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Endless Duress Sam Aurelius Milam III I see, on the TV, sad-faced pundits, politicians, reporters, and others, all complaining that they just can’t understand why a man would go out and start shooting people. I can understand why. From my first day of mandatory attendance in the first grade at a government school (AKA public school), I was compelled to do things that I didn’t want to do, be places that I didn’t want to be, and associate with people and things that I didn’t like. Such duress continued during elementary school, junior high school, high school, junior college, and university. It continued as a so-called military obligation, forcing me into involuntary servitude in the Naval Reserve. It continued in the form of so-called job opportunities, luring me into the control of the government’s corporate establishment. I spent that entire part of my life trying to do what was required of me. It wasn’t until I was in my late 30s or my early 40s that I began to understand that I should have had other choices, and that I’d been deprived of them, without my knowledge or consent. After that, I began to try to rid myself of the constraints that had been imposed on me. One thing that I accomplished was to replace one kind of duress with a different kind of duress. That’s how this particular police state works. If one doesn’t submit to its illegitimate jurisdiction, then one is deprived of access to all of the things that one wants or needs, and over which the police state has usurped control. Eventually, the police state even forced me to sell my home, a place that had become my only means of livelihood, and where I’d intended to live for the remainder of my life. The police state permitted me to keep a small fraction of the proceeds of the sale, but not enough to survive. It didn’t care whether or not I had a place to live or a way to support myself. All that mattered was that either I submitted to the illegitimate jurisdiction, or I’d be deprived of things. In order to avoid the jurisdiction, I’ve had to accept being excluded from most of the things that other people take for granted. A man can endure a certain amount of such duress, controlling every aspect of his life, to his disadvantage and dissatisfaction, without his consent, with the fear of punishment, and without any hope that it will ever end. After a certain amount of that, some men will refuse to keep putting up with it. Some of those men will snap. They reach a limit, and they snap. That’s the answer that I have for those puzzled pundits, et al, mentioned earlier. At least some of the “mystifying” hostility that so puzzles them, maybe most of it or even all of it, is a consequence of the endless duress that the police state imposes on all of us, against our wills, for our entire lives, and without any hope that it will ever end. Some Timeless Truths Sam Aurelius Milam III
• All governments are police states. It’s inherent in the nature of a government to be a police state. To govern, which means to control the people, requires the use of force, the threat of force, or punishment. • Voting alone won’t control a government. The voters must always be capable of enforcing their votes. To that end, the body politic must be armed and free to organize independently of the government, without its permission. • An armed man could kill people for his entire life and never kill a noticeable fraction of the number of people who have been killed by governments. Mass shootings aren’t the problem. Government is the problem. • No matter how many mass shootings there are, no matter how selectively the government’s news agencies overreport them, and no matter how many people are killed in them, nothing ever justifies disarming the people. Anti-gun advocates aren’t trying to control guns. They’re trying to control the people. More than 2000 ears ago, Aristotle noted that those who carry arms will control the constitution. He wrote about such things as if they were already old knowledge, even then. They were. They were timeless truths then and they’re timeless truths now.
