If a “public servant," such as a police officer, is uncontrollable, unaccountable, can’t be hired or fired by you, has irresponsible power over you and provides a compulsory “service” that you are obliged to accept then he is actually your Master.

An essential difference between private security workers and police officers is that security workers possess no government authority or right to initiate unprovoked acts of violence on other people. FUNKTIONARY explains that unprovoked violence against others or the use of “force” is the basis of all social evils and can only be used in the sense of attack not defense. It explains that authority, the right to rule over other people, is not a force but a farce, literally not real or “make believe.”

Allegedly governmental power comes from the people. That is, we delegate our individual power to the government for it to act on our behalf. However, it goes without saying that people cannot delegate powers or rights that they do not possess. So if people have delegated their powers to lawmakers and lawmakers have empowered police officers to act on our behalf, how did police acquire the moral right to commit acts of unprovoked violence on people? Asked differently, if you don’t have the right to initiate unprovoked acts of violence against other people then how can you delegate or authorize police officers or anyone else acting on your behalf to do so? How did government representatives and police acquire such extra or super-human powers?

Undeceiver Larken Rose states:

“Government” itself does no harm, because it is a fictional entity. But the belief in “government” – the notion that some people actually have the moral right to rule over others – has caused immeasurable pain and suffering, injustice and oppression, enslavement and death. The fundamental problem does not reside in any set of buildings, or any group of politicians, or any gang of soldiers or enforcers, The fundamental problem is not an organization that can be voted out, or overthrown, or “reformed.” The fundamental problem is the belief itself – the delusion, superstition and myth of “authority” – which resides in the minds of several billion human beings, including those who have suffered the most because of that belief. Ironically, the belief in “authority” dramatically affects the perception and actions even of those who are actively fighting against a particular regime. The superstition drastically alters and limits the ways in which dissenters “fight” oppression, and renders nearly all of their efforts impotent:. Furthermore, on the rare occasion that a particular tyrant is toppled, one form of oppression is almost always replaced by another – often one that is even worse than the prior one.

Instead of fighting against a non-existent beast, what “freedom fighters” need to do is to recognize that it is not real, that it does not exist, that it cannot exist, and then act accordingly. Of course, if only a few people overcome the superstition, they will likely be ridiculed, condemned, attacked, imprisoned or murdered by those who are still firm believers in the myth, But when even a significant minority of people outgrow the superstition, and change their behavior accordingly, the world will drastically change. When the people actually want true freedom, they will achieve it without the need for any election or revolution.

The trouble is, almost no one actually wants humanity to be free, and almost no one opposes oppression in principle, To wit, the effects of the myth of “authority” remain intact even in the minds of most people who consider themselves to be rebels, nonconformists and free-thinkers. During their teenage years, many people go through a period of apparent rebelliousness, which consists mostly of doing whatever those in “authority” tell them not to do: engaging in smoking, sexual promiscuity, drug use, wearing different clothes or hairstyles, getting tattoos or body piercings, and so on, As such, their actions are still controlled, albeit in a backward way, by the myth of “authority.” Instead of obeying for the sake of obeying, they disobey for the sake of disobeying, but still show no signs of being able to think for themselves. They behave like angry children instead of complacent children, but still do not behave like adults. And in most cases, their natural desire to break the chains of “authority” does not last long, they “outgrow” their anti-authoritarian tendencies, and gradually transform back into “model citizens,” i.e. obedient subjects.

For example, the supposedly radical, anti-authoritarian hippies of the 1960s more or less became the new “government” in the United States with the presidency of Bill Clinton. Even the “peaceniks” whose mantra was “live and let live,” when given the opportunity to become the new “authority,” chose to forcibly meddle with the lives of others as much as or more than their predecessors did, including via military conquest. Likewise, those in “Generation X,” the “MTV” crowd, and so on, have always focused their efforts on putting people who agree with them into power, instead of working to actually achieve freedom. There is a fundamental difference between having complaints about a particular ruling class, and recognizing and opposing the insanity of “authority” in principle, In short, in all the various societal manifestations of so-called rebelliousness and non-

conformity, almost none have actually escaped the myth of “authority.” Instead, they have merely attempted to make a new “authority,” a new ruling class, a new “government,” a new centralized machine of coercion through which they could forcibly subjugate and control their neighbors. In short, nearly all so-called “rebels” are phonies, who pretend to be resisting “the man,” but who really just want to be “the man.”

