A Declaration of Independence…from Other People

Would you like to enjoy more freedom in your life?

If the answer is yes, then how much more would you like? If you are taxed at 30 percent, you enjoy more freedom to keep the fruits of your labor than if you’re taxed at 90 percent. If you live under a government that promises not to interfere with your right to speech, then you enjoy more freedom to express yourself than if you live under a government that does not.

Your freedom may be theoretically absolute, but your enjoyment of your freedom can be curtailed by others. Thus, enjoyment of freedom is a matter of degree. There are better and worse degrees, for sure.

But what if you don’t want your freedom to be curtailed at all? And what if you have reasoned your way (or followed the reasoning of another) to the provocative conclusion that it doesn’t have to be?

Perhaps it has occurred to you, for example, that your ability to consent is central to your happiness and safety in this life. You know that whatever it is—a contract, a business transaction, a romantic encounter—becomes something very different if you do not consent to it…

So there you are, making a sandwich—using ingredients and tools you acquired in consensual transactions with others—when a lightbulb switches on in your head. Hey, you think…

How come consent is required in every area of my life EXCEPT my relationship with government officials?

Stunned by this realization, you put the butter knife down on the countertop. It occurs to you that you were using the knife to spread peanut butter that you acquired in a consensual transaction. That you got your silverware as a wedding present, on the day when you consented to marry your husband, from a wedding guest who consented to celebrate your beautiful day with you. It suddenly all seems so clear…

Why am I justified in insisting on consent in all of my relationships and dealings, but forbidden to require the same from government?

And then you get even more hardcore. You start thinking not only of yourself, but of other people and their consent. Staring out the window at your lawn—a lawn that a neighborhood boy has agreed to mow in exchange for twenty-dollar bills that someone else agreed to give you in exchange for your skills—another question arises:

Why can’t I just force him to mow my lawn? And my sister-in-law’s, while I am at it?

At this point, you have completely forgotten about your sandwich. But you know the answer to the lawn-mowing question: because his consent matters too. Just as he mustn’t violate yours, you mustn’t violate his.

And now, the revelations are coming so fast that you no longer feel hungry or even remember why you’re in the kitchen. Wait a minute…

If I cannot extract money or labor from him against his will, why is it okay when someone calling himself an agent of government does it?

And just for good measure, you think that thought through to its bitter end. In your mind’s eye, you see yourself walk up to him and say,

Mow my lawn or I will fine you. Fail to pay the fine and I will lock you in my basement. And then, just so he knows you’re serious, you show him the gun you have stuffed into your waistband.

If it’s not okay for me to do that, what makes it okay for a government official to do it?

And then you stand there in your kitchen thinking about that. You don’t notice the sound of the lawnmower or your gurgling belly. The sun goes down. You barely notice your husband come home, because your brain is grinding away on the question. What makes it okay for a government official to do it?

And yet you never find an answer…because there is no answer. Because there is no moral alchemy, no philosophical legerdemain, no verbal voodoo that makes it okay.

Because it’s not okay.

So then you notice your husband, and before he can ask you why you’re standing in front of a half-made PB&J at 6:00 PM, you blurt out your revelation in triumph:

If government officials have special ‘rights’ to do things that no one else can, then the whole concept of rights makes no sense at all.

And then your husband does a happy dance right there in the kitchen, because he’s been waiting for ages to hear you say that.

Your revelation is simultaneously liberating and burdensome. You and your husband are now on the same page and in touch with a profound and essential truth. That’s good. But you still live in a system where men with guns have special ‘rights’ that you do not. That’s bad.

So you ask each other—are there any other options? And then you start to research, to see if there are.

You quickly discover that there is no unclaimed land left on Earth, other than a horrid piece of desert in between Egypt and Sudan, and an uninhabitable stretch of Antarctica. No luck there.

There is, however, plenty of unclaimed ocean. A quick examination reveals that neither of you is a fish, but you do learn of the concept of seasteading: living on structures or artificial islands in international waters. As options go, it’s still in its infancy, but perhaps someday…

Further research reveals that there are a few autonomous zones—places that may technically be part of nations, but where the central government is largely absent. But you don’t really want to move to Syria, Southeast Asia, or a small town in Mexico, so you keep looking.

You learn of efforts to create free cities and private-law jurisdictions. Such efforts are incremental—they still take place under the aegis of a state, but at least they get the ball rolling by negotiating for status as special economic zones. Hey, it’s a start…

Of course, you could try to form or join some sort of intentional community and enjoy a bit of de facto independence. After all, government officials don’t spend much time patrolling Amish farms. Of course, living on an Amish farm may not be your scene…

Maybe you don’t feel like you should have to move anywhere at all. Maybe you’d like to stay on your property and consent (imagine that!) to your form of governance. Maybe you’d like to contract voluntarily with private providers of security and justice services, in some sort of market-anarchic arrangement. Perhaps you would like to be part of a diaspora or distributed group of people doing the same thing.

