere, the entire framing of this column implies that he’s defending existing wealth and profits as the natural outcome of a free market, against those who would use the state to suppress them.

Well, hey, I’d also oppose a state agenda to suppress large concentrations of wealth and profit that were obtained entirely through a genuinely free market. In fact, it’s right there on my list with all the other things I plan to do when hell freezes over. In the meantime, though, in the world I actually live in the government’s main function is to help rich people steal from me. So I get more than a little Emily Latella vibe from Sowell.

And yes, I agree with Chris that this comes off as too harsh on Sowell; I don’t see anything in his op-ed that’s inconsistent with the fact of business-government alliance, or the rest of the stuff that Kevin points out; the thing about the conservative talking points about anti-rich sentiment made in articles like that is that they aren’t specifically wrong, although they aren’t the whole story. And to his credit Sowell has discussed in some detail how government intervention is often “socialism for the rich” in a column by that name; he even goes as far as saying that statism is worse overall for the poor than the rich:
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell010036.php3

There is a constitutional provision for treaties, and there were treaties relating to trafficking in narcotics which were signed and ratified by the Senate in the 1920s. You could look these up. The focus of these treaties and the laws to enforce them was the essentially racist Progressive Era doctrine that blacks, Asians, Mexicans, etc. must be forced to work, else they would smoke pot, or opium, or chew peyote, or what have you. Like many of the other problems inherent in the state, such as gun control, marriage apartheid, the drug laws result from a period when racism was ascendant. Saying that the government’s laws are unconstitutional is interesting, but kind of a labyrinth for the mind.

It is because there is no magical formula to free yourself from government control – no set of hoops they give you that you can (or should) jump through, that makes being a sovereign individual very easy. All you have to do is declare yourself free. As Etienne de la Boetie noted almost 500 years ago, you can relieve yourself from burdens that the beasts themselves would not bear, simply by declaring yourself free. Withdraw your support from the system, and encourage your friends and neighbours to do likewise, and you’ll see it falter and sway.

For the system depends on people to impose the tyrannical requirements of the system. It is not the president’s fists that beat up suspects, it is not his eyes that spy on everyone, it is not his ears listening in to every phone call simultaneously. Without taxes, soldiers, tax collectors, thugs, spies, pigs, bullies, the system wouldn’t work.

Meanwhile, no matter what you declare, no matter what you believe, the system exists and is in everyone’s faces all the time. So it would be well to get off the grid as much as possible. Agorism has a Taoist component to it, of reducing what you desire so it is easier to get those things without being a part of the system and contributing to your own oppression.

The relationship between the governed and the government is war. The war on drugs and the war on terror are the explicit declarations of war by the government on the American people.

http://www.google.de/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=9&ved=0CC8QFjAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.census.gov%2Fschools%2Fpdf%2F2010form_info.pdf&rct=j&q=2010+US+Census+Form&ei=wc6WS92FOdXp8Qbz7ewR&usg=AFQjCNF89owwZ3Rwdi18cMEikQJulJmGSQ

I’m sure a half an hour in photoshop can remove the “informational copy” across the front. Then, use your printer to churn out copies of the form along with copies of the return envelope. You’ll have to pay attention to what kind of paper is used; and probably ink too, so that their machines won’t reject them.

Someone make a wiki! This could be like a DDOS attack via snail mail!