The Freedom Outlaw

Come on over...

2006-06-05T22:39:00.000-04:00

Just a warm invitation to my readers to come over to my new blog: http://taranjordan.wordpress.com.

As you know, I and many other Cotse.net users had been experiencing blockages when we tried to view Blogspot pages, including our own blogs. So I elected to move my writing to a more privacy-friendly environment. (The Google/Blogspot people have finally remedied this issue, but it's too late for me to want to come back.)

Wordpress.com is a delight to use, and made transferring my posts and comments a breeze. I'll have to redo my blogroll and links by hand, but these will soon be done.

I chose to merge all three of my Blogspot blogs into one cohesive site, too. So please update your bookmarks, drop on by, and let me know how you like the new digs. ;-)

Bye-bye, Blogspot!

Brits to be Forced to Hand Over Encryption Keys

2006-05-18T22:27:00.000-04:00

GodDAMN. The police state encroacheth more heavily and deeply by the day. Link in post title.

Sunni, thank you for keeping it real by quoting this lovely, passionate passage from Bruce Schneier:

We do nothing wrong when we make love or go to the bathroom. We are not deliberately hiding anything when we seek out private places for reflection or conversation. We keep private journals, sing in the privacy of the shower, and write letters to secret lovers and then burn them. Privacy is a basic human need. ....

For if we are observed in all matters, we are constantly under threat of correction, judgment, criticism, even plagiarism of our own uniqueness. We become children, fettered under watchful eyes, constantly fearful that -- either now or in the uncertain future -- patterns we leave behind will be brought back to implicate us, by whatever authority has now become focused upon our once-private and innocent acts. We lose our individuality, because everything we do is observable and recordable.

We canNOT allow the f*cking statists to have their way and their kind of world.

Google/Blogspot blocking proxy access

2006-05-17T08:46:00.000-04:00

For the past week or so, maybe longer, I get a "503 - Connect failed" message every time I try to connect to a Blogspot.com blog through my SSH proxy.

I'd had this issue in the past, and then it seemed to go away. But now it's back, and I can't read Lewlew's or Morrigan's or Jefftoo's blogs - or any others hosted on Blogspot.com. (Including my own.)

Well, after going to the source (Doh!), I realized that this is an across-the-board issue between Blogspot and my proxy provider. Here's what I found (link in post title).

The good folks at Cotse.com and Cotse.net, in mulling over this dilemma, don't seem to be considering that perhaps Google (owner of Blogspot, and with whom they're having other issues) ain't interested in receiving connections from computers they can't catalog and trace back. ph34r

Looks like I might need to create some alternatives for my blog activities. Odd, that today I'm able to sign in here at Blogger.com through my proxy. I guess it's only the blog readers they're tracking - for the moment.

If you use Blogspot, whether to blog or to read, Cotse asks you to contact the blogspot people to request that they remedy the situation. If you do blog here, you might be missing out on readership because of this issue.

Nothing's certain but death and...

2006-05-03T11:41:00.000-04:00

Taxes again. I keep coming back to this subject lately. But no longer will I consider paying taxes one of the two unavoidable events in life. When I blogged the other day about my unexpected zero income tax bill this year, I neglected to mention something important.

Namely, that this was just the beginning. Of my own quiet tax revolt, that is.

For years - since my last year of college, when I got sick of working two jobs just to keep myself in school - I've been wanting to kiss the rat race, and income taxes, goodbye. Live frugally? Cool. Enjoy more free time? You bet. Find creative challenges in both of these opportunities? Sure thing. And most importantly, deny the Beast its pound of flesh each day.

But I've been hampered by the need to earn enough FRNs to pay off the debts I racked up before my epiphany. Which means having taxable income every year.

Now that I've inadvertently taken a business loss, and didn't owe the IRS for last year, the schedule's speeding up faster than I planned. And I've got some time on my hands this summer.

So I'm thinking to accelerate the repayments even faster by finding a temporary job. And when they give me the W-4 withholding form, I could write "EXEMPT." Because if I recall correctly, that's okay to do if "I owed no federal income tax last year, and I do not expect to owe any this year either."

I admire greatly the principled, outspoken, IRS-challenging tax rebels like Irwin Schiff. But their way of Outlawry is not mine. Rather, I am the type to do as David Gross and Rose Wilder Lane and many other Ghostly Outlaws have done - to choose and to embrace a life of simple things and hard work and self-sufficiency. And I honor them and all Outlaws like them, who consciously withdraw from the Beast's clutches.

Because being an Outlaw doesn't have to mean breaking the law. It can mean putting yourself out of the law's reach.

Thoreau on slavery and taxes

2006-05-02T14:08:00.000-04:00

Tax protester extraordinaire David Gross has established a page on his website devoted to Henry David Thoreau's Slavery in Massachusetts, written in 1854. It's a passionate piece and a great read.

Oh, and in a wonderful serendipity, when I clicked on it, the webpage happened to be headed by a Thoreau quote (Mr. Gross says that these quotes pop up at random on his site): "It is for no particular item in the tax bill that I refuse to pay it. I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State."

Grin.

Truth follows fiction?

2006-05-02T09:21:00.000-04:00

As a longtime fan of Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged, I've blogged before about how current events lately seem to be modeling themselves on the events in that book.

But a couple of paragraphs in today's Daily Resource (found weekdays on Kitco.com) by analyst Doug Hornig really gave me the willies:

Most of [Monday's oil] price climb is due to “Iran jitters with the U.S. still pushing toward U.N. sanctions,” said James Williams, an economist at WTRG Economics. “When you add that on top of the loss of a fifth of Nigerian production, Bolivia's move toward the Venezuelan model of total control over oil produced by foreign companies and the summer driving season staring us in the face, it is easier for prices to go up than down,” he said.

Williams referred to a story, reported by BBC News on Monday, that Bolivian President Evo Morales has ordered foreign energy firms to hand over all natural-gas and oil sales to a state-owned company. The companies have six months to renegotiate their contracts or leave the country, Morales said, according to the report.

Bolivia appears to be taking its cues from Venezuela. A recent report from the Wall Street Journal said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was planning more moves to curb the activities of foreign oil companies in his country.

Ah, those wise and benevolent People's States. They'd never nationalize foreign assets within their borders.

Link to full article in post title. And if you haven't read the book yet, do yourself a favor and check it out.

A funny thing happened on the way to pay my taxes...

2006-04-28T16:59:00.000-04:00

On the stereo: Steve Winwood, Roll With It, and Les McCann, On the Soul Side

Teehee. Sometimes a thing coming out of the blue is just so perfectly fitting that I laugh in pure glee.

I work for pay as an independent contractor for several different clients (and in several different capacities). Those clients are supposed to send me this thing called an IRS Form 1099 (non-employee compensation report) each year by the end of January. And being obedient corporations, they generally do just that.

Well, except for my major client, whose accountant always seems to take vacation from mid-January to mid-February. I don't mind their form reaching me late, as I don't want to file my taxes and send the IRS any money of mine until the last possible minute. (The downside to being a contractor is that you generally don't get a nice tax refund each spring the way a lot of wage slaves do. You usually end up paying a nice chunk like an independent contractor slave.)

Anyway, I didn't worry when this one client's 1099 didn't show up until the end of February. What shocked me, though, was that it showed an amount equal to only about half of what they actually paid me in 2005.

I realized pretty quickly what had occurred. Partway through last year, this client asked to pay me in a form other than the standard paycheck, shall we say. (Sorry, guys, nothing naughty or X-rated here.) No, he still pays me in dollar units, it's just that he does so through a vehicle other than a company check.

And for whatever reason, those payments didn't show up on his accountant's radar screen. And he's - well, not a detail-oriented kinda guy when it comes to money.

Grin.

So...with all the expense deductions I racked up, my business is going to end up showing a loss for 2005 on the tax forms.

And if they decide to audit me? Well, how am I to know what fiscal year ending date his company uses? I just assumed that any payments to me that they didn't report on this year's form would show up on next year's, of course.

But I sure hope it doesn't. I mean, c'mon - let the Outlaws win one now and again. Much more interesting that way.

Bravissimo, Mr. Shaffer!

2006-04-26T11:12:00.000-04:00

This (link in post title) is why I've chosen to be an Outlaw. When grasping hypocrites such as these are calling the shots and making the laws, I damned well want to be part of the opposition.

We do not pay sufficient attention to the fact that statists are less interested in either the substance of their specific “problems,” or the merits of their proposed solutions, than in retaining and aggrandizing control over the lives of others. We spend far too much of our time giving credence to statists’ issues by making reasoned or empirical responses to their proposals, and too little time addressing the underlying power ambitions. Though some of their fellow travelers doubtless care about the merits of the policies, the statists’ principal concern is to advance a tenable case for extended state control. I am not suggesting that their proposals go unchallenged, but that we understand them as fungible expressions of a deeper need for power.

(emphasis mine)

Butler Shaffer is a writer of amazing ability and perception. I take my Cavalier hat off to him once again.

Security outlaws - wave of the future?

2006-04-05T08:19:00.000-04:00

Fascinating article (found via SurvivalBlog.com, link in post title) about the coming death of faith in government to provide "security," and how people are likely to handle this responsibility themselves.

Security will become a function of where you live and whom you work for, much as health care is allocated already. Wealthy individuals and multinational corporations will be the first to bail out of our collective system, opting instead to hire private military companies, such as Blackwater and Triple Canopy, to protect their homes and facilities and establish a protective perimeter around daily life. Parallel transportation networks--evolving out of the time-share aircraft companies such as Warren Buffett's NetJets--will cater to this group, leapfrogging its members from one secure, well-appointed lily pad to the next.

Members of the middle class will follow, taking matters into their own hands by forming suburban collectives to share the costs of security--as they do now with education--and shore up delivery of critical services. These "armored suburbs" will deploy and maintain backup generators and communications links; they will be patrolled by civilian police auxiliaries that have received corporate training and boast their own state-of-the-art emergency-response systems. As for those without the means to build their own defense, they will have to make do with the remains of the national system. They will gravitate to America's cities, where they will be subject to ubiquitous surveillance and marginal or nonexistent services. For the poor, there will be no other refuge.

About the author:
John Robb was a mission commander for a "black" counterterrorism unit that worked with Delta Force and Seal Team 6 before becoming the first Internet analyst at Forrester Research and a key architect in the rise of Web logs and RSS. He is writing a book on the logic of terrorism.

Sounds like a guy who knows what he's talking about.

The freedom part of a Freedom Outlaw

2006-04-02T19:59:00.000-04:00

Well, I took a break from blogging and did indeed get more writing done on other projects. But that other writing has given birth to a lot of new questions and concepts that just need some working out. And a blog or journal is a good way for me to explore them.

