Assassination Markets to Private Military Defense - Protecting the Country in a Future without "Government"

Another sample chapter from my upcoming book: Voluntaryism - How the Only "ISM" Fair for Everyone Leads to Harmony, Prosperity and Good Karma for All

War, Foreign Invasion & Private Military Defense

As discussed previously, defense is totally in accordance with the non-aggression principle and voluntaryism. If individuals are under threat, they should take whatever action necessary to defend their person, property, or that of another, whether that is on an individual/family basis, or something more like a militia or an armed protective services company on a grand scale.

Probably one of the most common criticisms of a state-less society is that, without a "government", who would protect the population from being invaded and conquered... and then having a (theoretically worse) "government" imposed on them? Looking at our existing "government" with its confiscatory taxation, monopoly privileges for cronies, dishonest, inflationary monetary system, and never-ending wars based on lies and manufactured intelligence, it is hard to see how it could possibly be worse. One of my favorite jokes is asking people if the Russians promised to cut our taxes by 35% and knock off the propaganda, indoctrination and woke culture, would you support an invasion?

The good news is that similar to a universal desire for safe streets and businesses that create a market for private security, there is a universal desire for protection from invasion that would create a similar market absent the current monopoly provider.

Even more powerful is the one-way revolution of voluntaryism that is exposing the illegitimacy and criminality of "government" in the United States and worldwide. We believe if we are successful here in exposing and rolling back "government," then news of government's illegitimacy and criminality will spread rapidly to every other country, bringing down the "governments" in Russia, China and other potential adversaries.

Finally, even if those adversaries didn't fall immediately, there are a number of factors ranging from the significant deterrence the existing armed population presents to potential invaders, to a reduction in the threat profile of the United States that would dramatically reduce the likelihood that potential adversaries would risk their time and treasure to attack a "hard-target" such as the U.S. that is not threatening them in any way.

How “Government” Ruins It

In Samuel Konkin's Agorist Class Theory, he presents a counter idea to that raised by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the authors of The Communist Manifesto. According to Konkin, rather than the proletariat (the workers) being pitted against the bourgeoisie (the capitalists), a more accurate description would be the parasites (those involved in and living off money stolen from others at the point of a gun using "government") versus the producers (voluntary market participants).

"Every major coercive State has used the threat of 'foreign' States to distract the attention of subjects from its own violence; this is a Statist con game as old as recorded history. Thus the American rulers try to justify domestic totalitarianism as a 'defense against communist totalitarianism' even as they aid communist governments in the enslavement of their own people, and even as the communist States, in turn, exhort their subjects with fear of 'American imperialism.' But when, as in the present case, States are merely quarreling over who shall rule the slaves, it is seldom worthwhile to aid or abet either side. Rather one should regard both as mortal enemies and develop means of personal defense." - Rayo, 1967

Similar to the communists described above, the "State" would like you to believe that when it comes to war and foreign invasion, it's "us versus them," and that "we either fight them over there or here at home." In reality, though, this is just the propaganda peddled to convince high schoolers (and adults that should know better) to sacrifice their lives fighting for oil, opium, or other natural resources in some Middle Eastern desert or poppy farm like Afghanistan.

Think of the various countries of the world as “tax farms” where inter-generational organized crime families are using “government” to rob and control populations.

Instead, think of the world as various tax farms where various intergenerational organized crime families are using "government" and monopoly media/academia to rob and control their local populations and recognize that, despite cultural, racial, and ethnic differences, the large majority of individuals are just trying to get by and raise their families in peace. The hatred of other populations cultivated on "government"-controlled media is only intended to foster fear and distrust to rally that population behind their "government" for protection.

War is a Racket - Testimony from Major General Smedley Butler

Major General Smedley Butler, was, at the time of his death, the most decorated Marine in U.S. history and a former Commandant of the Marine Corps. In 1935, he published his seminal book, War is a Racket, wherein he lays out the real reasons for never-ending war and destruction. And he would certainly be in a position to know! The following two excerpts are from a 1933 speech:

"War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small inside group knows what it is all about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses." "I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for [crony] capitalism.

I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

Despite this and subsequent warnings, though, the message seemingly still hasn't been received. $6.4 trillion spent on the War on Terror since 2001¹, 1.2 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases (all environmentalists should really be anti-war!), and ~801,000 direct deaths (not counting sanctions, infrastructure destruction, etc.) -- and for what?!

