People Are Ready For This (why I love touring)

I've been on the road for the #TaxationIsTheft Tour for about three weeks now. We're less than a quarter of the way through this 68 stop national tour. We've had to replace a rear axle, a phone, and a laptop battery twice, gone to the hospital, had the car in the shop five times, and missed a volunteer meeting because we were stranded at a gas station without electricity. People keep telling me that's it's good we got all of this out of the way at the beginning of the tour. Sometimes I wish I was ignorant of how probability works! The upside of all this is that I've spent a lot of time talking to regular people. Well, maybe not more than on any other FREEDOM! tour, but certainly more mechanics than usual.

If there's one thing holding back the freedom movement, it's our own false assumptions about how people will receive this message. We are conditioned to expect rejection and so we bring that into our activism. We assume that people are attached to government. We assume that people aren't looking for radical ideas. We assume that people won't like us if we talk about our understanding of freedom. We assume that our ideas are controversial. We are wrong.

I don't know a single activist in the freedom movement who has personally spoken with as many people as I have about freedom. I've been doing some form of full time activism for ten years. Three national tours. Years of man on the street videos. Two political campaigns. I hear all of those false assumptions, and mainly from people who have barely spoken to their friends and family and neighbors, if that. People who consider themselves rational embrace these assumptions without even considering, let alone testing, their veracity.

We assume that people are attached to government. Not true. People are dependent in many ways. That's not the same as attached. Yes, there are some who can't even understand the difference. That's ok. We don't need everyone. However, like most addicts, most Americans are eager to be shown the path away from dependence on the violence of government.

We assume that people aren't looking for radical ideas. Not true. Radical means striking at the root of the problem. People are sick of the same forms of extremism from the two old parties. They know that tinkering with the fringes of the system isn't worth their time. When I tell them I'm running for President in 2020 on the platform of dissolving the entire federal government, most say, "Hmmmm. That sounds like a good start!"

We assume that people won't like us if we talk about our understanding of freedom. Not true. The problem comes when you think of this as a political message and get sucked into arguing and debating. This is an ANTI-political message! Even if you win every argument, you've lost the opportunity to share the message of freedom from a perspective of love and joy and sharing what's important to you. When you do it like that, it's almost impossible to turn people off.

We assume that our ideas are controversial. Not true. If we stick to the understanding that our ideas are about ethics - self-ownership - the nonaggression principle - we know that our ideas already govern the majority of human action! It is only these last remnants of institutionalized violence known as governments that are controversial! And the government is becoming less controversial every day as it is becoming more and more universally recognized as an instrument of evil that is holding back humanity. When people see the freedom-mobile at gas stations and ask, "What's FREEDOM!" I hand them a copy of my book and tell them, "It's about creating a more peaceful, productive, and harmonious world by dissolving government entirely." And the response is overwhelmingly positive!

While I've been guilty about making these assumptions in the past, I've always progressed by challenging my assumptions. I hope that you'll consider challenging yours as well and see how your assumptions might be holding you back. It could be that the free society we dream of is right around the corner. We just have to get over ourselves in order to share this wisdom with the world.

I am the author of FREEDOM!, a book endorsed (I mean banned) by the US Department of “Justice.” You can get a copy here. I’m running for Not-President in 2020 on the platform of the peaceful, orderly, and responsible dissolution of the United States federal government. You can find out more here. I am currently on my #TaxationIsTheft tour! You can find an event near you here. Whoever has the top comment on this post after 24 hours can claim a free signed copy of FREEDOM! by sending me a message with their address.