As some of you know, I'm writing a novel about a unique version of an underground railroad in the days of Bleeding Kansas, just before the outbreak of the War Between the States (or whatever name you prefer). And I'm striving to understand the motivation of people who prefer (or at least accept) non-freedom, and what separates them from those who truly need to live in freedom.

The heroine of the story starts out naively assuming that every slave desires freedom, and the only reason they haven't yet taken it is because they don't see how. So she's going to teach them. But in the process she learns that even most of the slaves don't have the will to freedom - some do, of course, but many just want to get by and not make waves, or they're stopped by fear that the unknown will be worse than present reality.

So what I’m dealing with here is the vast ability of humans to adapt to conditions, to find ways to get by under any system. Most humans, anyway.

Where and how and when do the lines in the sand get drawn? Do some people have no lines at all, or see no need for them? Do the lines more often only become evident in the heat of a situation that threatens to become intolerable, for instance when one’s children are about to be taken away?

What causes some people to draw lines beyond which they will not go? I get the sense that lately, with National ID and NAIS and all that encroaching, many of us are thinking that we have impermeable moral boundaries, but worrying that when the time comes, we'll cave.

I'm sure not certain that I'll have the strength and courage to refuse when finally faced with National ID. And yet I think all of us who desire freedom have some depth of courage in us that knows it will make its stand someday, who knows how or when, but the courage is there and will prevail.

Does everyone have that courage in some way, when the right combination of chips are down? If not, what makes us different? What do they have that we lack?

The deeper I get into the planning and plotting of this novel, the more I realize how central questions such as these are to the heart of the story and its theme - which is "the unquenchable urge to live free." This whole project is turning out to be much wider and more complex than I expected. I've got a lot of thinking to do.

A temporary farewell

2005-12-04T17:48:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine, a ubiquitous activist in the Libertarian Party, warned me once that a person can have only three main concerns going in life at any one time, if he or she is to be effective. Work, and family - relationship - home life, are two for most people.

That leaves just one opening.

I hate to admit it, but I know I'm not being effective lately, because I run in too many different directions. I have a novel in progress about Freedom Outlaws, that should be much further along by now than it is - but I use other responsibilities, and sheer laziness, and health issues, as excuses to avoid getting deeply involved in the writing of it. And yet, successfully completing this novel is my greatest goal.

So I feel the need to whittle down to bare bones, in a kind of Zen yearning for simplicity. Hell, I know it's never that cut-and-dried. Besides my paid work and my relationship with Thunder, I've got (endless in both cases!) fitness and home-improvement tasks that I intend to get done. Perhaps I'll have to go with five concerns rather than three.

Even so, with the novel being the fifth, there just isn't room for this blog as a regular pursuit. Instead, I need to take this Outlaw spirit and infuse my novel with it.

I've been thinking about this decision for a month or more. Especially because the kind of writing I do here isn't usually quickie off-the-cuff commentary on current events. It's demanding of thought and time - both of which are needed in other areas for the time being.

I can't see closing down this blog yet, and I imagine I'll occasionally find my mental cup running over with some Outlawish froth that must and will be spewed forth to the world (or the few inhabitants of it who might actually see these words).

But for now, I am taking a break from blogging. My thanks to you loyal and supportive fellow and sister Outlaws who've been here from the beginning a year ago, and I know I'll be seeing you out there somewhere, soon.

Love,
Taran/Lightning

The Mogambo as Wacked-Out Agitator

2005-11-09T15:53:00.000-05:00

Okay, so what else is new?

But this week's is a particularly good, long, savorable and funny Mogambo rant. And I like Mogambo (Richard Daughty) because he's a clearheaded, fearlessly Outlawish investment analyst.

A taste:
****Mogambo sez: If I was ever bullish on gold and silver and oil, then those are the "good old days" when I was not hyperactive, because I am now so addled with anger that I am leaning out of the windows, throwing rocks at people to get their damned attention and yelling that everyone should be buying some of all of them, but they are ignoring me, and that makes me even MORE bullish, because I know that the longer they wait to get their nasty little butts in gear, the bigger will be the rush when they wake up out of whatever catatonic stupor they are in, and try to get in on the gold rush, and the silver rush, and the oil rush after the trains have left the station. Idiots!

Link in post title.

It's all in YOUR head

2005-11-06T10:11:00.000-05:00

Oh, my, this (link in post title) is a delight of richness for us of the Outlaw mindset. Wally Conger quotes James Leroy Wilson and the pair of Skye d'Aureous and Natalee Hall.

A few tidbits:

from Wilson:
“[I]t does no good to think, ‘If we got rid of the State, then I’ll be happy.’ Or even, ‘If they just cut government to 10% and limited the federal government to its Constitutional functions, then I’ll be happy.’ The external reality — the decisions of other people — can’t ever make a person genuinely happy. One who ties their enjoyment of life to the political situation will never really be free, because true freedom is in the mind.”

from d'Aureous and Hall:

An overall decrease in freedom for the general population does not necessarily mean a decrease in freedom for you unless your actions are essentially the same as those of the general population.
A rational person is only interested in freedom he can obtain in his own time.
Your present condition of freedom is probably far from optimum for your most desired range of actions and for your present resources. Your approach to this optimum must be discovered by careful planning and investigation. You do not have automatic knowledge of this subject, and living your life like the general populace will get you what they get. (emphasis added)

Great reading for a Sunday - sigh of happiness...and thanks to Junker over at The Claire Files for bringing it to my attention.

Aunt Agatha was right...

2005-10-06T22:11:00.000-04:00

One of my choicest fictional heroes, Agatha Christie’s obsessive-compulsive Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, was heard to say many times that conversation is the eventual downfall of most people who have something to hide.

Boy, did I realize the truth of that statement this past weekend.

I went to a writers conference…under my pen name. With a friend. It was quite a good conference, if you wanted to learn about the writing markets, which we did in part.

I signed up online for the event, using my pen-name credit card (a business card account for which I requested a couple of “employee” cards) and email address, with not a lick of difficulty. Showed up bright and early the first day with pen name firmly in mind as I sauntered up to the registration desk.

No ID required - they happily handed over my shiny new name badge. Woohoo! They believed me! I am who I say I am! I even get to wear a name tag with my invented alter-ego name on it! I’m incognito, a new and improved me-but-better! Piece of cake! I’m an Outlaw now! Oh my, the things that turn me on.

At first, it wasn’t a chatty environment, so I had an easy time of it. Seminars, hanging out with my friend at lunch, watching the crowd and thinking about our respective books. It was a lovely day, and we sat on the steps outside with our box lunches. One man sat down nearby and chatted, and I had fun introducing myself under my new name. At this point, my friend wasn’t yet in an expansive talkative mood, but remained more in the background as the man and I talked about what kinds of writing we focused on. Then he got up to make a phone call and we didn’t see him again.

After lunch, my friend and I both managed to land brief chats with literary agents to run our story ideas past them for feedback. We were shaky nervous. Especially my friend, who was going to be seeing the tougher agent (from what we’d seen that morning).

When my time came, I approached the agent and introduced myself confidently using the pen name. She immediately commented that it was an interesting name. Grin again! I chose the name deliberately to include a memorable first name, and a last name that’s not too common, but easy to spell when you hear it. My plan worked! I thanked her and told her the meaning of the first name I’d chosen, which elicited a further comment from her. Cool. She’s going to remember that – and me -because I was able to add that mental anchor. (And she was very encouraging about my novel synopsis, too, and gave some excellent advice – so I will be contacting her in future, and I think she’ll remember me – er, the other me - when I do.)

Later on, we did make the acquaintance of one lady, with whom we talked for some time before we actually introduced ourselves. By this time, my friend B. was much more at ease, and he was the one to give her my name – except that he started to pronounce my real name. He caught himself in time, but it was close.

His near-slip, and the strong urges I noticed in myself to talk about my own (real) background, reminded me about how much on her guard an Outlaw needs to be if she wants to keep that air of mystery about her. Yeesh. Now, if he had slipped up, I had a plan ready - I would have said that he knew me by my middle name from when we were younger. A backup plan is always a good thing.

It’s not easy! I almost told total strangers what I do for a living (besides writing!), nearly gave away the show by being my normally friendly self. It wouldn’t have been a bad thing in this case, but I needed the practice in being more than I’m used to being.

Chattiness served up its second lesson of the weekend for me over at The Claire Files. A poster under multiple names, who tended to be very wordy and name-dropping, made a fatal mistake. He mentioned the name of a woman and then added “no relation!” But the woman’s last name didn’t match the one he was posting under. It DID, however, correspond to the name of an apparently infamous internet troll, who’d already been banned from this and other forums for all sorts of weird behavior.

So the fellow was busted by his own urge to talk, to make himself important, to speak his piece. He gave the show away because he couldn't keep his fingers from walking the keyboard. And you know what? It could happen to any of us. It’s human nature.

That was Poirot’s (and Christie’s) genius – understanding the reality of motivation behind human actions. And it’s why Christie’s writing endures and entertains still today.

Come to think of it, she used a pen name (Mary Westmacott) for some of her writing, too.

Sovereignty's only for the in-crowd

2005-09-06T13:05:00.000-04:00

From the article (link in post title):

Should Senators violate their oath of office — which obliges them to "support and defend the Constitution" — by enacting S. 147, they will be inviting an even greater problem down the road. Other self-designating communities can be expected to demand recognition of their rights to have their own government and sovereign laws. These might include Chicanos, Cajuns, Amish and Puerto Ricans.

Horrors!

Hmm...Seems he's admitting through the back door that such rights exist...

(The article's author,) Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., is President of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist for the Washington Times.

Oh. That explains a lot.

Thanks to the ever-diligent NuclearDruid at The Claire Files for the original link.

A Mayor turned Outlaw

2005-09-03T11:28:00.000-04:00

Wow, here’s what I’ve been hoping to see. People waking up after Hurricane Katrina’s devastation to the useless, high-handed, head-tripping, slow-as-the-Mississippi, control-freakish nature of the Fedbeast…

And it’s Mayor Ben Morris of Slidell, Louisiana, no less! Telling FEMA that they’d “better bring weapons” if they try again to come take his storm-stricken town’s generators, or tell them where they're "allowed" to place them.

Note that the link points to an MP3 file. Thanks to Alton Speers over at the shiny new Claire Files Forums for the link.

If Bill Clinton can do it, why can’t we?

