Extrication

I’d like to clarify that I don’t write these occasional missives with the intent or expectation of necessarily changing a damn thing in this world. As with my fiction, I do this for me. I have thoughts, ideas, and emotions that I need to get off my chest from time to time, and this is one way I do so. If you get something out of that, if it entertains, enlightens, or interests you in some way, that’s super, but it’s also just a side effect. I’m just doing all of this to keep my sanity.

With respect to libertarianism, I’m far past the point where I’m really interested in changing other people’s minds. Ultimately, I don’t care what or how you think at all. I only care that if what you believe is something that calls for the control of my life and/or property, that I’m able to find some way to extricate myself from your plans. That’s increasingly difficult to do – impossible, under many circumstances – but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to keep searching, and trying.

A while back I compiled a list of things Voluntaryists can do in day-to-day life to improve their situation as much as possible, though I don’t imagine it to be complete – nor do I consider it to give us back more than a slim margin of our stolen freedom. Perhaps you have additional ideas?

In a world where most people really only care about the illusion of “security,” and grabbing a slice of pie any way they can get it, the libertarian message is little more than background noise.

And so it’s probably better to focus on getting yourself out, instead of trying to convince others to let you go.

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Alex R. Knight III is originally from Groveland, Massachusetts, where he grew up listening to rock and roll, reading J.R.R. Tolkien, and the comic books of the 1970s.  He today lives in rural southern Vermont where he welds, plays guitar, paints abstracts, reads avidly, and writes.  He is the author of the short fiction collection, Tales From Dark 7in addition to the novels The Morris Roomand Empty World.  And, he is a Voluntaryist. Visit his MeWe group here.