And this should be expected, If one starts with the assumption that there should and must be an “authority,” and that a “government” exerting control over a population is a legitimate situation, why would anyone not want to be the one in charge? Each person, by definition, wants the world to be the way he thinks it should be, and what better way could any person accomplish that than by becoming king? If someone accepts the notion that authoritarian power is valid, why would he not want it to be used to try to create the world as he wants it to be? This is why the only people who truly advocate freedom in principle are anarchists and voluntaryists – people who understand that forcibly dominating others is not legitimate, even when it is called “law,” and even when it is done in the name of “the people” or “the common good,” There is a big difference between striving for a new, wiser, nobler master, and striving for a world of equals, where there are no masters and no slaves. Likewise, there is a big difference between a slave who believes in the principle of freedom, and a slave whose ultimate goal is to become the new master. And this is true, even if that slave truly intends to be a kind and generous master. Even those who advocate a relatively limited, benign type of “government” are advocating against freedom. As long as the people believe in the myth of “authority,” every downfall of one tyrant will be followed by the creation and growth of a new tyrant. History is replete with examples, such as Fidel Castro and Guevara, who portrayed themselves as “freedom fighters” just long enough to become the new oppressors. They were no doubt quite genuine in their vehement opposition to the oppressions which they and their friends suffered from, but they were not opposed to authoritarian oppression in principle, as clearly demonstrated by their behavior once they obtained power themselves. This pattern has been repeated over and over again throughout history, with the resentment of one tyrannical regime becoming the seed of the next tyrannical regime. Even Hitler’s rise to power was due in large part to anger at the perceived injustices and oppressions inflicted upon Germany via the Treaty of Versailles. Of course, as long as the rebels suffer from the superstition of “authority,” their first priority, once they have overthrown one “government,” will be to set up a new one. So even acts of great bravery and heroism, among those who still believe in “government,” have accomplished little more than replacing one tyrant with another. Many have been able to recognize and oppose specific acts of tyranny by specific regimes, but very few have recognized that the underlying problem is not who sits on the throne; the problem is that there is a throne to sit on.

The same failure to recognize the real problem occurs in more mundane, relatively peaceful “reform” as well. In the U.S., for example, a large portion of the population is perfectly able to see the injustices resulting from the “war on drugs,” global warmongering, and other violations of civil rights committed by Republican tyrants. However, not recognizing the belief in “authority” as the real problem, the solution proposed by those who recognize such injustice is to give the reins of “government” to Democrat tyrants instead. Meanwhile, another large portion of the population is perfectly able 10 see the injustices resulting from heavy “taxation,” “government” micromanaging of industry, wealth-redistribution schemes, citizen disarmament (”gun control”), etc. But, not recognizing the belief in “authority” as the real problem, the solution proposed by those who recognize such injustices is to give the reins of “government” back to Republican tyrants. And so, decade after decade, the machine of oppression changes hands, while individual freedom, in all aspects of life, continues to dwindle. And still, all that most Americans can even contemplate as a solution is yet another election, or another political party, or another lobbying effort, in the hope of begging the ruling class to be more wise or benevolent.

Some people, seeing the disaster caused by the two-party system, blame “extremism” for the negative effects of “government.” They surmise that if people would only support a form of coercive control somewhere in between the “far left” and the “far right,” things would improve. Such people claim to be independent, openminded and moderate, but in reality are merely general advocates of oppression instead of being advocates of a particular flavor of oppression. The “left” and “right” are merely two masks which the one ruling class wears, and making a new mask which is a compromise between the other two will have no effect whatsoever upon the nature of the beast or the destruction it causes, Taking a position halfway between “left-wing” tyranny and “right-wing” tyranny does not result in freedom; it results in bipartisan tyranny.