2005-09-01T18:23:00.000-04:00

Food for Outlaw thought, from an anonymously circulating email I recently received (thank you, Thunder!), no author or web link provided:

I have this really, really bad memory problem. It gets worse under stress. I also have this metaphysical dilemma thing.
I know the guy next door. I guess. Actually I don't know him. I've called him Joe, but it wouldn't be right for me to say to anyone official that his name is Joe, because I've never checked his ID, so I don't really know, and even if I had checked his ID, I still wouldn't _know_, would I? He's always been a nice fellow, and I wouldn't want to cause him undeserved harm by leaping to conclusions about him.

Does he have a wife? I don't know. I may have seen a woman around his place, but I couldn't leap to the conclusion that she is his wife. I might assume so out of courtesy to them, but I wouldn't presume to tell someone official that he is Joe or that he has a wife, because I really don't know. Most of what I _think_ I know, and which serves quite well for inviting each other to our barbeques and for borrowing small tools, is stuff I don't actually _know_ and don't care about one way or another. And that affects my memory when people ask questions about him.

Did I see those two young men snatch a purse from that lady over there? Yes. Can I describe them? Yes. Did I notice what they were wearing and in which direction they ran? Yes. Do I know anything about Joe? Nope. Does he have a wife? I have no idea. What does he do for a living? Gosh, I have no idea.

The law requires you to give up information you have when asked by a law enforcement officer investigating a crime. The law does not and cannot require you to notice things or to have a good memory. If your memory gets worse as the things being investigated stray farther and farther from common law crimes and into the realm of "bureaucrime" and thought crime, well, that's just too fucking bad.

Heheheh. “I just can’t recall.” Remember how many times Slick Willie used that line? A Rhodes Scholar whose much-vaunted head for facts (and figures? ouch! bad, bad pun!) just didn’t seem to function in certain circumstances…uh huh…

For you Agitators, the message goes on to explore within-the-system options:

I'd make a really bad juror, too. It's not a memory thing there, it's more of a comprehension thing. I just have trouble seeing guilt if the law itself is bogus. Not guilty. What? Are you crazy? They had him dead to rights laundering money! Sorry, I just can't believe the evidence. It just doesn't add up for me. Explain why not! Sorry, I can't. It just doesn't work for me.

If more people had these problems, all the bureaucrimes and other victimless crimes would, sadly, be history overnight. The IRS would lose every single case that went to a jury, and within months the income tax would be repealed, a no-audit, no-go-to-jail sales tax (ed. note: don't count on that, friend - see Claire Wolfe and Aaron Zelman's in-depth debunking, The FairTax: A Trojan Horse for America?) would be in place, and most of the people working for the IRS would be looking for a new job. I would be very saddened by the rude reality of all that, but, hey, what the hell?

Will these problems that afflict me spread? You'd better hope your sorry ass they do! If they don't, we're all in for a very rough ride, and not 50 years from now, but tomorrow and next year. We're already well down the slippery slope. Personally, though, I think we're in for a shitstorm. That's because people are basically unprepared for the degree of evil that has been refined and distilled in government. They're still way too willing to spout off about things they don't even know, to presume the worst, even of their friends and acquaintances, to play full rube right into the hands of truly evil people who have _their_ act down to a science.

If large scale genocide has been going on all through the last several years in Bosnia while people on this list have been consumed in flame wars and pseudo-propeller-head duels on a scale of delicacy of the medieval mace, how much more easily can and does largely bloodless subjugation take place all around us? If people can allow Ruby Ridges and Wacos to take place without congressional offices being _filled_ every day with outraged citizenry and recall petitions being launched for every politician who even hesitates in taking a firm stand, how can we think that the gradual sapping of our liberty will evoke a response until things first get very, very bad.

There is a peaceful solution available today. At one level you don't have to have a good memory in all things to be a law-abiding and responsible citizen-unit. Just say "No, I don't remember" about things that are none of your business. At another level, you don't have to put up with bureaucrimes when you sit on a Grand Jury or a trial jury.

Just say "No." Don't argue; don't convince; just say "No" across the board to bureaucrimes. It takes 51% of the voters to win an election. It only takes 5% of the jurors to kill a bad law.

Nothing else will work. Nothing else has ever worked. If this is not done now, we will all face terrible choices and tragedies within as few as ten years.

Well, we’re going to face all that anyway, most likely. And unfortunately, there isn’t always a jury involved in a situation that cries out for common sense and true justice.

But this part of the entry wouldn’t be complete without a nod to the amazing Fully Informed Jury Association and American Jury Institute, whose executive director is one fairylike TCFwit named Iloilo Jones.

Naked Emperors

2005-08-29T18:22:00.000-04:00

Bill Murphy of LeMetropoleCafe.com, a gold investors’ site, quoted today on Kitco.com, comes right out and says there’s a “cabal” of PTB types concertedly keeping gold and silver prices down (link in post title):

What we saw today in the US financial markets, along with the accompanying news, strongly suggests the "S" is quietly hitting the fan. The Orwellians, The Gold Cartel, the Washingtonpower structure, and the bigwigs on Planet Wall Street are petrified by what they see on the horizon in the VERY near future. Surely, this is one of the reasons the Fed will be meeting with the largest 14 credit derivatives players on September 15…
What does all this mean?

The powers mentioned above are scared to death to let gold rise above their defense point because they fear it could set off derivatives neutron bombs in both the gold and credit markets. At the same time, the trade shorts are very nervous to remain that way for much longer. The gold fundamentals become more positive by the day. The bad guys are having trouble coming up with enough physical gold to meet demand and it is having an impact on how they operate.

No sense repeating what MIDAS has presented all week. Gold remains in explosive mode. What the cabal is doing can be compared to a kid trying to keep a rubber ball under water. It won’t work for any length of time. There is too much pressure for the price to rise, and to do so substantially…

Silver makes no sense. It probably is as good a value buy here, especially as to what other commodity related prices are doing, than at any time in history. My guess is that this is an engineered false breakdown that will not last long at all. Once silver takes out $6.85, it will streak for $8.

As a good reader here mentioned recently in a comment, silver in particular is very underpriced right now, and even more so in the past week or two. For this reason, it has a much greater upside potential – and it’s also wonderfully affordable. Check out this mind-blower: The Coming Silver Accident by Theodore Butler . Butler contends that “Silver has the largest short position that’s ever existed in anything.” He goes on to say:

While there is no way to determine when the silver shorts will spook and rush to cover, time is not on the shorts’ side. They must try, at some point, to buy back and cover the silver they can’t possibly deliver. It is not important to know in advance what the actual trigger for the silver accident will be. All you need know is that with the critical and long-term physical deficit in silver, the short selling charade must end. Since we can’t determine when, don’t focus on the timing, focus on the inevitability of a delivery crunch.

Hmm. I smell an Outlaw opportunity. Buy some fancy gold and silver threads at bargain prices now, realizing that all those emperors know they’re butt naked, and have got to admit it real soon or they’ll freeze to death. Then laugh all the way to the gulch.

Yes, I realize this could be a trap, what with the faint hints of confiscation talk going around recently. But even so, I think I'd rather be left holding (and, hopefully, safely caching) the shiny stuff than some linen-cotton scrip.

Priorities, people!

2005-08-29T09:30:00.000-04:00

Okay, this isn't really Outlaw-focused. And I don't usually follow the news. But I've always been fascinated by storms, and Katrina is a doozie. And since I'm also into being prepared and smart and ahead of the game, I've been watching how people are reacting to the hurricane's impending arrival.

From Yahoo!/AFP (link to full story in post title):

…Others though seemed more relaxed about the storm.

Richard Prisco, a 30-year-old New York lawyer stranded in New Orleans on his way home from a cruise, joked that he had "met these lovely ladies from Canada. We're going to save them," as he waited in the posh bar of the W hotel for the approaching storm.

Lovely lady number one piped in.

"When we start crying they're going to comfort us," Robin Raxlin, 29, explained as she lay on a square sofa, Red Bull in hand.

The gang at the W hotel have only known each other a couple days, but they say it feels like "forever." There are inside jokes. Flirtations. Stories about their adventures at the bars of Bourbon Street.

While the storm may have brought these new friends together, it tore Prisco's group apart. Of the four who set off for the cruise, just three remained in New Orleans. One headed for the highway in a huff and hasn't been heard from since.

"He was furious with us because he feels we did not try hard enough to get out of here," Prisco said. "We heard from a friend of a friend he hitched a ride with some people. They made it about sixty miles in eight hours."

Oh, cripes. So, the ones who’d just rather party on at the funky-mod upscale W hotel, and pretend to be men “saving” distressed ladies, call the one “huffy” who’s got the brains and initiative to get the hell out of there. They laugh off his warnings and determination to act.

Who’s the real friend? The one who saved his own butt and tried to get his three buddies to go with him? Or the three who chose to hang outthrough a deadly storm, and waste money at a chichi urban hotel, with girls they’d only just met, and let their pal find his own way in a life-threatening emergency?

On a much more sensible and praiseworthy note, here’s Plinker-MS’s “Hurricane Katrina Diary” with some excellent real-time preparation details (and a thanks for the mention of something I wrote!). It’s so good that I can’t find a quote to snip and paste here. Read the whole thing!

Underdog Railroad

2005-08-26T15:12:00.000-04:00

Animal-lover Outlaws, here's a story for you from the L.A. Times (link in post title). Link might require registration, but I got it off Yahoo! and didn't need to register. If you're asked to, try bugmenot.com.

Warning: This is a fascinating story with many levels of lessons in it. But it's heartbreaking too, particularly at the end. Note that it's also 5 pages long.

A friend explained to me the dangers of animal "collectors," of which the woman who adopts Paddy seems to be one. These people are to innocent critters what shopaholics are to shoes. Only shoes don't mind being cooped up in a dark closet all their lives except rarely when they get taken for a walk.

Seems there's quite a Canine "Underground Railroad" movement out there, based over the Internet. Perfectly legal, in this case, so the term doesn't exactly apply.

But as far as the operation goes...what a great way to practice for the bad times, do a good deed or a dozen, and make far-flung kindhearted contacts too. And...an innocent service project to help cover - er - riskier activities?

In God We Trust – All Others Pay Cash

2005-08-21T18:58:00.000-04:00

I love curmudgeonly wisdom. How about this one: Put your faith in God, and keep your powder dry. I ain’t much for putting everything on God’s shoulders – but I think the point of these gems is to be very selective of which human beings you put your faith in.

Who keeps faith with you, fellow Outlaws? Whom do you trust to do so? In what and whom can you – and do you – place reliance?

Last fall, Thunder and I made a trip to visit Bobaloo at his place called Serenity. We were meeting in person for the first time, and it turned out that we all hit it off like old pals right from the get go. The very next afternoon, though, he and Mrs. Bobaloo packed Bobaloo Junior into the pickup and headed to town for a Halloween party, shocking us by leaving their home wide open to us for the several hours they were gone. (Now, they also left their DVD set of Firefly in our grubby little hands, and we milked that one real good, never having seen the series.)

