I have a question for you. When a group of people in a particular territory are “fighting for their freedom” who are they fighting? Who or what is this entity against whom they struggle? I believe that the answer to this question is clear as there is only one entity that desires to enslave the people and that is the State and those who, by violence or the threat thereof, maintain their power within its structure.
Let’s consider America. Long ago there were these smaller states which desired to throw off the tyranny (enslavement) of their oppressor which, was the State of Great Britain and so they did. But then, quite ironically, they almost immediately put the shackles back on themselves by replacing one state with another!
It must be said that maybe they were a bit presumptuous to think they could create a state and somehow put shackles upon it to keep it from doing the same to them. They believed they might accomplish something that know one in history ever had and obviously, no one ever has. Once the state has taken it’s first breath it will ultimately subjugate the ones who gave it life even if their every intent was to prevent it.
So what’s the alternative? I believe as Robert Higgs has stated “The State is too Dangerous to Tolerate“. So the answer is to not start one to begin with. If it already exists the only solution is to end it. Unfortunately, most people simply cannot imagine how a society could exist without the state but that is really just a problem of a lack of imagination. There are historical examples of societies that existed without the state and contrary to what many may believe, it was not chaos and they were quite successful.
For example: Judges 21:25 In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes. God had given them judges but there was no state. They basically had an Anarchical society (Society without a publicly enforced government or violently enforced political authority) and it lasted for a very long time.
Now the Jews are a special case because they had a Contract with God which they had broken and so each man doing what was right in his own eyes was more often than not a problem for them but this would not be the case for any other group. Ultimately, however, they decided they wanted to be like everyone else and so they pleaded with God to give them a king. He warned them that a king would tax them and make their lives miserable and basically turn them into his slaves and that’s exactly what happened. Kings were not God’s idea. Like Elvis said, “there’s only one King baby” But for some reason men seem to admire the Glory of Kings even to the detriment of themselves. Maybe because they’ve rejected the one true King so they settle for a cheap substitute and they get what they pay for.
Another example is Ireland. Murray Rothbard does a thorough examination of an Irish history in his writings that few are aware of. For nearly a thousand years the Irish had a private law system and no real hierarchical, authoritarian form of government or bureaucracy. “Brehon law was an ancient Irish legal system that survived until the early 17th century.” Their downfall to some extent was war and outside forces, the main one being the Brits of course. But until then they too were basically an Anarchical society based on volunteerism and property rights, private law and the use of arbitrators to settles disputes.
If we are to fight for our freedom let us not make the same mistakes of those who have gone before. Let us not give birth to a parasitical State. To fight for freedom only to put on the shackles of the State is futility and with all the history of the atrocities of States how can anyone doubt that this is true. States are most often born of violence and maintain their power by violence and are simply “… too dangerous to tolerate.”