The Armor of The State, The Scales of The Beast (part 1)

The Armor of The State, The Scales of The Beast
Hats, Titles, Costumes, Badges, and Architecture
by Ben Stone

Every man being, as has been shewed, naturally free, and nothing being able to put him into subjection to any earthly power, but only his own consent; it is to be considered, what shall be understood to be a sufficient declaration of a man’s consent, to make him subject to the laws of any government. ~ John Locke

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it ~ The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

I brought you into this world and I can take you out! ~ Bill Cosby, quoting his father.

I withdraw my consent to be governed by tyrants who claim to represent me in the city of Washington, District of Columbia ~ Ben Stone

I have said with dizzying repetition, that one should never fight an enemy using the weapons of his choosing on the battlefield of his choosing. The weapons of the State are aggression, lies, and theft and we can never achieve anything but defeat and humiliation if we use the weapons of the State to battle the State. The weapons that we have at our disposal, the weapons the State neither understands nor can wield, the weapons it is incapable of defending against, are peaceful resistance, the truth spread far and wide, and the power of free markets and the charity that goes hand in hand with free market prosperity. The freedom warrior, armed thusly, is an unstoppable force that the State fears beyond what words can describe.

The problem with the above statement is that it doesn’t address the mechanisms of defense that the State utilizes to maintain its power structure. The bravest knight can be armed with the latest and best weaponry but when facing a powerful dragon, if he doesn’t know his enemy’s weaknesses, the soft spots, his attack will be like water crashing on rocks. Defensive armor should be viewed as a system. Plates overlap plates, visors connect with hinges, carefully placed flanges protect openings, and the whole system works as one to protect the fighter. And the State has overlapping mechanisms of defense, all interdependent upon the system as a whole. In order to strike a blow that does more than simply wear against the surface of the Beast, one must understand this larger defense system and find its individual weaknesses. But its important that you never be fooled by the size or the outward appearance of a defensive system because, as every hacker worth his oats can attest, every system has chinks, glitches, weaknesses, and back doors. No system created by the mind of humans is perfect, so if humans can create a defensive system to protect the State, humans can crack it and strike the root!

Volume 1, Hats, Titles, Costumes, Badges
What an odd little thing, a hat. A chunk of cloth, fur, hair, or skin, functional in utility or serving a silly ego, and yet critical to so many cultures. The hat, and its cousin the wig, can cover a bald spot, warm or cool the head, indicate a heritage, show authority or shout for revolution. It’s hard to understand exactly how something so simple became so important. What series of events in our distant past, embedded into us such a universal grasp of the significance of this one item of clothing? Is it tied to the fact that wisdom and natural leadership develop in humans at the same time the cranial hair, an oddity in primates, turns silver and thins? The mind can wander and speculations can become endless, yet this fact stands; there is no faster way to insult someone than to violate their cultural norms in head covering.

I’m reminded of a story about Vlad Tepes, so called Vlad The Impaler or Vlad Dracula, when Islamic diplomatic envoys came to him in his castle to discuss the possibilities of peace. They refused to remove their customary turbans so Vlad had his servants nail their turbans to their heads before sending them back to their master. Vlad’s point of view was one of superiority to his opponent, therefore he surmised that since they came to him to seek peace, not the other way around, they could honor his customs or suffer the consequences. In many ways, Vlad Tepes has come to personify the State in its pure form. He was said to be extremely kind to those he was kind to and brutally vicious to those who opposed him. History remembers Vlad Tepes as a self-sacrificing hero, a brutal self-absorbed prince, a silly puppet of greater kings, a demonically possessed madman, and a vampirous beast. That sounds just like the State to me. But the lesson to be learned from Vlad is that in his house he has far more power to do as he wishes than in the tents of his enemies.

Of late, liberty activists in New Hampshire have watched a modern-day playing out of the story of the Old Villain in the courthouse of the small town of Keene. There, a Mini-Me version of Dracula wearing his impressive costumes and adorned with his titles of distinction, lords over the village while he and his cohorts drink the tax blood of the commoners. Like so many of his ilk, he wields the sword of the State by keeping at his beck and call, a brute squad of mesmerized thugs convinced they’re doing good as they beat down anyone who stands up to them. Facing these pathetically comical tools, the liberty activists suffer much the same fate as the Muslims did when they thought Vlad would honor their peaceable approach. But like Vlad, the court of Keene understands all too clearly that although the envoy comes in peace, if successful they will bring an end to the reign of the Beast!