We couldn’t believe that these good folks would trust us strangers so readily in their lovely home. (Maybe it’s our city mentality.) And yet, the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. We can’t live – especially we Outlaws can’t - without trusting at least some people and situations. It’s just in our best interests to choose them very wisely and commonsensically.

How else might we want or need to demonstrate this kind of trust? Maybe by inviting cyberfriends to visit and even to join our gulch. Or by walking around your town with your pistol on your hip, gladly watching other townsfolk doing the same. Even by picking up a freedom fugitive at a predetermined location, providing her with twenty bucks and a change of clothing, and delivering her to the next stop on the network, no questions asked. And when the time comes, Outlaws in business and “other” dealings will stand, or fall, by our reputations for integrity.

But there’s not much of a respect for trust in the world around us today. Cheating spouses (when I learned of my ex’s affair, I happened to see in the same week a poll wherein 43% of Americans believed that adultery wasn’t wrong at all!), ratfink neighbors, and fair-weather friends abound. So do unctuous taxing-and-spending, pork-grabbing politicians; corrupt corporate figureheads destroying long-promised pensions; and salespeople saying anything to close the deal, but long gone when things go wrong.

And how about the “full faith and credit” backing up the government’s linen-cotton scrip? Even Outlaws need money. But what will you do if your bank (assuming you still use one, as I do for the time being) goes under and you can’t get hold of the FDIC to get your money? Think you can sell your stock certificates and 401(k) fund shares door-to-door if you need to? Will you be able to get to your safe-deposit box? Can you count on the courts to rule for restitution if your business partner disappears with the goods overnight? Or is all that paper nothing more than…kindling?

Always err on the side of covering your ass – prepare for the other party not to make good. A cynical outlook? Perhaps, but it’s going to happen. We all take risks in trusting others. I trusted my ex-husband implicitly, and was devastated to learn later that he was an adulterer. I don’t know what I could have done differently to be forewarned in that case – even his best friend of 25 years couldn’t believe it. People do unaccountable things.

All I could do was to turn within myself – to use the strength and knowledge I already had – to get away and start over. It sounds odd, but I was devastated and relieved and excited all at the same time. I was glad to be able to act, and to act on my own terms. It was my life solely once again, and that was a bleak but exhilarating experience amid the emotional ruins. I had my own self – skills, separate assets, attitude, experience – to rely upon, and I realized that that was enough to get me by.

Self-reliance is so desirable among freedom lovers precisely because we know we can only control our own behavior and choices, and no one else’s. Work for yourself and get paid right away. Produce your own power, heat, light, and water so that they can’t be shut off by the control freaks. Grow some of your own food and keep your own pantry stocked. Keep out of debt and keep your official income low, so you can – even perhaps without Outlawry! – keep more of what you produce.

This is also why so many contrarian investors and freedom-loving folks are advising you now to buy precious metals.

Gold and silver are real. They’re not promissory notes. They don’t turn to lintballs in the laundry. They don’t stop at national barriers. They don’t suffer from inflation. They’ve been accepted as money for centuries, and with good reason. They’re always worth a nice tidy amount, no matter what any govocrat says.

The Mogambo Guru, aka Richard Daughty, has this to say in his most recent rant: “I received some more old German Reichmark money from a reader who sympathizes with me about the horror of money debasement. One bill is a million-Reichmark note. There was a time, just a few years earlier, when a mark was worth about a dollar. So a million marks was a big freaking potload of money. Then, in less than a decade, a million-mark note became, literally, worthless. And those stupid Americans, oops, I mean Germans, who had their wealth in money lost all their dollars, I mean, marks. This is the indelible lesson of what happens when you create excess money and credit. Just like the Germans, oops, I mean us Americans, are doing, and have been doing for half a freaking century! And then you wonder why I am armed to the freaking teeth, screaming in fear and panic, and define "warning shot" as "fusillade"!”

Historically, when economic times get tough, people turn to these hard currencies for stability. FDR’s administration knew the value and appeal of gold, and therefore outlawed private ownership of the yellow metal. Or, as The Mogambo puts it, “But, as the first of a long line of communist dullard Democrat bastards, Franklin Delano Roosevelt gutted this crucial provision of the Constitution. With a stroke of his pen, he eliminated the use of gold as money, and extorted compliance from a gutless Supreme Court when this corrupt, lawless act was naturally challenged in court by outraged Americans.”

Can it happen again? Of course; wouldn’t surprise me at all. Will Freedom Outlaws cringe and obey? I doubt it. We’re more likely to hang in there and trade the stuff amongst ourselves. And the added risk and scarcity will also add value to our metals.

Money, right now and for the foreseeable future in the U.S., is FRNs – hence the term “currency”. A “cash stash,” as I call mine, is a necessity for emergency preparation. Even when greenbacks become badly inflated, you’ll probably want some of ‘em on hand, because that’s what most people recognize and accept. The 7-Eleven or gas station won’t likely be equipped to take your precious metals – nor to make change for them. If you’re faced with a need to hit the road, FRNs are much easier to carry (and to conceal) than coins – and much easier to spend.

When the inflation troubles come, though, be ready to spend those FRNs on (more, since you’re already stocked up, yes?) hard goods that you can use or hold for later barter. Those FRNs are only as good as the gummint says they are today – and tomorrow it’ll be even less – so prices will rise again.

This means, though, that you’ve got to have the FRNs where you can readily get at them immediately. A bank, safe deposit box, or retirement account might not be the best answer.

If nothing else, gold and silver coins should hold their arbitrary face value against the specter of inflation, when paper becomes useful only for stuffing the cracks in your attic walls. A one-ounce U.S. gold coin (the Gold Eagle) is, by fiat that purports to be based on tradition (ha! you see through that lie, don't you?), stamped “Fifty Dollars” – although the mere metal value of that ounce of gold runs right now about $437. And it’s really hard to imagine that higher value – or much more – not being observed when times get interesting.

As Freedom Outlaws, we don’t support the federal national government’s doings – but we might be willing to capitalize on the attitudes of our less-freedom-loving neighbors toward that government. Just as some Outlaws will stock up on booze and chocolate bars to sell to less-prepared neighbors, the tendency of most folks to put all their faith in the government is a fact of reality that can be of use to us.

If the world as we know it ends, your average Joe Clerk will still accept a coin stamped “United States of America” before he’ll even consider taking something called an Austrian Philharmonic. On the other hand, although many foreign coins are pricier than their U.S. counterparts, the South African Krugerrand is usually an exception, if you're on a budget.

If you really need to, before TSHTF, you can sell back your bullion at the market price for metals, less a cut for the buying dealer. You’ll have to find such a dealer either locally or by mail and internet. Currently, if you were to buy a one-ounce Golden Eagle for the going rate of $456 on GoldmastersUSA.com, you could turn around and sell it back the same day for $442. Yes, you pay that $14 or so commission fee, plus any shipping, but you can get your FRNs if you need ‘em. Wait a while, and who knows, the gold price might be at $550 an ounce, and you can actually make a profit by selling that same coin at a higher FRN price than you paid.

Yes, one of these days, owning such bullion will alone probably make you an Outlaw (again). Heheheh. In for a penny, in for a pound (or a few ounces anyway). A few smart Jews in Nazi Germany had some excellent solutions to this threat – making their gold into buttons and tools (painted or chromed) that got past the jabbut theftpoints.

For now, we’re legally free to purchase and to own these goodies. That’s the most amazing thing to me – just to go buy real gold, that the government blithely stamps and sells very nearly at straight weight cost. They don’t see any point in keeping it back in reserve (which should scare hell out of any sensible person).

Outlaws, on the other hand, do. And let me tell you, it really is a thrill to run gold and silver coins through your hands!

But, most vitally, the fundamental issue is whom – and what – you can trust and count on. Yourself, your small carefully-chosen network – and hard reality. In this case, as Lucy was wont to say in A Charlie Brown Christmas, “that wonderful, wonderful sound of cold hard cash.”

And plenty of canned chili, and cool lead and brass, and barrels of water…oh, and dry gunpowder.

Out of the Gray Zone

2005-08-07T17:35:00.000-04:00

Out of the Gray Zone – RebelFire 1.0
by Claire Wolfe and Aaron Zelman

(Edited on August 9 at 1:07 PM: My sincere apologies to Aaron Zelman, co-author of this book. In writing the entry below, I failed to mention his name or to appreciate the strong influence his collaboration had on the book. I unfairly assumed - because I knew something of Claire Wolfe's triumphs and challenges with the writing as it progressed - that she had been the prime mover on the project.

However, Mr. Zelman, the executive director of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, is an outstanding friend of liberty and a powerful writer in his own right. So please, as you peruse this review, read "and Aaron" after each "Claire.")

This isn’t going to be the normal review – just a haphazard flood of personal response to reading the book. Oh, and I purposely haven’t read anyone else’s reviews yet – first because I didn’t want to spoil the surprise of the plot, and since reading, because I wanted to be as authentic as possible. So I’m not going to say much about the events of the story. You’ll have to read the book to get the full experience. And, fellow Outlaws, you’ve just GOT to read it – and get all your young and not-so-young friends to do the same!

By the time I finished this book – all in a day of air travel – I knew my life was going to be different from now on. Yes, it’s a book directed to young people – as are some of my other all-time favorites. But its story and its themes are very mature: integrity, loyalty, decency, courage, striving. And it brings them to life in astonishing and moving ways.

When, for instance, Jeremy made excuses to himself about why he didn’t have to bother burying the dead man at the cabin (whose food and clothing Jeremy had appropriated), the shameful and lazy and avoidance-loving part of myself was revealed in a horrifying light. It’s so easy to make up reasons why not – but so wasteful – when that time and energy spent in self-justification could be put to so much better use in just DOING the thing. Especially when I know it’s right and needed.

The several scenes in which Jeremy sells out were so well orchestrated that they left me very wary of my own tendencies to take the easy path. And I began to wonder if the "Gray Zone" is more than simply the Godforsaken geographical location from which Jeremy hails.

The slang Claire has developed for the story – “sexy big,” “crazydictions,” “HaPiGoons” - is utterly believable, right on the mark, and also fun and sassy. And the book is so well written, so true and expressive, that it has that ability to change a worldview. It has something that opens your eyes and draws you into its world.

Action moves fast, and Claire isn’t squeamish about including gory, meaningful scenes that paint quite accurately the kinds of dangers (and unexpected help) that Outlaws can face. Jeremy comes from an environment where guns are not only illegal, they’re considered obsolete. So he’s got the same kind of unreasoning fear of them that so many Americans have nowadays. But then he’s plunged into many situations in which he has to become willing to rethink his fear.

