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Is that you destroying city property?
Tax payers hard earned money?
Yes, that's me removing those government power-grab signs, placed there to harass the homeless and volunteers who help them. Openly. In broad daylight. Posting photos on
our very visible Facebook Page immediately thereafter. It's been 3 days...
Even if the chains around a "slave"'s neck are the legitimate property of the "master", that does not justify slavery - the "slave" is morally right and even heroic if he breaks them.
The government stole the fruits of your mind and body, and it used them for evil, both in this country and around the world. As ever-advancing technologies continue to make the institution of centralized coercive government ever-more obsolete, government will become ever-more deceitful and dangerous in its struggle to maintain and expand its power over mankind. If we don't evolve and shed our collectivist delusions, humanity will be doomed to a technological dystopia from which we may never recover!
If you want to live a rational and righteous life, and not be an enabler of evil: stop paying taxes, convert all your assets to
Bitcoins, put up a tent on so-called "public land", and be prepared to spend some time in jail. Rational righteousness is the most precious of luxuries, no amount of Ferraris or familial bliss could ever come close...
The first two concepts linked have nothing to do with your points. [...]
Rationalist Philosophy and the Philosophy of Law are the foundation upon which my subsequent arguments rest. Without understanding these concepts, one might think the Homestead Principle merely refers to the US Homestead Acts - a fallacy you've just repeated anyway. It is a much broader concept by which natural resources without a legitimate owner -- whether pieces of land,
sea, or someday other planets and solar systems -- originally enter into the human economy.
suggest that you read them from the primary sources, if you haven't already, as opposed to the wikipedia articles.
I link to Wikipedia (in spite of its left-wing bias) not as a reference, but as a pointer to introductory material. Most people here won't even read that much...
The third article is relevant to your points but is not relevant to US law.
Indeed, I couldn't care less about US law, UN law, NJ law, OC law, LT law, or any other legal rules made up by politicians. You might have understood that, had you not cast aside Rationalism and Philosophy of Law.
The only problem is it is not up to you to define what your natural rights are.
If it were only up to me, then I would have a "positive right" to a harem of pretty girls, etc, etc, etc.
I do not fight for Tent City because I need Tent City to improve my material situation. I walked away from a very promising career in software development, database administration, and IT security. I could easily be making a six-figure salary right now, or running my own little company (not to mention being a very early Bitcoin investor, tee hee).
Nor was I born a libertarian free market capitalist - like most brainwashed "public school" graduates, I voted for Al Gore in 2000; and my first efforts at independent thought were fallacious ones, as I voted for the Greentards in 2004... (Shame!) But I continued learning, and changing my positions accordingly. When someone proves me wrong, I admit it and change. My world-view has been largely stable for the past few years, and so I choose to make this stand.
(Off-topic, but I'd also like to note that I could have chosen to "
gulch" somewhere
better, but for now I will stand my ground in Lakewood - my primary hometown since my mom moved here in 1998. (I've lived 15-45 minute drive away from Lakewood since coming to this country in 1992, and
moved to Lakewood proper in 2010.) If everyone runs away to greener freer pastures, then places like this are doomed...)
And so, I am doing this because I believe it is the right thing to do, having educated myself and conformed myself to Reason to the best of my ability. I am not perfect, but if people who understood themselves to be imperfect would refrain from all action, then nothing good would ever get accomplished.
"Here I stand. I can do no other."If you do not agree with the law, there are legal forms of protest.
Go tell it at Masada. Or to the founders of this country, who were not satisfied to petition their "
representatives" in London. Or to the people who ran the Underground Railroad, when politician-made laws incorrectly upheld the evils of slavery. Or Gandhi. Or the people who tried to save the Jews and other victims of the Holocaust. Or Rosa Parks. Or the participants in the
Singing Revolution, and countless other dissidents in the USSR. Or the unknown man who
stood in front of tanks in Tiananmen Square. Etc, etc, etc.
And we have it much easier than any generation of freedom-fighters before us - we have the Internet. "The camera is the new gun."
At times progress only comes through struggle, especially when it threatens existing entrenched power interests. Legal and "democratic" channels exist merely to pacify dissent - they're still manipulated by the powerful, and serve their interests. Power is rarely given up voluntarily, but it has its limits, as it must maintain the illusion of its benevolence and yield to prevent an even faster collapse.
So, my question to you is this: do you really care about the homeless, or do you love attention so much that you are willing to use them as human shields to achieve 10 minutes of fame?
I've explained my motivations in depth in my
previous posts on this thread.
If I experience the emotion of compassion, then I consider it an irrational vice and a weakness. I avoid personal attention as much as possible, and I never appear on camera unless I absolutely have to. I sympathize more with the taxpayers than the homeless, although my ideas will benefit them all.
I am here to achieve rational ends - demonstrate the failings of the Welfare State, and to fight for a better alternative: cheap living, voluntary charity, self-sufficiency, and mutual aid.
You should be arrested, charged and jailed for stealing and damaging the no trespassing signs.
The cowards with badges and guns know where to find me.
I am armed only with the pursuit of Truth.
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