College Professor Michael Huemer Breaks Down Societal Defense under Voluntaryism

Criminally Negligent Levels of Waste, Fraud and Abuse

In "Government" - The Biggest Scam in History... Exposed! we make the case that the "government" is best thought of as a technique for robbing and controlling societies and is now openly being run as a criminal enterprise. Outside of the dishonest monetary system and the trillions stolen through "bailouts" and "Stimulus" to Wall Street, the next most significant theft of taxpayer money is the waste, fraud, and abuse of buying unneeded, dramatically overpriced weapons systems we do not need for wars, and proxy wars, based on lies and manufactured intelligence.
Here are just a few examples:

• Ridiculously Obvious Criminal Overcharges -in April of 2024, Florida Congressman Mike Waltz surprised US Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall by revealing that the Air Force was paying $90,000 for a handful of electrical bushing that should have cost around $100². This is a wide-ranging problem for military procurement that has also been caught paying $1280 for coffee cups³, $74,165 for aluminum ladders⁴, $170.98 for a flashlights⁵, $13,905 for a crew chief's chair, $400,000 for F-35 helmets⁶, and $10,000 for toilet seats⁷.

• The Pentagon's "Bishop's Fund"—In May 2017, it emerged that the Department of Defense was buying bulk fuel for the military as a whole and then "reselling" the fuel to each service branch at a markup over and above what the individual services could have bought the fuel for on the open market. The "profit" was then put into a $6 billion slush fund known internally as "The Bishop's Fund" to spend as they pleased⁸.

• TRILLIONS Missing from the Pentagon - On September 10th, 2001, the day before 9-11, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced "according to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions." ” These financial discrepancies have now grown to $21 TRILLION dollars according to Professor Dr. Mark Skidmore and Catherine Austin Fitts, who are tracking these trillions and hundreds of billions more missing from other agencies at https:// missingmoney.solari.com/

• The Fat Leonard Scandal - Malaysian national Leonard Glenn Francis ("Fat Leonard") bribed a large number of uniformed officers of the United States Seventh Fleet with at least a half million dollars in cash, plus travel expenses, luxury items, parties, and prostitutes, in return for classified material about the movements of U.S. ships, and having ships redirected to his ship servicing operation where he overcharged the military for services ranging from fuel to emptying the ships lavatories, where he incidentally, dumped the waste at sea vs. the environmentally-friendly disposal the Navy was supposedly paying him for. 17 Navy officials pleaded guilty, including at least ten commissioned officers, two petty officers, one former NCIS special agent, and two civilian Navy contracting officials. Nine others are awaiting trial in U.S. district court in San Diego. Separately, five Navy officers were charged with crimes under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and were subject to court-martial proceedings. According to investigators, by November 2017, more than 440 people - including 60 admirals - have come under scrutiny under the inquiry leading credence to our thesis that "government" is organized crime and is being run as a criminal enterprise where participants are enriching themselves at every level at the expense of the taxpayer victims.

Blowback

Without diving into military history, it is safe to say that, at the very least, military entanglements overseas result in a phenomenon called "blowback", the unintended, adverse, and often counter-intuitive results of a military intervention that make us less safe and, allegedly, requiring trillions in "defense spending"” If you believe the official story about 9/11, which we don't, it could be argued that 9/11 was blowback for decades of U.S. military intervention in the Middle East, whether these interventions took the form of economic sanctions, regime change, arms sales, or outright military action.

Was this hardware left in Afghanistan to create a credible enemy for a future war?

As was alluded to above, wars are frequently based on provable lies and manufactured intelligence. Whether it was the now admitted lie of the Gulf of Tonkin that launched the Vietnam War, "WMD's in Iraq," or billions of dollars of military equipment left in Afghanistan to manufacturer a credible adversary and justify the next war, if the "State" told the truth about their motives and intentions there would probably be a revolution before morning.