One thing I’ve learned from Thunder, and now from Claire in a new way, is that music is so often about the need for freedom. In my younger days, mom made sure I avoided metal music, because it was bad (although acceptable for my younger brothers), so I falsely thought that metalheads at school were losers. Their t-shirts and hair frightened me. It was just a few years ago that I began to realize what good stuff I’d missed – Quiet Riot and Van Halen, to start with, for an utter fraidycat like me.

Then Thunder came along and began teaching me to listen to his own kind of thunder – Dream Theater and Rush and others. I began to understand something of the brash, fierce young spirits of musicians on the edge, pushing the edge, daring to rebel. Their melodies weren’t very pretty, their sound not serene. But their fire was evident, as was their urge to freedom, and I hadn’t appreciated that before.

Claire builds on that sense with her lyrics, and her treatment of Jeremy’s feeling for the music he loves. What Claire has done, with her lush, chewy writing, is to morph you back into the young adult you were, how it felt to feel all those yearnings you could never explain to others. Not just the desires to inhabit the mysteries of sex and drugs and romance, but the dark urge to break out into the bright space of freedom from others’ rule.

In another vein, though, I feel strongly that Rey is an unfinished symphony. It’s likely that his failure to reappear before the end of the book was a planned suspense item, so the reader will want to delve into RebelFire 2.0 when the time comes. But the theme of integrity is a strong one in the book, so to my mind, Rey should have delivered on his promise to see Jeremy again. Plus, he was far and away the most intriguing character in the book. I was quite disappointed not to meet him again.

There’s been some talk on The Claire Files about Cedra and Jeremy getting together romantically in a future volume. I personally don’t think the time is right for that. Cedra didn’t develop into enough of a believably human being in this first book. She’s too tough, too angry about past abuses, and too focused on survival, to have room for a guy in her life. As it stands, she’s more of a stereotype of balls-to-the-wall underground activism than an attractive young woman.

And Jeremy, although his progress is impressive, still seems to be the kind of late bloomer who’s got far to go in learning to care for another, or even to see why he should want to. He’s still the geek who entertains a few fantasies about sexy girls, but his own passion isn’t kindled yet. Perhaps a romantic tension could develop here slowly, as the two characters evolve - but for now, both of them remain unprepared to love, or even to want to be intimate in any sense.

But overall, I was left with an odd and unexpected feeling of haunting after I finished the book. I can’t even say why exactly. It was a journey, not just for Jeremy but for me the reader. It left me appreciating in a whole new and deeper way the gifts Claire has for making big issues personal and real. It was, too, a rare and energizing experience to see the nonfiction ideas Claire writes about, made real in a fast-moving and very believable story. Her gifts as a writer are not limited to nonfiction. With this, her first novel, she’s built something as utterly special as her wonderfully individual take on living free.

Part of our Outlaw charm

2005-07-18T13:03:00.000-04:00

I recently wrote an article for an industry magazine about the need for front-line employees to look beyond their petty ego needs for the sake of what they’re on the job to accomplish. The industry in question has historically been known for its friendly people, yet I see so many of those people whining and griping and sniping at one another. It’s not only unfortunate – it’s poisonous.

I’ve been seeing the same kind of poison cropping up on certain freedom boards on the internet lately, and there’s been discussion (and often, um, more than discussion) about the growth of this kind of behavior by intelligent adults.

C’mon. We’re Outlaws. Not only are we smart and brave, we’re irresistibly charming.

We’re the good guys, the romantic heroes, the irresistible forces that know (or fake it ‘til we make it) how to get over, around, under, or through those damned immovable statist objects.

If we want to welcome more like us into the ranks, we’ve got to make those ranks a place worth coming to. We’ve got to make magic just by being ourselves, living our truth, and taking actions that speak volumes to the free souls of others.

Speak and do unto others…as you would have them speak and do unto you.

I’ve long wondered why it is that most people treat perfect strangers with so much respect and kindness, then go home and abuse and insult and manipulate their own loved ones. It’s sick. It’s messed up.

How many of us grew up in that type of family environment? Putting on the act for the neighbors, putting on our best clothes and behavior for church and for company, and knowing that it was all a sham that our parents perpetrated upon us and others? Did we resent it and vow that we’d never do the same? Did we want to escape it as soon as we could?

Did we then, years later, jump on some internet forum and start belittling anyone who didn’t agree with us on a minor issue – even though they were kindred spirits about the big issues?

Did we expect to be lauded as innovators of thought, yet then demand that everyone arrive at our exact same conclusions – immediately or sooner – or else they were loser-infidels unworthy of freedom?

Did we taunt and razz and jab those who are closest to us in our thinking?

And do we then have the right to wonder why our ranks remain so small, and why so many who stop by for a chat decide that this isn’t a place they want to remain?

The hardest part, perhaps, is stemming that quickly-rising urge to MAKE people agree, to MAKE OUR POINT, SO THEY GET IT, DAMMITALL, AND WE GET THE LAST WORD. In short – to PROVE HOW SMART AND PERFECT WE ARE AND THUS RULE THE PLACE.

And isn’t that the control-freak, statist-wannabe demon rising up within us?

So…since we know that sort of motivation is far beneath us, why can’t we pause right there, reach down deep to the wise, dashing Outlaw within, and let her or him speak instead?

Her words and ideas are compelling like gorgeous music, her factual examples irrefutable – yet non-threatening. His ways draw us nearer in warm, exciting welcome, rather than pushing us away in anger and revulsion.

I think it’s time to ask ourselves if we really deserve – and will proudly, loyally carry, in all our dealings – the title and standard of Freedom Outlaw.

And I think of Goethe’s lines at the end of this quote by W.H. Murray:

Until one is committed,
there is hesitancy,
the chance to draw back,
always ineffectiveness.
Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation)
there is one elementary truth,
the ignorance of which kills countless ideas
and splendid plans:
That the moment one definitely commits oneself,
then Providence moves too.
All sort of things occur to help one
that would never otherwise have occurred.
A whole stream of events issues from the decision,
raising in one’s favor
all manner of unforeseen incidents
and meetings and materal assistance,
which no man could have dreamed
would have come his way.
I have learned a deep respect
for one of Goethe’s couplets:
“Whatever you can do,
or dream you can,
begin it.
Boldness has genius,
power and magic in it.”

Quotation from
The Scottish Himalayan Expedition,
By W. H. Murray,
Pub. J.M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., 1951

In order to deserve it, we’ve got to live up to it ourselves. And when we think that’s too hard, we’ve got to search much deeper, to reach for the dazzling best within us.

Our kind of Outlaw charm, woven gracefully and sprinkled with stylish panache, works with people, and creates those astonishing opportunities we could never plan. Charm is made with equal parts of magic, passion, love, and pure (never “lite” or imitation) joy.

And charm is exactly what the statists don’t have.

Tag - I'm it!

2005-07-10T23:27:00.000-04:00

In my continuing process of catching up on the past three months (!), I now return at last to Claire Wolfe's book tag challenge from (gack!) late May. With the luxury of time to think, I’m having a ball on this. Thanks, Claire!

Total number of books I've owned:

Wow. No idea. I know I’ve got 24 boxes full currently, because I just moved and had to pack them lovingly. But I gave away another 7 boxes worth before that move, and probably have given or sold another dozen boxes in recent years, not including college texts. So I’m thinking I must have owned at least 50 boxes in my lifetime, at 30 to 40 books per box…maybe 1750 total?

Last book I bought:

RebelFire: Out of the Gray Zone by Claire Wolfe

Last book I read:

I’m about to start reading RebelFire! :-D Currently I’m working through Jack M. Bickham’s Writing and Selling Your Novel, a gift from my fellow newbie novelist Bobaloo. Also reading Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman by Kate Clifford Larson as part of my novel research.

Five books that mean a lot to me:
I interpret this to mean books that have helped to wake me up to what my soul wants and loves in life. Books that I’ve kept close by me since first reading them. Books I wouldn’t be without if I had to cut my possessions down to the very minimum.

One: Everything by Agatha Christie. (Okay, this is cheating, because I can’t choose just one of her books. Deal with it.) I’m a nut for her mysteries. She combines exquisite characters, psychologically true, with deliciously twisted, intelligent, clever plots and a beautifully lighthearted sense of life. Some of her mysteries aren’t even murder stories but playful chases by boy of girl or vice versa. I never get tired of rereading them…just wish I didn’t already own them all, so I could look forward to more. And you know what? They offer tons of good ideas for Outlaws too. In fact, I’m planning a whole blogopotamus on that theme one of these days. ;-)

A few of my favorites from Christie: Death on the Nile (the first one I ever read, at age 14), Cards on the Table, Murder on the Orient Express, Destination Unknown, and 4:50 from Paddington.

Two: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. You knew it would show up here. It shows up in most of my blog entries. I can’t say enough about it – devoured it early in college after having been assigned The Fountainhead in high school. Rand had her eccentricities and flaws, yes. But the woman GOT it – got the whole miserable process of statist overgrowth - down to the last detail. She gave us the gulching solution. And she came from Russia and learned to write English with that much precision and power. This book absolutely belongs in the firmament.

Three: Writing Down the Bones and Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life by Natalie Goldberg. They knock me out of my daily, conventional mind, and rev up the ineffable depths.

Four: The Contrary Farmer by Gene Logsdon. Oh, my. I first read this in 1995 and knew I’d found my direction. Now I reread it twice a year or more – it’s perfect for a snowed-in day. Logsdon is a delightfully creative, commonsensical farmer and writer who goes his own way, stands against the tide of agribusiness, and reveres nature’s simple processes and cycles without being at all a dippy liberal. This is a fantastic how-to book about working one’s place at nature’s pace.

Five: I Am Not a Number! by Claire Wolfe. I debated about which of her books to list here. 101 Things to Do ‘Til the Revolution was such a daringly delicious delight to read, and remains so after eight years – and The Freedom Outlaw’s Handbook is the very inspiration for this blog. But Number goes a step farther, into the wondrously difficult and rewarding realm of how to build a life with others who also intend to live as free human beings.

I'm taking the liberty of adding a few (okay, it turned out to be a lot – help, I can’t seem to stop!) more titles that remain very present refuges, and well-worn, much-loved signposts:

All the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Yes, I still reread them once every other year or so…and they’ll be in my gulch bookshelf one day.

Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White. I think this book is why I enjoy the company of animals more than that of many people. I still reread it now and then too.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. An independent spirit wins through after all, and (yum!) Timothy Dalton played Mr. Rochester in the miniseries on A&E…

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. An absolute classic. So darn well-written and such a vast yet coherent plot.

