Author Archives: Self Determination Advocates

Icelandic Commonwealth (930 to 1262)

Classical (“Thing system”) Iceland is an example of society where police and justice were guaranteed through a free market. Author Jared Diamond has written “Medieval Iceland had no bureaucrats, no taxes, no police, and no army. … 

“Of the normal functions of governments elsewhere, some did not exist in Iceland, and others were privatized, including fire-fighting, criminal prosecutions and executions, and care of the poor.”

Prominent anarcho-capitalist writer David D. Friedman featured classical Iceland in his book The Machinery of Freedom and has written other papers about it.

“Medieval Icelandic institutions have several peculiar and interesting characteristics; they might almost have been invented by a mad economist to test the lengths to which market systems could supplant government in its most fundamental functions. 

“Killing was a civil offense resulting in a fine paid to the survivors of the victim. Laws were made by a “parliament,” seats in which were a marketable commodity. Enforcement of law was entirely a private affair. 

“And yet these extraordinary institutions survived for over three hundred years, and the society in which they survived appears to have been in many ways an attractive one .

“Its citizens were, by medieval standards, free; differences in status based on rank or sex were relatively small; and its literary, output in relation to its size has been compared, with some justice, to that of Athens.”

This Icelandic “thing system” survived for several centuries. It was eventually destroyed by the Christian church, which bought up all the godards (defense agencies) creating a state monopoly. 

For market anarchist scholar Roderick Long, this illustrates a flaw in the thing system which differentiates it from pure anarcho-capitalism – new “startup” mutual defense units were not allowed.

Anthony Charles Olsen (Tony Ferris Olsen)

I love to discuss freedom, religion, computers, family, and fun things. I seek for truth.


http://freedomhaven.org/


“How did you become a libertarian?”

Like most people, I started out being trained to think like a socialist, but life’s experiences showed me that freedom produces greater social and economic prosperity than force/controls do.  

I spent 2 years serving a mission in former East Germany and that taught me a lot about the pitfalls of Socialism.  Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged also made a compelling argument.


“What kind of libertarian are you?”

I believe in both social freedom and economic freedom.


“What would you like to see happen?”

I’d like for people to have a place they can go to live extreme economic and social freedoms and prosper.  To see FreedomHaven.org succeed would achieve this.


“What is your vision for this country and the world?”

If murder, kidnapping and theft were made illegal, but everything else was legal, then people would peacefully find the best solutions to life’s problems – and they’d do so much faster than what we’re currently used it.  

I believe this would lead to peace and prosperity, which I wish for the world.


“How do you see these changes occurring?”

Socialism is addictive and people are taught to fear freedom… so I don’t think most people would willingly accept freedom.  Instead, let those who understand and seek freedom leave and live in peace in our own sea steading micronation.


“What can Self-Determination Advocates do to help?”

Help us make Freedom Haven a success. 🙂

http://freedomhaven.org/

Jim Carigan

born on a mountaintop in Chattanooga TN; killed him a bar when he was only 3


Student Facilitator at Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UK

Columnist and blogger at Everything-Voluntary.com

Former Asst. Professor (retired) at Kentucky State University


How did you become a classical liberal? 

Thoreau to Paine to Bastiat to Locke to Twain to Mencken to Rand to Rothbard to Higgs


What kind of classical liberal are you?  

Natural law, free market


What would you like to see happen?  

Disintegration of state


What is your vision for this country and the world?  

This country disintegration from irrelevance; the world, Evolution


How do you see these changes occurring? 

Evolution and Occam’s Razor 


What can Self-Determination Advocates do to help?  

Pursue positive Evolution through memetic influences.

West Papua

The western part of the island of New Guinea had been a part of the Dutch East Indies. When this became independent as Indonesia, in the late 1940s, Netherlands New Guinea remained in Dutch hands.

While Indonesia laid claim to the territory, the Dutch instead envisaged giving it eventual independence. However, in the face of mounting pressure from Indonesia, in 1962 the Dutch government agreed to hand it over to UN administration with an understanding that this would pave the way for it to be passed to Indonesian rule pending a referendum on its future.

In 1965, following the handover to Indonesia, the Free Papuan Movement was established to secure the territory’s independence. Then, four years later, in 1969, the referendum that had been promised was held.

But rather than allow a popular vote, Indonesia instead hand-picked over a thousand elders, who decided unanimously to keep the territory as part of Indonesia. In the decades since then, the conflict in West Papua has continued.