The Human Costs of Foreign Wars, Interventions, and Sanctions

Alongside the Orwellian-named "enhanced interrogation", another bastard of a military tactic has come into common use by western "governments". That is, the use of economic sanctions as an alternative (or precursor) to outright war -- restricting trade with a specific country, blocking imports of food, medicine, and other life-sustaining supplies. The most heinous and temporally relevant example would be the "US" ally-led sanctions on Yemen by Saudi Arabia. As of 2023:

• 18.2 million Yemenis are suffering from inadequate food, health care, and infrastructure⁹

• 10,200 children have been killed or maimed

• 377,000 estimated deaths as of 2021 89 ¹⁰ (probably far higher)

• ~3 million women and girls were at risk of violence by the start of 2018¹¹

It's worth noting that those numbers are probably grossly underreported; the real toll probably won't be known for some time. Also, please note the inhumanity of blocking food and medicine from women and children. There is no tactic too low for the U.S.government"; and the theft of your tax dollars pays for it. So, other than maybe the most rabid neoconservative, we can all probably agree that there are better ways to handle conflicts than war or sanctions. Human beings are ingeniously innovative problem solvers

The Voluntaryist & Free Market Alternatives

Other Countries Invade Looking for “Tax Slaves”... Don't Be One!

One of the main reasons that tyrannical countries like the US, Russia, and China would invade another country is to add that country's population to their roster of tax slaves. When Nazi Germany invaded France in 1940, it famously installed the puppet Vichy "government" and the tax slaves of France began subsidizing their own occupation. A voluntaryist evolution in the U.S. would dramatically reduce the likelihood of invasion because other potential tax-farmers would understand that they would have trouble collecting. If everyone decided to stop paying taxes tomorrow and businesses quit withholding taxes from their employees, there is not a damn thing the "State" could do.

Next, it is worth asking, "What would happen to other nations and governments if the illegitimacy and criminality of "government" were widely exposed in the United States?" It's an interesting question, especially when considering the fact that the "U.S." is the world's foremost military power. While the answer is just something to ponder right now, understand that international editions of our companion book: "Government" - The Biggest Scam in History... Exposed! are on the horizon. The "State," the institution with a monopoly on the use of force, will be exposed everywhere, and for all to see.

Abraham Lincoln was a tyrant who was whitewashed by Statist historians and mandatory "government" schools. Lincoln crushed political self-determinism, imprisoned dissenting newspaper editors, conscripted (enslaved) freemen, passed sedition laws, and was one of the first to wage total warfare on civilian populations rather than simply fighting between opposing armies. Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth kills the one individual most responsible for the deaths of around 750,000 men and the burning of the South... and no one else.

The inefficiency of "government" is well known and is bureaucratic by design. The market, on the other hand, is naturally efficient because it maximizes profits. Market participants must convince their customers to trade with them voluntarily. One such solution applicable to both the transition phase and the maintenance of a free society is the theory of assassination politics and assassination markets. We are not in favor of violence in any sense, but would not the 20th century have been different if problems were dealt with in such a targeted and cost-effective manner?

Assassination Politics - The idea that political leaders that are proposing and instigating war or terrorism are dealt with most effectively and cost-effectively, with the least amount of collateral damage by funding/crowd-funding their assassination vs. waiting until they actually invade the U.S. The idea was first proposed in 1989 by Nick Roberts in his article titled, "In Praise of Jackals: Assassination and Moral Defence Policy." Roberts argues that, unlike the "State's" tactics of harming innocents, "top-level assassination hurts only volunteers -- the willing tyrants." Like Nick, "I do not consider that the Hitlers, the Kennedys, the Gadaffis or the Attilas have any right to mercy. Those who plan and order the deaths of millions deserve to die."

Assassination Markets—While Nick Roberts came up with the original idea and sound moral and economic arguments in favor of assassination politics, Jim Bell built on the idea, providing a framework for a decentralized, anonymous way of targeting enemies of peace, foreign and domestic. In Bell's thought experiment, a website could be constructed where political or economic criminals could be nominated for assassination.

These could be foreign leaders threatening to invade your country, communist rabble-rousers agitating the mob to steal private property, or central bank officials debasing the currency. If the threat to society is perceived to be great enough, then contributions are collected in untraceable crypto-currencies where each contributor also gets to place a "bet" on when the person is actually killed. If the person is actually assassinated, then the money goes to the person who correctly guessed the day/ time, which is assumed to be the person or persons responsible for the assassination where their payment would be made in untraceable crypto-currency washed through a mechanism called a "tumbler" that obscures the origin and destination of crypto-transactions.