If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland. Lush and open, dreamy but action-oriented, a joy to savor.

The House by the Sea and Recovering: A Journal by May Sarton. I found these during my own depression, and loved the New England scenes and the writer’s struggles about which Sarton wrote so well.

Patriots: The Men Who Started the American Revolution by A.J. Langguth. History that makes sense, is a great narrative read, and inspires too. Gives you a sense of how it all unfolded, how it was interconnected, and what the participants were really thinking. Yummy.

The Discovery of Freedom by Rose Wilder Lane. I never knew till I read this quirky book that there was a lot of history being hidden through the centuries. Can’t agree with her entire position, but it’s a wonderful read.

Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel. The heroine is just too perfect, but this book and its several sequels are amazing in scope and detail. They’re the story of a woman who learns to go it alone.

Building the Hewn Log House by Charles McRaven. Wow! You mean people build their OWN homes???

The Complete Book of Cordwood Masonry Housebuilding by Rob Roy. Ditto – and here’s how to do it with small, lightweight components and even a hot tub!

Finding your Own North Star by Martha Beck. Humorous, yet so insightful - a self-help book that's all about the real self.

Walden by Henry David Thoreau. He lived it – lived the minimalistic, individualistic life - built the cabin, hoed the beans, and nurtured his freewheeling soul. He too was a Freedom Outlaw.

Tag five people and have them do this on their blogs:

Shoot, I don’t know a lot of folks with blogs who haven’t been tagged yet. But here are a few I’d love to hear from:

Debeez - awaiting a link to her feisty blog

Bobaloo – his Serenity Gulch blog may be defunct, but we’d sure enjoy seeing it go live again!

Mantispid

Unstructured

John DeWitt (Joel Simon)

Tim Osman

“It’s like I've been sleepin’ for years”

2005-07-02T21:47:00.000-04:00

To all you kind and supportive readers, I just want to say thank you so much for bearing with me! And…I’m ba-a-a-ack!

I apologize for the long absence. The two jobs I’ve been doing for a dozen years now involve a lot of travel and time away from the computer. For the past three months I’ve been itching like crazy to write, and living for the beginning of July, when I could just come home and write my heart out – and now, at last, the magical time has arrived!

It’s taken a great deal of effort – and long-postponed hopes too – to be able to say this: My time is now more or less my own.

Woohoo!!!

I’ve FINALLY paid off most of my old debts, including my car; reduced my living expenses by moving in with my honey, aka Thunder (who’s getting his own writing going over at Wolfesblog); and, but for about a week per month of work/travel for my old company, I can spend my time on my own writing projects (including a paid regular column I recently landed for an industry publication, and the historical novel I’ve mentioned previously), and afford to live well also – while saving up for my gulching plans with Thunder. Perhaps oddly, it’s a humbling feeling.

And, it’s hard to get used to!

Is this what it feels like to want something more than even you yourself know, and to strive for it even when you didn’t think it was possible, and then achieve it? It’s the feeling of being presented a bigger gift than I’m ready to deserve. The feeling that I still need to honor the gift by proving myself worthy of it.

I guess that’s because the gift in question is…freedom.

I kind of shiver when I say that. It’s hard to believe that I’ve really achieved the freedom I’ve wanted for so long.

This doesn’t mean that I get to lollygag around all day – heck, no! And I find that I don’t even want to. On the contrary, the creative tides are beginning to flow strongly, and more projects than I can manage are already clamoring for attention! Research for the novel, home improvement for T’s fixer-upper, new venues for submitting articles – it’s incredible and wonderful.

I’m really excited to read Claire Wolfe’s upcoming book about work-vs.-jobs (tentatively titled Your Work – Your Way) when it comes out. I think she’s made for herself long ago the kind of self-sustaining independence that we wannabe Outlaws yearn after. She’s set up her life so that she can afford to live (hey, I didn’t say it was an extravagant lifestyle…) by writing for whomever and about whatever she wishes. She’s also developed a very loyal following –without selling out her principles - because she’s so darn good at writing AND at choosing the topics she writes about. And that following helps to sustain her.

I’m certain that in the new book, she – none better - is going to articulate that rich experience of self-ownership. It’s what Gulchers and Outlaws pant after, “sweat equity” be damned. To own one’s time, one’s energy, one’s wealth, one’s land. To own them, and to enjoy sovereignty over their use.

Yeah, I know, this sounds like airheaded hooey in the wake of the Kelo decision and “Real ID.” “They” are telling us that we don’t own a damned thing anymore, not even our own biometric or financial data.

But…we DO own our lives, and our thoughts, and the integrity of our work, and our love, and the callings of our innermost hearts, and our time, and our choices, and our energy. No matter what “they” try to legislate, they can NEVER claim these things from us. And what’s more, they know it, and they’re afraid we’ll up and remember it one of these days. Gandhi remembered it. Rosa Parks remembered it. The young student in Tiananmen Square remembered it. But I got caught up in work, and financial worries, and heaven knows what else - and forgot.

I DO own my life. I have the right to live it as I choose, in the name of the best within me. I have the right to pursue my own values and to associate with those I cherish. I have the right to enjoy every sandwich (as Kirsten says) and every moment along the way.

I am free. For the first time ever, I am free and I know it. I never want to forget.

“It’s in every one of us

I just remembered

It’s like I’ve been sleepin’ for years…

I’m not awake as I could be

But my seein’s better

I can see through the tears

I’ve been realizin’ that I bought this ticket

And been watchin’ only half of the show…

But there are scenery and lights

And a cast of thousands

Who all know what I know

And it’s good that it’s so…”

--From “It’s In Everyone of Us” by David Pomerantz

Here’s to you members of the cast who’ve helped to show me the way - to those of you who can laugh with the joy of your knowing, even in the face of the encroaching insanity and its myriad minions.

And Happy Independence Day.

Outlaw fiction ideas

2005-04-14T11:08:00.000-04:00

A few years back, I had the vague glimmerings of an idea for an Outlaw-style novel, wrote a few pages of text and notes, and let it go at that.

In recent months, though, I've come back to the story line and begun to develop it into something of much greater scope than I ever expected. It stars a young woman, forced by threat of scandal into a marriage she doesn't want, who later (following the death of her slaveholding husband) conceives a plan to run her own above-ground Underground Railroad during the 1850s. The best part is that she is developing in fascinating directions - becoming much more passionate, daring, and even lusty than I had planned to start. (The other characters are coming along slowly as yet.)

I am taking the month of July off to work on the novel full-time. For the moment, I'm working on background reading and research in my spare time, and plot notes, so I'll be ready to get right to work this summer.

It might not ever be the Great American Outlaw Novel, but it's looking like it'll really be a novel one of these days. An awesome experience, this process of creating fiction. Watch this space for updates! ;-)

Cross-post of mine on this subject from TimOsman/Putrimalu's cool new site, LibertyFilter.com:
From the intriguing Ayn Rand influence thread at TCF...What would you want to see in a new freedom/Outlaw novel?

What kinds of elements would get you reading AND appeal to your not-so-freedom-focused friends too? Maybe even enough to get them on your side?

I thought historical fiction might be best, because it appeals to many, and it can say things that will seem "quaint" or "irrelevant to today" in the eyes of the PTB, but to those who think it through, it will be damning to the controllers.

Now I'm well aware there's no chance I'll write a novel (certainly not a first novel!) as powerful as Atlas Shrugged, which, along with Gone With the Wind, is my ideal in terms of amazing, coherent, can't-stop-reading plot. But I don't know that it's necessary to match Ayn's achievement. If you create the right kind of buzz around something, the quality doesn't have to matter so much.

I'll be eagerly awaiting any thought you'd like to offer! :-)

Atlas is shrugging again - and he is us!

2005-03-02T22:41:00.000-05:00

One of the feisty fellows over at The Claire Files Forums put up a searching entry tonight. He had been reading a Murray Rothbard piece from 1993, exhorting freedom-lovers to fight the system, loud-and-proud, and never to say die.

Then NMC_EXP wrote: "I am teetering between 'fighting the long defeat' or hunkering down and waiting for leviathan to collapse and die of its own weight. Rothbard says continue to resist. My heart and mind tell me this fight will only serve to make me 'crazy and old before my time'."

I read the Rothbard piece and found myself rather angered by it, actually. So I replied to NMC_EXP:
What it comes down to is...what does it mean to "do battle against that evil?" And that's what each of us must decide alone.

I have come to the choice to gulch because...I have realized that most people don't WANT freedom. But I do, and I must have it. I may only have it for a few days or weeks or years yet. There's no way to know.

Shall I use these most productive years of my precious life striving to convince those who don't wish to hear such a message? Shall I use my life's energy fighting to be heard, in a political system that is intent upon crushing those who think like me and yearn for real freedom? Shall I stick my neck out among them, so that they may better reach it with the blade of their guillotine? I think not.

But...Don't confuse leaving the political fight with giving in. I haven't given in, I've merely chosen to specialize, to focus my efforts toward achieving the life I want with people who want the same. The fight isn't less real just because others don't see or hear you fighting, or aren't converted to your side.

Have you read Atlas Shrugged? Many of us are, right now, at the point of choice that Dagny and Rearden faced. What is right? How do I know? Only through our own individual, deep knowing and understanding can we make the choice and decide the timing and details. Even Rearden kept going for quite some time after he realized the economy was in a hopeless state.

Those of us who want freedom must take it, because if we wait for others to grant it to us, we will be waiting ourselves into our graves. But...that doesn't preclude us from fighting in a very different way, as Galt and Francisco and Ragnar did...reaching out quietly, with passion and fellowship, to those who want what we want and can grasp what we've grasped.

As for the others, they may never be able or willing to grasp it, much less to embrace it. Your life is yours. You choose your own fight, you choose where to put your precious energy. You don't sound like one to give in or to give up.

I really like what Claire Wolfe added:
"There are plenty of ways to do battle. And one is to "contend without contending."

We can hurl ourselves at the walls of evil until we're beaten and bruised and can do no more. Or we can center ourselves, focus, and quietly burrow through or beneath ... or fly over the walls.

Think of the state as the Maginot Line. Impregnable, but ... "

I'm intrigued by this whole line of thinking because...it's occurring to me tonight that the heroes of Atlas Shrugged - John Galt, Francisco d'Anconia, Ragnar Danneskjold, Hank Rearden, Dagny Taggart, and others - are outstanding fictional examples of the kind of Outlaw I think we need to be - the kind I want to be.

They did not choose to live above the law. They chose to live outside of it - outside the reach of that which sought to ruin, maim, muzzle, mooch off, defraud, and kill them. They chose to be Outlaws. Smart. Sensible. Independent. Free. And cheerful.