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The Tytler Cycle Alexander Fraser Tytler, Scottish Historian (1747 — 1813) A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage. Observations Forwarded by H. L., a prisoner. • Never blame a legislative body for not doing something. When they do nothing that doesn't hurt anybody. When they do something is when they become dangerous. —Will Rogers • The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.—Frederick Douglass • The United States was supposed to have a limited government because the founders knew government power attracts demagogues and despots as surely as horse manure attracts horseflies.—Rick Gaber Policy Hermann Goering, at the Nuremberg Trials Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger. Some Additional Thoughts About Guns Original Source Unknown. Forwarded by Steve, of Pomona, California. • Free men don’t ask for and don’t need permission to bear arms. • Seventy-two million gun owners didn’t kill anybody yesterday. • You don't shoot to kill. You shoot to stay alive. • Criminals and terrorists love gun control. It makes their jobs easier and safer. Stray Thoughts Sam Aurelius Milam III • The ability to vote for your master doesn’t make you any less a slave. • Politics is when you do something for the wrong reasons. •Government and fascism are synonyms. • The more people there are in a group, the lower is the effective level of intellignence of the group. Gibbs’ Rule Number 39 Sam Aurelius Milam III A human survival bottleneck, or something that seems to have been a human survival bottleneck, happened about 140,000 years ago. Another such event happened about 70,000 years ago. The timing suggests that such events might happen about every 70,000 years. It’s been about 70,000 years. Maybe it’s time for another one. Yellowstone exploded about 2.1 million years ago. It exploded again about 1.4 million years ago, and again about 700,000 years ago. The timing suggests that Yellowstone explodes about every 700,000 years. It’s been 700,000 years. Maybe it’s time for another explosion. For the entire history of our species, and considering the normal variations that naturally occur in an animal population, the human population of the world seems to have been reasonably constant or, at least, to have changed gradually. Given the 2 or so million years during which our species has allegedly existed, the current increase in human population, happening in just a few hundred years, can be viewed as virtually instantaneous. Considering the time span, the term population explosion is a reasonable description. The important thing that we need to understand about explosions is that, in an explosion, the first thing that’s destroyed is the explosive.
So, we have three situations that are completely unrelated to one another, or at least seem to be completely unrelated to one another, all of which could happen simultaneously, considering the time scale involved, and any one of which, by itself, could possibly result in the extinction of our species. Ah heck, don’t worry, it’s probably all just a coincidence.
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Letters to the Editor Dear Sam Just a quick note. I hope you’re well. I wanted to opine on your Nov. 2023 Frontiersman. In your response to my letter to the editor, I agree with you partially. I would like to say “breeds” is a better word equated to livestock, not humans. But, what if we are a product of alien intervention? You have to ask, if we are being selectively bred, why? Are we a food source? Perhaps maybe a slave race to mine precious metals? We could simply be an experiment to see if, regardless of our differences, can we ultimately put our bellicose thoughts aside and coexist without war and friction? Either way, the Big Bang evolutionary theory seems to me, hogwash. So, if we are products of a higher intelligence, the ultimate reason for our “being” can’t be good. Next, on to Donald the Elusive’s letter to the editor. In regards to libertarians v. propertarians, I’m guessing he has read quite a bit of Ayn Rand’s writings. I don’t personally subscribe to the tenets of any party, Republican, Democrat or Libertarian. I believe all forms of government are oppressive. When it comes to the example of the baby v. locomotive, I believe no matter how you affiliate your political/social beliefs, the right to life trumps all else. No matter who you are, stop to help the baby. There was something Ayn Rand wrote that I do agree with. As a human, we are endowed with only two rights. 1 > We have the right to life. 2 > We have the right to protect ourself if someone is trying to violate our 1st right. Even if it means eye for an eye, i.e., you kill them before they kill you. Regardless, there is no “property” I would hold more valuable than any life. I shall close. Have a good one Sam. —S. H., a prisoner Dear Sam: As I contemplate the tragic events in Israel and Ukraine, I am strongly reminded of your story, “Pa Farmer and the Stranger” [October 1996]. As you will recall, that story concerns an inquiry about the true ownership of a piece of land. The story ends with the lesson that physical force is the ultimate arbiter of land ownership. Therefore, although I feel tremendous compassion for the civilian victims of the current wars, the respective governments of Russia, Ukraine, Israel, and Gaza are only doing what governments have always done, and probably