The moral justification for these kinds of solutions is clearly there. By all rights, you should be free to choose your way of life rather than having it imposed on you without your consent. You should be free to establish your own polity, join any polity you wish on mutually acceptable terms, or remain where you are and make any such private, market, or other arrangements you wish.

Unfortunately, should does not mean will.

Two obstacles stand in your way. The first is obvious and frequently discussed: government.

Government is a jealous mistress. Tax or tribute, obedience or obeisance, government officials want their pound of flesh. They won’t let you go easily. Rulers like to rule, but to do so, they need subjects. For those keeping score at home, that means you.

The second is less frequently discussed, but may constitute a significant obstacle:

Other people.

A government’s presumption of legitimacy would not last five minutes if the general populace did not presume it to be legitimate. And this presumption of legitimacy translates, for many, into a standard presumption:

NOBODY GETS TO LEAVE.

You don’t get to join a polity or form one of your own. You don’t get to take up residence on a seastead, even if you bring nothing with you but the clothes on your back. Why? Because you don’t get to leave. Because leaving just isn’t done.

If you doubt this, try it. Post somewhere in a public forum that you believe you should be free to form your own micronation, choose your provider of governance services, or gather with others on a platform in the ocean. Watch how people react.

For some, this is a matter of self-interest. In the United States, for example, approximately 15 percent of the population works for the local, state, or central government. Many more work in businesses that depend, in one way or another, on tax dollars. You don’t get to leave because, well…because they want your money.

Then there are those who want your money so that they can continue to be ‘generous’ with it. They vote to take your money and spend it in ways that make them feel good about themselves. And then they signal their virtue and superior compassion to others. How will they be able to keep doing that if you leave and take your productivity with you?

Some lack the imagination to envision anything beyond what currently exists. Others’ knowledge of history begins five minutes ago, and in their astounding ignorance, they believe that the current thing is the only thing that ever has been. To suggest otherwise makes you a dangerous radical or a lunatic. Again—try it for yourself and watch what happens.

Go? Go where? There is nowhere you can go. Stop talking about this—you’re freaking me out!

Humans are an ultra-social species. We are told that we have to “find ways to live together,” and many people believe that one-size-fits-all solutions are the only way to do so. How can a society possibly function if we do not force everyone in a given area to live in one particular way?

In its most toxic form, this produces collectivism— an attitude predicated on the belief that the individual has no identity outside the group. The history of the left, for example, is replete with such assertions: the individual is just a cell of the larger social body, and must subordinate to the utilitarian aims of the collective.

In this view, you don’t leave the group because you don’t exist without the group. And, in a bizarre form of collectivist inflation, the bigger the group gets, the more unthinkable it becomes for anyone to prefer or move to any smaller unit.

Even freedom-loving conservatives, in their reverence for the American Founding and desperation to restore some “original vision” of limited government, get in on the game. You don’t get to leave because we’re just one election cycle away from being able to turn this thing around. We need you to vote for the good guys.

Nationalists who love their particular state…

Statists who love any state…

Leftists who believe that the group has an automatic claim on the property of the individual…

And cheerleaders for the whole system, who’ll keep you locked in and locked down because leaving just isn’t done. Because we all have to find ways to live together, dontcha know.

In your desire to be truly free, you’re not just up against governments—you’re up against your fellow man. They have no business trying to stop you, but they’ll try to stop you nonetheless.

Let us imagine that you intend to pool your resources with others and build an artificial island, and new free polity, on a seamount in the doldrums of the Atlantic Ocean. Yes, obviously you will all need to wrangle to escape your existing governments.

However, when you announce your intentions, you will also face strong reactions from other people. I have seen small versions of this with my own eyes. In tragic proof of the aphorism that “The chained dog hates the one who runs free,” people have absolute meltdowns just from the mention of hypothetical versions of this scenario.

So let us further imagine that you intend to explain your intentions in the form of a declaration of independence…from other people. Perhaps you can at least offer some of your reasons and explain why they’re not a threat to anyone. What might that look like?

It could be written in the first person singular, from the perspective of a single individual, or in the first person plural, as a joint declaration from all those involved in creating this new polity. Let us try the latter, and let us call our hypothetical polity Atlantica.

Here in the course of human events, it has become necessary, for we, the undersigned, to dissolve the political bands to which we have been subjected, and to create a new, voluntary polity upon such foundations as we deem most likely to effect our safety, liberty, and happiness. In decent respect to the opinions of our fellows, we offer this declaration and plea.

And thus, by these presents, we proclaim that we, the individual members of the polity of Atlantica, are, and of right ought to be, independent and free.

For the time being, this is just a thought experiment. However, the movement towards decentralization, devolution of authority, and the formation of new polities on land and sea is only going to advance over the next century, and the attitudes that people will have towards this movement, as described herein, are very real. Thus, it is worth grappling with these issues now, at least in this experimental and preliminary fashion.