And I'm more and more convinced lately that we are capable of just the same, in attitude and in action. Our scale may be smaller, our budgets tighter, our struggles less epic than theirs. And...we might not win in the end in the way they did.

But we truly, truly are seeing that book come true in our time. It's frankly rather eerie just how pat it all seems, like a spoof that's actually not a spoof. And that means, to me, that it isn't farfetched at all to imagine ourselves doing the sorts of things they did, with the same kind of style and success.

Kinda cool, actually. And, come to think of it, I could get into that black satin gown and black velvet cape thing as part of my Outlaw costume.

Fear itself

2005-02-19T23:58:00.000-05:00

It occurs to me that fear has sometimes held me back, and I’m wondering how to decide whether or when that’s a good thing for an Outlaw.

Last summer, for instance, my honey and I came pretty close to drowning in a rafting accident. We thought we were going with friends for a leisurely float, but unexpected flooding caused us to crash into a tree when the creek overflowed its banks. I was pinned underwater by the raft and the current, and my honey was thrown fifty feet downstream. We both got out fine, but we were luckier than I care to think about.

I’m scared now to try any kind of whitewater rafting, because I KNOW what could happen. I have some idea of what it would be like, to drown, trapped under the rushing water that's much stronger than me. And I don’t ever want to go through it!

But then, there are things that I’ll try that would scare the bejeepers out of other people. Holding that python around my neck last summer, for instance (that was cool). Hopping onto the back of my honey’s motorcycle on our first date. Doing public speaking on a frequent basis.

On the other hand, I’ll NEVER try skydiving, and I simply cannot face most roller coasters or gravity rides at theme parks. Lots of people love ‘em. Not me – I really think I’d pass out from fright if I tried one.

One day a few years back, though, I was at a theme park, and decided to push my own envelope, so to speak. I went off alone for a bit, to prove I could do it without being dared. First I took a gondola ride around the park – this thing isn’t your average ski lift, it’s much higher off the ground. Great view from up there. Hated the sickening jolts as the pulley wheels bumped over the supports now and then. Scary, but exhilarating too.

Then I put myself onto a roller coaster. Not a real scary one, but scarier than I’d ever done before. Sat in the front car, too. Thought I was going into the lake at one point in the ride. Screamed in excitement. Had such a blast I went on it again, right then and there.

It was a very good thing to do. I walked taller afterward. I still don’t feel ready to face the super-fast legs-hanging-free twisting-loop-de-loop three-G-force coasters, but I know I’m not a total wuss, either.

Challenging myself again, a couple of months after my raft crash, I was at a pool with some friends, and this pool had a fabulous, huge waterslide. Very twisty-turny. Now, laugh if you want, but I was scared to try it. The rushing water spooked me. But I still wanted to see how it felt, so I jumped up and said, “C’mon, you guys!”

As I climbed to the top and prepared to push off, they all yelled, “Lie down flat! You’ll go a LOT faster!”

They were right. A LOT faster. But scary to me, although they couldn’t know what I was dealing with, because the water rushing over my face felt like fighting that creek again, and because, going down feet first and flat on my back, I couldn’t see where I was going. Like being at the creek’s mercy again. Loss of control.

And I think, for me, that’s part of the problem. I HATE loss of control. For instance, I don’t want to skydive, but I’d love to learn to fly a small airplane. Now, that water slide was a heck of a lot of fun. I went on it about six times, I liked it so much. I just held my nose and the rushing water over my face didn’t bother me much at all. I was ready to face that much. I guess that was courage in a small way.

No doubt about it, an Outlaw needs courage. And courage means doing what you fear, in spite of the fear – because you haven’t overcome the fear yet. If you’re not scared, at least a little bit, why would you need courage anyway?

Conscious courage will get you far, and necessity will accomplish even more. Fear itself can't stop us if we won't let it. If I learned to fly that plane, and then had to bail out – well, I guess I’d have to draw on that necessity-type courage to see me through. And I imagine I’d come back changed for the better, if I was still in one piece more or less.

But, when getting together a team of Outlaws, it might be best to make sure you balance out the skydiving wussies, like me, with a former Airborne fellow or two. You can sign me up for the public speaking jobs instead.

Conclusions: Let's each start with what we do best, and develop our courage in other pursuits as and when we can. I think that readiness goes a long way in this regard. So does encouragement from those who aren't so scared (anymore) of skydiving or speechmaking.

And, let's always remember to do at least one thing every week, or month, that does scare us. Courage workout, if you will. In fact, I'm overdue for one of those. Whitewater rafting, anyone?

The tragedy of history

2005-02-07T23:57:00.000-05:00

Today I attended a presentation of live music and dance, promoting the coming celebration of the 400^th anniversary of the English settlement of Jamestown, Virginia, which will take place in 2007. The concept, roughly, was to bring together representatives of the three cultures and races that lived on those shores so long ago. I watched as Indians danced their mysterious rhythmic steps and called their high, wailing cries, and as gospel singers intoned old slave spirituals, heartrending sounds of loss and separation, oppression and pain.

And I looked on as teenaged boys tricked out in Revolutionary garb, the fifers and drummers of Colonial Williamsburg, performed a perfectly executed medley of march and battle tunes with their rat-tatting percussion and sweet piercing trills. I marveled at their faces under tricornered hats, young earnest faces which, one and all, could have been lifted from an 18^th century painting.

Faces that should have been laughing with girls and grinning with boyish enjoyment of life, but that were, this day, prematurely solemn and weighty with trouble…not only because of the challenging performance they provided the audience, but because, I think, they were trained to imagine themselves doing the job done by their counterparts two centuries ago: portending with their instruments the onslaught of deafening explosions, acrid smoke, screams and killing, the slaughter of men by men.

And the faces were not merely concentrating on a difficult task - they gave the impression of being inured and hardened to some vast tragedy surrounding them, the kind of blank, bleak defensive barrier that battlefield denizens quickly develop in order to bear the terror occurring around them.

It was an eerie and unsettling feeling. For, along with the sorrows I heard in the music of the Indians and the Africans, this sadness of impending doom was palpable in the air. And what it said to me was that we are soon to face this same tragedy again, that we are already facing it now in faraway lands, and that those of us who love and will defend liberty may be the ones boys like these next serenade onto fields of blood here at home...or, worse, that the roles could be reversed.

Why, why have humans not yet learned to live and let live? Why must and will governments use the vitally alive young people living within their borders to kill and maim the young people of other places on earth? Why must slavery and oppression and torture and misery be inflicted by so many with such perennial vengeance?

I came so close to weeping then and there. With a vast sorrow, with bitter anger, with the frenetic wish to throw myself in the path of any power-drunk slimeball of the current elite who quite blithely grasps at the loveliness that is another’s life, tears it to filthy shreds with a casual, cold chuckle, then smirks, “Next!”

I know this isn’t a helpful message to you Outlaws, and I apologize. It was a very emotional morning, and I’m still searching for the kernel of the experience that might give rise to some useful action plan. All I know at the moment is that such a plan is a desperate need right now…for we are about to relive the bloody and tragic history I saw portrayed this morning.

To Your Health!

2005-01-01T17:17:00.000-05:00

Better health – such a standard, overused New Year’s resolution! But that must be because it’s so necessary, and so difficult to do.

So for this wonderful, just-begun New Year, the Year of Freedom in my personal book, I’m going to start off talking about health.

Might sound a very strange topic for a blog about Freedom Outlaws. And yet…it’s a very important one.

Myself, I’ve been needing to lose weight and get consistent exercise for years. And every New Year’s I say I’ll really do it this time. To be fair, I always accomplish something, but never as much as I know I should – and then I usually slide backwards too.

But in 2004, I came to understand how vital good health and physical condition will be to those of us in the freedom movement. We need our energy and stamina. We need to be able to walk miles and run them too. Need to be able to climb, and dodge, and carry burdens. And we need to be in condition to save ourselves and our loved ones, should the need arise.

We empower ourselves with confidence and the can-do spirit, as well as new physical abilities, when we achieve the state of health that allows us to be at the ready, raring to go. Exercise (so good for you, yet so easy to put off, I know!) has been shown many times over to contribute to better mood and more positive outlook on life, even to combat serious depression.

And therein lies the other vital aspect of health for an Outlaw – a sound mind, in this sound Outlaw body we’re building (ooh, doesn't that sound like a winner!).

The best thing an Outlaw-in-training can do, in my very humble opinion, is to cultivate and maintain a truly openminded, joyful, loving attitude toward life and living beings.

Many medical and other health professionals are openly acknowledging the undeniable link between good health and positive attitude. When we are motivated by love for something, whether it be freedom or life or our beloved’s well-being, we find amazing reserves of energy and desire and passion that keep us going far longer than we could under different circumstances.

Powers and insights that elude us when we feel angry or guilty or hateful, shimmer with beauty and wisdom and clarity when we choose to release these toxic emotions, and to look upon the situation with calm, loving eyes.

This doesn’t mean we give up despising evil, or feeling anger at injustice. It means that we remember to turn these reactions around, and to be moved by the love of the good, and the peace of justice, in our actions and encounters.

It means that we choose consciously what will be allowed to inhabit our minds and hearts. It means that we take the heavy, poisonous lead of these nonproductive reactions that we all have, and use our own alchemy to render them bright and shining and worth something in our world.

This isn’t mere New Age goofiness. Anger and depression have been linked to cancer. And did you know that a study was done on the saliva of a man in a rage at the time? The saliva was found to contain many of the same compounds as snake venom. When the researchers injected this saliva into several small animals, each of them died. (Hal Huggins, DDS, MS, The Price of Root Canals, privately published, available through Dr. Huggins’s office, (719) 522-0566. Quoted in Richard Anderson, ND, NMD, Cleanse and Purify Thyself, Book 2: 2000, Christobe Publishing, Mt. Shasta, CA.)

Can you imagine, then, what frequent rages might do to our own health?

We always have the option to choose our response to any situation. And oftentimes the first, nonthinking reaction is anger or guilt or hatred or the desire for retaliation.

But an Outlaw is not the type to be filled with, or driven by, such emotions. You can’t be an angry human being and still retain the kind of gallantry we Outlaws need to keep going through hostile country. An Outlaw has something better and brighter in mind, and he’s damned if he’ll let anyone or anything sway him from that vision and intention.

And if someone tries it – well, our Outlaw’ll get a little extra strength training while teaching the fool a lesson. But he’ll do it because he loves his life and freedom, and will fight proudly to protect them – not because he hates the idiot who tried to take them away.

