My Awakening

Guest Post by Eric Peters

I get asked sometimes how I became consciously libertarian. More accurately, how I became a conscious anarchist in that I like the idea of rules agreed to (or not) by mutual consent but am very much opposed to government force, which is regularly exercised against people who’ve caused no harm by those who lust to control.

Two things come to mind.

The first was my arrest – when I was a sophomore in college – for growing pot plants. This  was framed as “felonious manufacture of a controlled substance with intent to distribute.” I asked myself how it could be “felonious” to grow pot plants – even if I “intended” to “distribute.” Starbucks “distributes” coffee – which contains the drug caffeine. But this is not felonious. Neither is the “distribution” of the drug called alcohol. Well, provided the “distributor” pays the government for permission – and then pays the government the extortion called “taxes” on each sale.

I wondered at the arbitrariness and incongruity of it.

I also chafed at the stupid, malicious insinuation that my growing pot plants caused harm to others. That it was not legally necessary to produce someone – anyone – who’d been harmed in any way by my growing pot plants. That the only thing that mattered was “the law” – which meant what mattered was that I had affronted the authority of the government

This is the most serious crime one can commit whenever there is government. It is why, in many a “criminal” case, it is not Joe Smith vs. John Doe. It is Joe Smith vs. the United States (or the state of Virginia, etc.). As if the state can be a “victim” of anything – other than having its authority affronted. 

Those were the thoughts I rolled around in my head while I was in a jail cell – and while I was waiting for my court date. The day finally came and – lucky for me – the charges were reduced to a misdemeanor – “possession” of a “controlled substance.” I got fined and had to do a few hours of “community service” and that was that.

But for millions of others, it was a great deal more than that.

I was a middle-class white college kid; the kind of person the courts back then tended to go easy on. What if I’d been a poor black kid or a working class white kid from a trailer park? There would have been, probably, a much greater likelihood of a felony conviction – and months if not years in jail. After which a lifetime of stigma as a “felon,” who could not legally own a gun and who would have a much harder time getting other than a menial job, because most employers won’t take a chance on a “felon.”

Over growing pot plants. With “intent” to “distribute.”

This changed me forever. Or rather, it changed my outlook vis-a-vis the state and the harms it inflicts upon people who’ve not caused any. I saw how the principle applied, generally. As for example the way people who aren’t “drunk” nor have given any cause to suspect they might be whose right to be left in peace to go about their business is violated by subjecting them to random dragnets that force every driver to interrupt his travel and obsequiously produce ID and submit to an inspection of himself and his vehicle by an armed government worker, who will allow them to continue on provided they are sufficiently obsequious.

Disgusting.

And that scaled to encompass people whose only “crime” is they wish to board a commercial airliner. And that is scaling to encompass people who say “hateful” things about objective reality.

It gets worse and worse – because worse is always inevitable when it comes to government for the same reason that weeds will displace flowers if allowed to.

Another thing that aroused my contempt for the government and its rules was the destruction – by the rules – of my favorite car company, Pontiac. The latter was once one of GM’s most successful divisions because it was a car company. Though part of the GM family, it once had its own engineering department that engineered Pontiac engines that went into Pontiac cars; these Pontiac engines made a Pontiac something more than a restyled Chevy. Just as – once – an Oldsmobile was something other than a Pontiac. Or a Chevy.

What happened?

The government’s rules made it difficult and expensive to “certify” different, brand-specific engines for sale each being different and so each having to be “certified” separately.

So GM eliminated the former engineering departments of Pontiac (and Oldsmobile) and put “corporate” Chevy engines into what became badge-engineered brands. The term refers to cars that are not engineered but, rather, marketed.

But once a “Pontiac” had become nothing more than a restyled Chevy sold under the Pontiac brand, there was much less reason to keep the Pontiac brand around.

And that’s why it’s gone. So also Oldsmobile. And Plymouth and Mercury.

It is also why it is likely there will be even fewer brands in the years ahead, because there’s no reason to keep most of them around, either. Because the government’s rules are winnowing everything down to one battery-powered “choice.”

Government sucks the life out of life.

It  eventually, inevitably, makes life itself impossible by making it impossible for life to flourish. Life requires freedom. To seek alternatives to things. To try new things. To engage in free interaction with others, to figure out what works best for each individual – as opposed to the small-minded limitations of one-size-fits all.

Government apologists characterize this as “anarchy” – and hope you’ll equate that with chaos. But the two are as unrelated as mRNA drugs and vaccines that immunize. Witness the chaos all around us – and note the correlation. Has there ever been more government -and more chaos – than there is now?

Rules establish good order. Government is not necessary to establish rules.

It is necessary to establish the rule of one-size-fits all.

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