Now, in Jim Bell's example, this would be applied to politics, and the most hated, despised people would be the primary "targets." Reason being, the assassin will only go through with the killing if the stakes are high enough, and if even 100,000 people toss in $5/each to knock off some international tyrant, there's probably someone out there willing to go through with it. The implications of assassination politics are profound.

First off, the existence of digital currencies and decentralized networks makes this less of a thought exercise and more of a plausible future reality. Someone even put together a proof-of-concept back in 2013 (see screenshot above) where the former head of the Federal Reserve, Ben Shalom Bernake, elicited donations of 124.14 Bitcoins that would be worth around $12,056,104 at today's exchange rate. Other nominees included runner-up U.S. President Barack Obama, Keith Alexander, the head of the National Security Agency (NSA), and James Clapper, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) at the time.

Private Military Defense - Supported by Insurance Companies In a successful voluntaryist "country," you would have phenomenal economic growth driven by the elimination of crony monopoly privileges, taxation, malinvestment by "government", and the waste, fraud and abuse associated with "government" There would be many economic interests that would be vested in seeing such a stateless society succeed and the natural market participants to organize a privately-led defense of plant, property, equipment and real estate are insurance companies.

War is expensive for insurance companies, and, absent their current capture by banks spending money stolen through fractional reserve banking, there would be significant incentives to organize the most cost-effective defense of their insured as possible. Some firms might differentiate by specifying such protections, monitoring potential threats, and cost-effectively organizing defensive measures such as maintaining a purely defensive ICBM capability or antiaircraft / anti-ship ballistic missile systems to prevent foreign adversaries from landing troops and equipment via air or sea. Finally, they might provide an organizational capability that could rapidly provide arms, communications, training, former military equipment and organization to militia units in an emergency. Economist Bob Murphy breaks down how this might be accomplished in a fascinating lecture below

In this lecture for the Mises Institute, economist Bob Murphy breaks down the market for private military defense in a world without “government”

There are already a number of dynamics in play in the United States that make the U.S. a very hard target for any potential invader. The population of the United States collectively own an estimated 400 million+ firearms¹², tens of millions of which are military-grade center-fire, mostly semiautomatic, battle rifles. This total does not include weapons owned by the military that would be liquidated and disbursed to the population in a voluntaryist evolution.

Voluntaryism In Action - Privately Armed and Trained Militias

While this author has never been in the military, I am committed to protecting my family and community and have invested my own money in purchasing much of the gear and training required to fight effectively in a modern warfare situation. I own an AR-15 scoped out as a sniper rifle, a Saiga 12 combat shotgun, handguns, thousands of rounds of ammo, a plate carrier (body armor) and everything from communications to combat first aid supplies. I have attended multiple training sessions to improve my capabilities as an effective gunfighter. I am not alone, and I believe there are millions of men (and women!) in the US who would step up similarly and stand ready to protect their communities from a foreign invasion and/or if the organized crime "government" in DC becomes even more openly tyrannical. Many different for-profit and non-profit organizations already offer military-quality training (or better) to help individuals defend their communities.

Here are some of my personal favorites as but a few examples:

Students at a Max Velocity Tactical Class learning modern gun fighting techniques on their own dime, ready and willing to protect their communities against an invasion.

Max Velocity Tactical - Run by Max Velocity, the author of the novel Patriot Dawn: The Resistance Rises, which I like to describe as a "How-To-Manual" on organizing resistance to a criminal federal "government" in a civil war scenario woven into a compelling piece of fiction. Max runs a combat arms academy in West Virginia that holds clinics around the country in both individual and team live fire and Force-on-Force tactical training. Other similar combat arms academies include One Shepard Leadership Institute, Prairie Fire, and dozens if not hundreds of smaller programs offering everything from outdoor survival skills to the Jackson Hole Shooting Experience that teaches 1-2 mile shooting in a family-friendly environment.

Project Appleseed - a non-partisan group of men and women, many former combat veterans (known as the Revolutionary War Veterans Association) that use rifle marksmanship instruction to "turn rifle owners into riflemen." Through clinics and events held around the country, they teach rifle marksmanship and early American heritage to introduce individuals of all skill levels with the goal of creating a large dispersed population of marksmen to deter any potential foreign aggressors.

