To really gain an understanding of the magnitude of the Myth of Government – that is, the utterly backwards notion that the violent control of any given society’s lives, liberties, and property not only actually possesses legitimacy — but that this is even a desireable, useful, and necessary state of affairs — one need look no further than the recent funeral of Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and a myriad of other bureaucrats in the Polish government’s innermost circle.

This, in part, from the Associated Press:

“Thousands of grieving mourners tossed flowers at a slow-moving hearse or joined an enormous viewing line at the presidential palace to pay their respects yesterday to Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife as their bodies lay in state.

“Kaczynski and his wife, Maria Kaczynska, were among 96 people killed Saturday in a plane crash in western Russia. Investigators are pointing to human error as the cause.
Mourners knelt, prayed, and cried before the first couple’s closed coffins in the Columned Hall of the palace, where the president appointed and dismissed governments. The line to get in swelled to over a half-mile long but the mourners were not deterred.

“’We will wait as long as it takes,’ said Alicja Marszalek, a retired telephone operator waiting with a friend. ‘We want to pay homage to them because they were wonderful people. He was a modest man, very well educated, intelligent and kind.’

“Polish television broadcast live images of mourners walking by the coffins. Many were families with children, parents, and grandparents. Each coffin was flanked by a pair of soldiers, standing crisp and stonelike.

“Earlier yesterday, Kaczynska’s body was greeted with tears and tulips after being flown home from Russia, and officials said the first couple will be buried Sunday in a state funeral at Krakow’s Wawel Cathedral.

Further in the article:

“Kaczynska’s body, in a wooden casket draped with Poland’s white-and-red flag, was met by her only child, Marta, and by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, her brother-in-law who was also the twin of the late president.

“Her daughter knelt by the casket and wept as a Polish honor guard stood by.
Kaczynska’s body was then ferried slowly to the Presidential Palace in the back of a black Mercedes-Benz hearse, just like her husband’s was on Sunday. Thousands of Warsaw residents lined the route, gently lobbing bouquets of tulips and roses on top of the hearse.

“’I’m here because it’s such a tragedy for Poland,’ said Maja Jelenicka, 63. ‘I’m in despair. I feel as if I’ve lost a close relative. Maria Kaczynska was a wonderful woman, kind, with a heart of gold.’
“Parliament held a special observance in memory of the president and the 18 lawmakers killed in the plane crash. In the assembly hall, framed portraits of the lawmakers and flowers bedecked their now-empty seats.

“The names of the victims were read out, and Senate Speaker Bogdan Borusewicz, his voice breaking, declared the crash the ‘greatest tragedy in Poland’s postwar history.’’’

This is almost textbook evidence of the problem – in Poland, and everywhere. The kind of senseless lamenting idolatry of the passing of those who had committed themselves absolutely to the pillaging of the masses through taxation, while passing myriads of edicts further restricting their personal liberties and ownership and use of property. The almost literal worship of the parasitic political class. A kind of childish starstruck submission to these thieves, liars, poseurs, and plunderers – as if every one of them were a real-life Kris Kringle. No people should mourn such individuals – but rather, more properly, lament the sad and entirely illogical belief in the institution of government that enabled them to wreak such inherent injustice and malice upon the population in the first place – and then to do all in their own just and individual power to reverse course, make amends, and champion true sovereignty and liberty above all else.

In the preface to his 1993 sixth edition of Libertarianism in One Lesson (the first edition was published in 1984 – perhaps appropriately – though the volume is largely a minarchistic plug for the “Libertarian” Party rather than purist market anarchy), author David Bergland wrote: “During 1988, I was contacted by an underground publisher in Poland who wished to translate the book into Polish and publish it there. I happily gave my permission. The project was a high risk venture for the publisher as the publication of such a radically pro-freedom book in communist Poland was clearly treasonous at that time. In spite of such problems, the project was a success and the book was distributed in Poland. I like to think it played some role in the revolutionary events of 1989.”

Perhaps it did. Though it appears that if so, its effects can feign be felt here in 2010 – in Poland, or most anywhere. It’s time to stop this self-destructive self-attachment to the State and its fetid cult of personality. It is time for all of us to realize ourselves, each of us, as the sole and ultimate legitimate authorities over our own lives, liberty, and property.