Among those who vote Democrat or Republican – or for any other party – no one recognizes the underlying problem, and as a result, no one ever gets any closer to a solution. They remain slaves, because their thoughts and discussions are limited to the pointless question of who should be their master. They never consider – and dare not allow themselves to consider – the possibility that they should have no master at all. As a result, they focus entirely on political action of one kind or another, But the foundation of all political action is the belief in “authority,” which is the problem itself So the efforts of statists are, and always will be, doomed to fail.

Unfortunately, this is also true of the less mainstream, supposedly more pro-freedom “political movements,” including Constitutionalists, the Libertarian party, and others. As long as they think and act within the confines of the “government” game, their efforts are not only completely incapable of solving the problem but actually aggravate the problem by inadvertently legitimizing the system of domination and subjugation which wears the label of “government.”

The Rules of the Game

Even most people who claim to love liberty and to believe in “unalienable” rights allow the superstition of “authority” to drastically limit their effectiveness. Most of what such people do, in one way or another, consists of asking tyrants to change their “laws.” Whether activists campaign for or against a particular candidate, or lobby for or against a particular piece of “legislation,” they are merely reinforcing the assumption that obedience to authority is a moral imperative.

When activists try to convince politicians to decrease “taxes,” or repeal some “law,” those activists are implicitly admitting that they need permission from their masters in order to be free, And the man who “runs for office,” promising to fight for the people, is also implying that it is up to those in “government” to decide what the peasants will be allowed to do. As Daniel Webster put it, “There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern; they promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.” Activists spend huge amounts of time, money and effort begging their masters to change their commands. Many even go out of their way to stress the fact that they are “working within the system,” and that they are not advocating anything “illegal.” This shows that, regardless of their displeasure with those in power, they still believe in the myth of “authority,” and will cooperate with “legal” injustice unless and until they can convince the masters to change the rules – to “legalize” justice. While the intended message of dissenters may be that they disapprove of what the masters are doing, the actual message that all political action sends to those in power is “We wish you would change your commands, but we will continue to obey whether you do or not.” The truth is, one who seeks to achieve freedom by petitioning those in power to give it to him has already failed, regardless of the response. To beg for the blessing of “authority” is to accept that the choice is the master’s alone to make, which means that the person is already, by definition, a slave.

One who begs for lower “taxes” is implicitly agreeing that it is up to the politicians how much a man may keep of what he has earned. One who begs the politicians not to disarm him (via “gun control”) is, by doing so, conceding that it is up to the master whether to let the man be armed or not. In fact, those who lobby for politicians to respect any of the people’s “unalienable rights” do not believe in unalienable rights at all. Rights which require “government” approval are not unalienable, and are not even rights. They are privileges, granted or withheld at the whim of the master. And those who hold positions of power know that they have nothing to fear from people who do nothing but pathetically beg for freedom and justice, However loudly the dissenters talk about “demanding” their rights, the message they actually send is this: “We agree, master, that it is up to you what we may and may not do.”

That underlying message can be seen in all sorts of activities mistakenly imagined to be forms of resistance. For example, people often engage in protests in front of “government” buildings, carrying signs, chanting slogans, sometimes even engaging in violence, to express their displeasure with what the masters are doing. However, even such “protests,” for the most part, do little more than reinforce authoritarianism. Marches, sit-ins, protests, and so on, are designed to send a message to the masters, the goal being to convince the masters to change their evil ways. But that message still implies that it is up to the masters what the people may do, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: when the people feel beholden to an “authority,” they are beholden to an “authority.” Those in “government” derive all of their power from the fact that their subjects imagine them to have power.”