Citizens Militias - A citizen's militia is a group of individuals that come together to drill in combat techniques to protect their communities. The movement re-orientated itself to protecting communities from what was perceived as a criminal federal government after the ATF and FBI murdered 80+ men, women and children in Waco, Texas in 1996. The movement peaked that year with 441 identified militia groups around the country¹³ proving the point that citizens will self-organize to protect their communities against identifiable threats.

Transition Strategies

The U.S. Government currently has a military geared to a global offensive capability with 750 bases in 80+ countries.¹⁴ Step one in transitioning to a stateless society on the War and Foreign Invasion front would be a rollback of overseas military bases to a purely defensive military posture. These bases and assets could be sold to fund a non-profit to oversee the decommissioning of nuclear weapons in a coordinated effort with our manufactured enemies that would be under the exact same pressure as the illegitimacy and criminality of "government" becomes widely understood.

Step two would be transitioning the military from a federal force under the bloated and criminally inefficient Pentagon to the individual states under their National Guard with a similar sell-off of federal and duplicative assets by the individual States to fund their own decommissioning and draw down operations. Finally, the resulting non-profit organizations and insurance companies could compete to provide the most cost-effective plans for maintaining a core protective force augmented by citizen's militias and an assassination market that would immediately crowdsource and target any foreign "government" (organized crime system) threatening an invasion of the U.S.

War, Foreign Invasion & Private Military Defense FAQs

If the immorality, illogical nature and illegitimacy of the "Government" were widely exposed in the U.S. to the point where the existing "government" collapsed, wouldn't that create a power vacuum that Russia or China could simply invade?

Highly doubtful, especially if the collapse was the direct consequence of a wide-spread societal exposition or 100th Monkey realization of the illegitimacy and criminality of "government." If it became widely known that the U.S. was collapsing because of a popular movement exposing the illegitimacy and criminality of "government" it is likely that movement would spread globally and impact every other "government" on the planet.

The Art of Liberty Foundation recognizes this as a potential threat and we are actively looking for "idea philanthropists" to sponsor foreign editions of our book: "Government" - The Biggest Scam in History... Exposed! tailored to widely exposing the illegitimacy and criminality of "government" in country-specific editions targeted towards the specifics of China, Russia, Israel, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Ideally, we would widely expose the illegitimacy and criminality of "government" simultaneously in every country.

Resources for a Deeper Dive

Articles:

• Assassination Politics article series by Jim Bell

• In Praise of Jackals: Assassination and Moral Defence Policy (pdf) by Nick Roberts, 1989

• The Private Production of Defense by Hans Herman Hoppe

• Privateering and National Defense - Naval Warfare for Private Profit by Larry Sechrest

• Videos:

• The Market for Private Military Defense by Robert Murphy

• Societal Defense Under Anarchy by Professor Michael Huemer

Books

• Man, Economy and State by Murray N. Rothbard - Chapter: Defense Services on the Free Market

Endnotes

1. https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/styles/homeslide/public/imce/home/slides/COW_pie-chart_website-slider-1100x415.jpg?itok=1MPQoXaY

2. https://dailynewsfromaolf.substack.com/p/moment-rep-mike-waltz-stumps-usaf

3. https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/29/politics/air-force-coffee-cups-reheating-chuck-grassley/index.html

4. https://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/12/us/lists-show-price-problems-persist-in-military-parts.html

5. https://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/12/us/lists-show-price-problems-persist-in-military-parts.html

6. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/10/26/f-35-helmet-costs-400000-4-times-predecessor/74650574/

7. https://www.tampabay.com/news/military/The-Air-Force-s-10-000-toilet-cover_170031650/

8. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/at-the-pentagon-overpriced-fuel-sparks-allegations--and-denials--of-a-slush-fund/2017/05/20/c5ff4bf4-31b2-11e7-9dec-764dc781686f_story.html

9. https://www.unicef.org/emergencies/yemen-crisis

10. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/23/un-yemen-recovery-possible-in-one-generation-if-war-stops-now

11. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/23/un-yemen-recovery-possible-in-one-generation-if-war-stops-now

12. https://www.thetrace.org/2023/03/guns-america-data-atf-total/

13. https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/militia-movement

14. https://www.overseasbases.net/fact-sheet.html

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