Learning Sovereignty
Sam Aurelius Milam III
Someone
who wants to become a sovereign has a big job ahead of him. The first
problem is that most people don't understand sovereignty very well.
It isn't a new idea but, so far, it's been applied mostly to kings, emperors,
pharaohs, and so forth. Governments would like to perpetuate that
notion. I've developed a different understanding of the concept.
That is, anyone can become a sovereign.
Someone
who wants to become a sovereign must first learn to understand sovereignty.
My essay The
Long and Winding Doctrine: Social Contract is a good place
to start. It's available on Pharos. More information
about personal sovereignty is available in my articles The
Doctrine of Personal Sovereignty, on page 1 of the August 2005
issue of this newsletter, and Status,
on pages 1 - 3 of the December 2010 issue of this newsletter. In
addition to study, an aspiring sovereign will need to start positioning
himself. That's true because governments today don't recognize sovereignty
as a legitimate status for an individual. Even when they don't view
personal sovereignty as criminal behavior, which they usually do, they
still place every achievable obstacle in its way. Anyone who aspires
to sovereignty will have to modify his own personal circumstances in such
a way as to circumvent those obstacles. A good example is the so-called
driver's license. See Show
And Tell, on page 1 of the August 1998 isue. Most of the
necessary things in life are available nowadays only to people who have
a driver's license or some authorized substitute for it. Such ID
can be obtained only by submitting to the jurisdiction of the government,
which constitutes an extinguishment of any personal sovereignty that might
otherwise have existed.
An
aspiring sovereign must find other ways to accomplish the things for which
a driver's license is a prerequisite so that he can divest himself of the
license. Such positioning isn't optional. It's a prerequisite
to such divestment. Anybody who rescinds a driver's license "cold
turkey" will discover that he can't live without it. He'll soon be
back at the motor vehicle department, begging to get his license back.
My efforts to position myself are a part of the story that's told in my
memoir Outward
Bound.
Many
things besides a driver's license create obligations to government.
An aspiring sovereign must divest himself of such things in the right order
because some such things are prerequisites to others. For example,
government ID is a prerequisite to financial investments but financial
investments are not a prerequisite to government ID. So, an aspiring
sovereign should get rid of the financial investments first. I suggested
some divestment ideas in my essay Abandonment.
It's available on Pharos.
Personal
sovereignty is a daunting goal. It shouldn't be attempted lightly.
It isn't for sissies. I began my pursuit of personal sovereignty
back in the 1980s. Since then, I've come as close to personal sovereignty
as it's presently possible for me to get. Whether or not I can maintain
my status for the remainder of my life is a big question. For example,
the U.S. government is in control of access to most non-trivial medical
treatment in the USA. Access to such treatment is restricted to people
who have government ID. To get medical treatment, I'd have to sacrifice
my sovereignty. So, here I am, 65 years old, without an income, without
insurance, and without government ID. When I eventually acquire a
malady that requires medical treatment, which seems likely, my choices
will be to suffer from it, to die of it, to recover from it on my own,
or to sacrifice my sovereignty in exchange for medical treatment.
So
far, sovereignty has made my life inconvenient and insecure. Things
would be better if there were more of us. Then, we'd be able to work
together, to deal with one another freely. It helps a lot that there
are a few people within the medical establishment, specifically dentistry
and optometry, who are willing to deal with me. For any more serious
medical situation, I can only try to stay sovereign, try to stay healthy,
and hope for the best.![10x5 Page Background GIF Image](../../Images/10x5_Page_Background.gif)
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May 2012 |
Frontiersman, c/o
4984 Peach Mountain Drive, Gainesville, Georgia 30507 |
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