However, very little is known about the actual situation on the ground as Indonesia forbids foreign journalists from entering the territory. That said, there have been allegations of large numbers of deaths and widespread human rights abuses.

Moreover, there also appears to have been an escalation in fighting in the past few years. Although West Papua has been regularly raised at the UN General Assembly by various Pacific states, Indonesia insists that its sovereignty is not up for debate.

Wendy Mitchell

Just another insignificant spec of space dust

Lives in Auckland, New Zealand

Lol… not exactly sure what defines a liberal… we have left or right here in New Zealand, if the left is considered a liberal then yes I am a liberal, my reason for being left is quite simple but yet is a personal reason mostly due to a massive stroke I had 10 years ago. 

After working for decades & paying taxes, the ruling right govt at that time had stopped funding such useless brain-injured folk & I was expected to buy my own walking aids, wheelchairs n things.

When I was in rehab learning to walk n talk again, I was mortified at the govt for their lack of concern & learned quickly that wealth over health was the right’s aim….the right was so arrogant.

Their leader even stated ” We don’t need to entice any elderly voters, coz they are a dying breed anyway”…they then proceeded to give themselves pay rises & new limos while they tossed many folks outta their state homes. 

Homelessness skyrocketed…the left here is more for looking after the people…. we in NZ have always been peaceful & anti-war, anti-nuclear, etc but when the right was in charge, the right leader was considered rich & knowledgeable. 

But as we all found out, he didn’t get rich by looking after people & they were out at the next election… now with Jacinda Adern, it kind of feels like we have a “mom” in charge & she looked after us all so well.

We all received thousands to get us through the lockdown back in march & now we are all living virtually covid free & the economy is getting back up there again… ✌️🙂

Celtic Ireland (650-1650)

In the Celtic Irish culture of the Middle period and Early Modern age, courts and the law were chiefly anarchist, working in a entirely stateless way. This civilization persisted in this way for about a thousand years until it was subjugated by England in 1650.

In contrast to many similarly working clannish societies, preconquest Ireland was not in any sense “primitive”: it was a very intricate society that was, for centuries, the most sophisticated, most learned, and most enlightened in all of Western Europe.

Joseph R. Peden, wrote in “Property Rights in Celtic Irish Law” that, “There was no legislature, no bailiffs, no police, no public enforcement of justice… There was no trace of State-administered justice.”

All “freemen” who owned property, all professionals, and all craftsmen, were free to become members of a tuath. Each tuath’s members held a yearly meeting which determined all general policy, declared battle or peace on other tuatha, and chose or deposed their “kings.”

In contrast to primitive tribes, no one was stuck or bound to a certain tuath, either because of relationship or of physical locality. Individual members were open to, and regularly did, split from a tuath and join a rival tuath.

Professor Peden states, “The tuath is thus a body of persons voluntarily united for socially beneficial purposes and the sum total of the landed properties of its members constituted its territorial dimension.”

“The ‘king’ had no political power; he could not decree or administer justice or declare war. Basically he was a priest and militia leader, and presided over the tuath assemblies.”

Celtic Ireland survived lots of invasions, but was at last defeated by Oliver Cromwell’s reconquest in 1649-50.

Matthew Ryan Butts

Vice-Chair at Libertarian Party of Kern County

California Coordinator for the Mises Caucus

Lives in Rosamond, California

From Campbellsburg, Kentucky

How did I become a Libertarian?

I was the non-voter a lot of Libertarians say they want to reach but it wasn’t lukewarm statements that got me interested. I have a socialist friend that had me leaning towards Bernie but if I was going to actually vote I needed to hear both sides.

So, I tuned in to the first Republican debate in 2015, I knew Trump wouldn’t allow it to be boring, also I heard that my Senator was running and I remembered he was cool with weed. (Rand Paul, I had no idea at the time) 

Rand made a profound and radical statement that changed everything for me, “For every terrorist we kill with a drone bomb, we create 10 new terrorists because innocent people get caught up in these blasts and they have loved ones who now hate America” 

It just made so much sense.  Rand toned it down after that, which is why I think he lost so badly.

What kind of Libertarian am I? 

I consider myself a Rothbardian style Voluntaryist, I’ve dropped the Anarchist label for many reasons. I hold more traditional values than I do libertine.

I’m a Christian, my girlfriend and I have built a strong family unit, and for example, while I don’t think there should be laws against sex work, I don’t think that such pursuits are healthy for people to be engaged in. 