Enough imagery now, let’s get to some hard-edged, time-tested, weapons of State destruction that you may not have thought about. Let’s have clear talk on the weaknesses of the system and how to use them to our advantage. What I am about to tell you could be misinterpreted as some kind of religious recruitment or evangelism. Be wise and see beyond the surface! The chink in the State’s armor that I’m about to enlighten you about is one that was hard fought for and comes to us at the cost of the blood of activists much like yourselves.
Some facts:
New England of 350 years ago was a mix of peoples but chief among them were the Puritans.
The Puritans, or Roundheads, were a violent blend of Protestant Christianity and political lust that produced a particularly nasty version of the State.
Among their other oddities, the Puritans were obsessed with ritualistic titles of honor, dress codes, and rules of behavior.
Some examples of their rituals;

  • Removing of one’s hat in the presence of ranking Puritans.
  • Bowing, kneeling, or tipping of the hat to ranking Puritans passing by.
  • Standing and sitting on command as ranking Puritans entered or left the room.
  • Calling by titles of honor, every ranking Puritan while calling commoners by name and labor title. An example would be to call a dignitary “Your Honor” while calling a commoner “farmer Brown” or even just “farmer” or perhaps “man”.

Mostly as a response to the tyranny of the Puritans, a sect arose who refused to obey the Puritan rituals. They refused to pay taxes to support the Puritan dignitaries and their church building projects. They refused to call anyone by a title of honor and they refused to remove their hats or stand or sit on command. The Puritans responded by arresting them and publicly beating them. The Puritans confiscated their property and jailed them, but the movement just kept growing. This sect was the Quakers, or “Friends” as they referred to themselves.

One particularly fun side note to this story was the combination of the Puritan dress code and mandatory church attendance and how the Quakers responded. The Friends wore what they wanted when they wanted and refused to attend church. As a punishment, Puritans thought it a good idea to begin capturing Quakers, stripping them naked, binding their hands to the back of a wagon, and parading them around town for all to see. The Friends responded to this outrage by showing up at the churches on Sunday mornings buck naked and walking up and down and between the seats. Doesn’t that sound like it would be a hoot?
Eventually, the Puritans resorted to the last tool in the State’s box of goodies. They began public executions of Quakers. But, as always is the case, there was a backlash. The outrages of Puritan tyranny drove the newly forming United States to enact in its very first statement of law, the binding of government in religious matters. The First Amendment yanked the State out of the hands of the Puritans and set the Quakers free to do as they wished. And so now the wise Quaker should recognize that the State has shown its soft spot.

Friends in the liberty movement, I am a Quaker. As such, I don’t attend any church or church meetings. I am not bound by any religious creed or rules of behavior. I have no obligation to accept anyone else’s beliefs about the existence or non-existence of any particular deity. I am free to believe or not believe, be guided by or not be guided by any particular book I may chose to read or not read. As a Quaker, I believe in self-ownership and I recognize no one’s right to any of my other property. Some Quakers are pacifists; I am not. I don’t judge them for being pacifists and they have no right to judge me. I believe in, and as much as possible, practice the non-aggression principle.
As a Quaker, I am granted by the rules of the State, within the courthouses, exemption to its hat rules, to the standing and sitting on command, to the raising of hands and swearing of oaths, and to all of the other silly rituals the State so loves. When a particular drone of the State decides to enforce those rules on me, I have that magical First Amendment to beat them with. I have their precious Constitution, silly rag that it may be, to whip them back to the shadows. I have at my disposal, the decisions of Statist judges with which to slap other Statist judges.
I offer you, my friends, this glaring gap in the armor of the State. Judge its costs for yourself. Perhaps you can utilize this information and perhaps you can’t. No doubt, some will find it not worthy the expense. But if one determined Friend could arm themselves with the weapons of liberty and charge into this breach, the benefits for the rest of use could be immeasurable.

Ben StoneBad Quaker Puritians

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