will always do. They are using brute force and terror to extend control over people living within certain defined patches of ground. To borrow Fredy Perlman’s metaphor, the governments are overcreatures, attempting to devour and absorb vast populations. No matter which government “wins”, nothing will be resolved, because the issues that are alleged to be the causes of these disputes are not the true excuses. The true causes are the innate human instincts of greed, fear, power-lust and aggressiveness. The situation is not totally hopeless, because humans have countervailing instincts of love, compassion, and altruism. However, no progress can be made unless all the relevant factors are considered. —Sir Donald the Elusive The overcreature idea isn’t Fredy Perlman’s. I believe that he used the term leviathan. I thought of the overcreature idea in the 1980s, and we discussed it at length, back then. In March of 2007, I added it to my essay Liability, Ltd., Corpus Corporatum and Corpus Delicti (June 1990). That essay is presently available in Pharos. Over the years, I’ve mentioned the overcreature idea in at least five issues of this newsletter, including A Mind of its Own, in the January 1998 issue, and Proliferation, in the April 2008 issue. All of those articles are available in the website. —editor Escape Attempt As retold by Sam Aurelius Milam III. Two blondes decided to run away from their husbands. Later, they were walking on a railroad track and saw a train approaching. They turned and ran as fast as they could go. One of the blondes noticed that the train was gaining on them. She yelled, “Maybe we should try to make it over to those trees, and hide in them!” The other blonde shrieked, “No! If we get out in that plowed field it’ll catch us for sure!” Water Sports As retold by Sam Aurelius Milam III. Two blondes were on an outing in the country. They drove past a plowed field where another blonde was sitting in a row boat, paddling the oars as hard as she could, but not making any progress across the field. The blonde passenger said to the driver, “Dumb blondes like that one give us all a bad name. If I wasn’t enjoying the ride so much, I’d jump out, swim over there, and give her a piece of my mind!”
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Acknowledgments My thanks to the following: El Dorado Bob; Betty; Eric, of Stockton, California; and Sir Donald the Elusive. This issue marks the completion of 30 years of continuous publication of this newsletter. — editor Websites http://frontiersman.org.uk/ http://moonlight-flea-market.com/ http://pharos.org.uk/ http://sam-aurelius-milam-iii.org.uk/ http://sovereign-library.org.uk/ A Nun’s Confession As retold by Sam Aurelius Milam III. Three nuns, Sister Mary, Sister Martha, and Sister Lucy, sat on a bench behind the convent. After a while, Sister Mary said, “You’ll never guess what I found in the top left drawer of Father Flanagan’s desk.” Sister Martha asked, “What?” Sister Mary replied, “Girlie magazines.” Sister Martha asked, “What did you do?” Sister Mary said, “I cut out the pictures and burned them.” They sat in silence for a while longer. Sister Martha said, “You’ll never guess what I found in the far back of the bottom right drawer of Father Flanagan’s desk.” Sister Mary asked, “What?” Sister Martha replied, “Condoms.” Sister Mary gasped and asked, “What did you do?” “I took a sewing needle and punched holes in each one!” Sister Lucy banged her fist against her knee and yelled, “Damn! Damn! Damn!” Frontiersman Availability — Assuming the availability of sufficient funds, subscriptions to this newsletter in print, copies of past issues in print, and copies of the website on disks are available upon request. Funding for this newsletter is from sources over which I don't have any control, so it might become necessary for me to terminate these offers or to cancel one or more subscriptions at any time, without notice. All past issues are presently available for free download at the internet address shown below. Contributions are welcome. Cancellations — If you don't want to keep receiving printed copies of this newsletter, then return your copy unopened. When I receive it, I'll terminate your subscription. Reprint Policy — Permission is hereby given to reproduce this newsletter in its entirety or to reproduce material from it, provided that the reproduction is accurate and that proper credit is given. I do not have the authority to give permission to reprint material that I have reprinted from other sources. For that permission, you must apply to the original source. I would appreciate receiving a courtesy copy of any document or publication in which you reprint my material. Submissions — I consider letters, articles, and cartoons for the newsletter, but I don't pay for them. Short items are more likely to be printed. I suggest that letters and articles be shorter than 500 words but that's flexible depending on space available and the content of the piece. Payment — This newsletter isn't for sale. If you want to make a voluntary contribution, then I prefer cash or U.S. postage stamps. For checks or money orders, please inquire. You can use editor@frontiersman.org.uk for PayPal payments. In case anybody's curious, I also accept gold, silver, platinum, etc. I don't accept anything that requires me to provide ID to receive it. — Sam Aurelius Milam III, editor
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