So it would be fair to say that I lean right and my personality often reflects my right leanings as well.

What would I like to see happen?

With the LP I would like to see a bolder message that highlights the evils of government; that the people in power aren’t just misguided goofs who bring us unintentional consequences. 

I think the consequences are intentional and that the people in power are not good people, to say the least. A message that rejects cultural Marxism and can soundly define what CM is without falling into racist and bigoted rhetoric.

What is my vision for the country… the world?

I think that decentralization, nullification, and ultimately secession is the only viable path forward to retaining and building free societies in America with perhaps an updated version of the Articles of Confederation for the purpose of defense for those states who would want that.

My vision for the world is for the natural rights of all people to be acknowledged and respected by all regimes and all people.

How can we make these changes happen? 

Politically speaking we need to take over local governments, elect Libertarians to city and county municipalities who aren’t scared of words like nullification and secession.

Outside of Political activity, I think that agorism should be adopted as much as possible without completely withdrawing from the current statist society. 

Also a renewed focus on implementing libertarianism into American culture and supporting those artists and cultural figures. SDA can help by mobilizing volunteers to push drug decriminalization ordinances.

Specifically blue areas in red states and gun rights sanctuary ordinances in red areas of blue states. 

And right now, any anti-lockdown efforts are greatly appreciated by people in our communities.

Evan Wade

Member of Self-Determination Advocates since November 4, 2020

Voting is the failed attempt to give your rights away, to abdicate your sovereignty, your responsibility to make your own decisions. Even voting cannot do these things.

Sovereignty, your rights, your responsibility to make ethical, moral decisions is bound by and cannot be separated from Natural Law, and following for any length of time an illusory authority – and all authority is illusory – goes against Natural Law and is therefore folly.

Hence, government itself goes against Natural Law and is therefore also folly. (You may have noticed a creepiness about the word governmental… govern mental.) Government is an unnatural condition and freedom is a natural state.

We’re taught as children that obedience to authority is a virtue and that doing as you’re told makes you a good person and all of the worst tyrannies in history depended upon people believing that.

In reality, being moral means following your conscience and doing the right thing even when “authority” tells you not to. “Authority” is a word used for psychological manipulation and exists only in the minds of those who believe they have the power to wield it and those who believe they have an obligation to obey. 

Nature (Natural Law) is the answer to what is (a) right or wrong. What if we align ourselves with Natural Law (God’s Law, Universal Law, Karmic Law, the Law of Consequence,) by using the ancient and accepted, tried and true truth discovery process known as the trivium education methodology, in order to get the maximum experience from our potential as sentient beings?

What if the purpose of our collective existence is to steadily increase our conscious awareness until we can master our ability to develop sapience, the ability to make correct conscious choices, utilizing proper discernment, to bring about positive effects, conditions, and relationships in our world? 

Could this process be the goal of the spiritual journey and the manifestation of the Will of Creation? Is it the evolution of consciousness?

Natural Law – the set of universal, inherent, objective, non-man-made, eternal and immutable conditions which govern the consequences of behaviors of beings with the capacity for understanding the difference between harmful and non-harmful behavior – is the only real law and it is intrinsically known to us all subconsciously and to some of us consciously.

The more people that bring it into their consciousness, the less unethical or immoral behavior there will be and the more freedom there will be, they (freedom and morality) are directly proportional.

I think everyone has intrinsic knowledge of Natural Law either subconsciously or consciously, and that those of us who are conscious of it are obligated by it to do our best to spark curiosity about it to those who don’t hold it in their consciousness.

Because it is more closely aligned with Natural Law than the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence is only words on parchment unless the meaning of them is understood and lived in the hearts and minds of people.

DeAnna Rice

We should NOT be afraid of our government… they should be afraid of The people

I knew I wasn’t Democrat or republican … just me. A person that wanted to be left alone and to raise my kids as I saw fit… never voted before this year.

A lot of things have caused me to become anti-government. Hearing things from this platform reminded me of what we are about… where we should be and what we have become.

I’m very new at all the politics but this year had my full attention. My vision for the world…. where everyone gets along because everyone; Respects other’s choices.

A place where you don’t go to jail for driving to work… a place where you don’t buy your house and pay taxes on it every year… a place where you can be trusted to run your business without BS regulations and rules.

A place where I am free to choose whatever I want, when I want, how I want.