So, as I begin my own health plan for 2005 – drinking the eight glasses of water or more per day, exercising daily, and using a detoxification diet and herbal program (check it out at www.ariseandshine.com and www.cleanse.net! – it was created by Dr. Richard Anderson, mentioned above, and it truly does offer greater health and joy and energy – and no, I don’t get paid to say that)…

I also drink to your health for the New Year! May we all find even greater freedom in 2005, including the freedom to be as active and joyful as we’ve always wanted to be.

Small steps do get you somewhere

2004-12-19T19:24:00.000-05:00

Late each year, before I dare tackle the thought of next year’s resolutions, I’ve made it a tradition to write down everything I want to commend myself for from the past twelve months. A list in black and white of accomplishments. Evidence that I did at least try to make good on some of last year’s resolutions. And a report card on how much adventure and learning I’m including in my life.

Time to do it yet again. And this year, it’s going to be much different than in any year past.

Sometimes I feel useless around the freedom forums, like I have nothing practical or useful or constructive to offer. When I first noticed that feeling, I made sure to try some new endeavors to make up for it – prevent it from remaining true, even if it was the case for now.

2003 was a year of upheaval for me, but in 2004, I’ve come a long way on the path to where I’m meant to be. For instance:

Found a fantastic, passionate, honest, intelligent, funny gulching buddy, liberty friend, lover and partner in Thunder
Learned to use a handgun (revolver and semi-auto) somewhat accurately, and purchased my first one, SSN-free
Chose not to apply for a concealed handgun permit for reasons of principle
Continued to work occasionally in a “licensed” profession on an expired license
Found, joined, and participated in the wonderful forums at TCFand I4L
Made excellent freedom friends in Bobaloo and Mrs. Bobaloo, Junker, Caveman, Unstructured, Putrimalu/Tim, and others
Connected on a personal level with one of my writing heroines, Claire Wolfe – and got a personally signed copy of her latest book from Thunder as a birthday gift!
Read two dozen or more new liberty/gulching/survival/underground type books, with several more still awaiting on the shelf
Learned basic knitting
Learned basic plumbing
Learned the basics of Dreamweaver web design software
Continued learning etching/intaglio printmaking (these last 4 as possible gulching income sources in addition to useful knowledge)
Put together a bugout bag
Stored two months’ worth of food and a week’s worth of water so far in my small apartment
Stored six months’ worth of supplies like toilet paper, toothpaste, dental floss, OTC meds, bandages, vitamins, light bulbs, etc. for use or trade
Purchased a good hoard of gold and silver coins
Laid in 500 rounds of ammo in the stash
Tried LP activism, left it behind in favor of living free
Learned to sand and refinish wood floors
Collected many new useful bugout/gulching items
Paid down more than half the debt I had one year ago
Found a welcoming place to retreat to, if TSHTF before I have my own land

And, for a little fun in the midst of these serious preparations:

Did research into RV lifestyle and purchase as an option to save money and be prepared
Got my first massage ever
Held a python around my neck
Survived a crash in an inflatable raft on a swollen, rushing creek
Tried a waterslide for the first time

I highly recommend that you try making a list for yourself. When you get those cringing anxieties that tell you “you’re not doing anything real for freedom,” you can take out the list and prove the mean voice wrong. Good self-therapy!

Your list, if you decide to make one, will have lots more on it, I’m sure. Huzzah for you! The most vital thing, the necessary element, is continued, sustained, frequent progress. I was glad once again this year to see evidence of that when I read through my list.

Yes, time is getting shorter before TSHTF – so if you’re making good use of it, you’re way ahead of the game. Keep on keepin’ on, friends. We are so far ahead of the curve on this issue – let’s increase our advantage further in 2005.

And in the end, when the time comes, none of us will be 100% prepared anyway. We’ll muddle through with what we have at that time.

We’re good that way. We’re smart, creative, handy, learn-from-history-and-experience Outlaws.

To Freedom Activists

2004-12-15T20:05:00.000-05:00

I’ve done some time as a freedom activist, in several arenas, and with some wonderful people.

So lately, when I notice articles or forum posts that detail some new gummint abuse, and then whine that “no American even blinked when news of this travesty got out,” I have one simple, angry answer.

Bullsh*t!

Lots of us Outlaws did, and are doing, lots more than that. But perhaps not in obvious ways or through noisy, visible political means.

Whatever the latest news story, when we heard about it, some of us renewed – or discovered – our determination to build personal freedom, because that most recent crackdown was the one that finally crossed our line in the sand, made us ready to do whatever it takes to taste real freedom. Some of us crossed that line years ago.

But whatever stage we’re at in our Outlaw development, we’re almost certainly expressing it on the quiet. Living free is not a popular or safe topic these days, and martyrs or stupid we ain’t.

Few writers and journalists today have the vision to grasp the contradiction between America as she once was, and as the Powers That Be have made her. Those who do, likely have yet to break away from the din of modern media long enough to learn that the chirping of crickets they mistake for silence and apathy is really the intense buzzing of many swarms of focused, determined, pissed-off worker bees.

The Libertarian Party, with many good people under its banner, remains after thirty-two years of existence a political joke in the eyes of nearly everyone. Misguided, quaint, Constitution-waving crackpots. (No pun intended.)

And this is, in a way, a good thing. Because we gulch-builders remain camouflaged.

I honor the good work done by freedom activists, the devotion that keeps them coming back for more abuse and heartbreak every election cycle and protest day. My heart goes out to you honest, decent folk. So to you who are still actively working against the system, you dedicated political types: it's not that no one cares about your hard work. We do – most of us have been where you now are.

Rather, it's that we’ve understood we can't fight the massive beast on his turf.

We're not apathetic; we're quietly and privately preparing for the real fight.

You’ve all read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. And like Hank Rearden, you might have wished that someone would come to you and sweep you away to a safe, free place like Galt’s Gulch.

My friends in liberty…Gulches exist!

But you will need to find or make yours. You will need to earn your place in it. You “Libertarians” who have government jobs, for instance (unless you’re truly working as a mole and helping freedom in a tangible way), will not be near the top of anyone’s membership list – except the LP’s, because you and your ilk have the means to make big donations.

You will need to make yourself someone worth saving. Which means you must save yourself first. We can’t and won’t do it for you. You’re the one who has to wake up. To take the red pill, as Neo in The Matrix, if you will.

Directive 10-289 has been issued, many times over. The most recent form it took is the National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004. Can you imagine Dagny Taggart sticking around the railroad, instead of throwing the newspaper in Jim’s face and quitting on the spot? Do you really think you’ll accomplish anything in a government run by Wesley Mouches and Floyd Ferrises? We cant and don’t. We’ve quit, as much as each of us can.

When you realize that you, too, are ready to live free, you will find us. We are here. We are leaving breadcrumbs along the trail for you.

We want your kind of passion. We want real ability. But we want it pointed in the right direction. Not fighting against, but fighting for. Not crying “if only they’ll let us!”, but rejoicing “they can’t stop us!”

And for those of you who aren’t with us yet: Thank you, for serving as what the statists see as harmless, ineffective camouflage for the bigger group of freedom fighters. I'm serious. No insult. Maybe this will help keep you going. You’re playing a part in something constructive for freedom, whether you know it or not.

And when you’ve decided not to go that route of activism any longer, but to pursue your own happiness, we are here – at least for some time to come - when you are ready to join us.

This Outlaw thing

2004-12-13T18:04:00.000-05:00

When I think of an Outlaw, I think of one who's:
Free
Daring
Unpredictable
Stealthy
Honorable and trustworthy
Tireless
Gallant
Passionate
Prepared to defend himself
A loner, but an attractive personality, and with many friends
Strong, handsome, and clad in a long black cape (okay, I AM a girl, y'know! But girls are Outlaws too.)

If you're Outlaw material, you know it. You've got that special dash of derring-do, that sparkle of courage and fun, that crystal determination to live free and to see that others can do the same.

But notice that second to last line. A LONER, but not without bosom friends. Friends who'll help the Outlaw achieve his freedom projects. Friends who are just as much Outlaw material as the Outlaw herself.

When I first joined The Claire Files, my initial post asked "Is it time yet?"

Now, those of you who are Claire fans know that "Claire Wolfe time" refers to that point of no return, where we're in open, utter rebellion against the state. And most of us think that time is on the horizon.

But it occurred to me to wonder why we often ask each other "is it Claire Wolfe time yet?" And I found the answer in a post of Bill St. Clair's yesterday. He wrote: "If enough people simultaneously decide not to take it any more, however, then active resistance can win. It really won't require many non-breathing government agents to cause the rest of them to chicken out. " (Gulching forum, "Why I don't fly" thread.)

THAT'S why we each want to know if you, and he, and they, and most of us think it's time yet. Because we can't fight alone and succeed. Because, for all that we're loners, we're also part of the firefly militia (thanks, Junker!) - and we know the value of coordinating with others to accomplish the big goal.

Yes, we can win small battles alone, if we're that daring or crazy. Look at suijurisfreeman.

But the machine of state is so vast today, and intent upon its purpose, that any battle we win might, at most, distract the beast temporarily, or force him to outflank us.

The beast will always come back for more. Until it has no more energy to move. Until it's good and dead.

Friends, this is why we've got to build community. Because the beast can only get its fix by feeding off OUR life energy. If we, in great numbers, refuse to feed it, it'll die of starvation.

But timing is everything, and for us to survive, we've got to put the damn beast on a hunger strike together, in unison. (We'll talk more about ways to do that as we go along here.)

And what good is your own freedom, if you'll have to enjoy it all alone for always? We're all independent enough to be loners at times - but we're social critters too. And we can't do everything alone.

So today, make contact with one fellow or sister freedom fighter you've been meaning to meet. Send a PM to someone on a forum board whose posts you've enjoyed. Get hold of someone you haven't talked to in a while, to see how your respective gulch plans are shaping up and how you might help each other out. Start up a gulching business together. Talk about your emergency plans or agree on a meetup location for a cup of coffee and/or a shoot with your new freedom pals. Make friends. Out of that will come the next step.

When things get toughest, people will be the best gift in your life. Think about it. And make sure now that you'll be there for each other.

Launch

2004-12-13T01:46:00.000-05:00

What's a freedom lover to DO nowadays?

Become an outlaw.

Seriously. There's no other choice in the "land of the free and the home of the brave" anymore. The only thing that remains true is that freedom requires bravery.

Have you got what it takes?

With a big thanks and hug to Claire Wolfe, whose recent book The Freedom Outlaw's Handbook inspired the title and subject matter of this blog, I want to welcome you true freedom lovers aboard.

This isn't a news or current events blog. We don't have any more time to waste lamenting the thefts of freedom going on daily around us. It's time to save ourselves and our loved ones from the greedy, chomping, filthy, unstoppable trash compactor they're sending after us.