Yet, even limited freedom has proven itself lucrative. I've prospered in all sorts of ways since I sold my house in Norway, paid down debt, closed my bank accounts and moved all savings into gold. Not only has my wealth increased, my general mood and outlooks on life have improved as well. Being independent from state controlled agents means that my pension is ensured. I've got enough savings to cover my old age, even if all incomes were to dry up from now on.
Rather than state controlled agents, I use my wife and children as proxies for my investment activities. While it is true that they have to pay taxes and follow more rules than I do, the net result for the family as a whole is positive. Everybody is better off.
I've made no secret of what I've done. It can all be found in my book. There's nothing to be ashamed of, even if some of the things I've done are illegal. The only laws that I've broken are those intent on subjugating us rather than protect us. It's pretty much our duty to find ways around them. However, the most common reaction to my scheme is disbelief, soon followed by anger.
These reactions are very revealing because they show two things.
- People don't believe freedom is possible
- People don't want freedom, even if it's possible
We are so conditioned to obey even the most ludicrous rules that we cannot imagine freedom. We assume that whatever rule is put out there can be enforced, and that there's no way around this.
We further assume that this is for the better, even when it's blatantly obvious that money and resources are squandered by power hungry politicians. The problem is never politicians' disregard for people's freedoms. Rather, it's the tax evader that's the problem, despite being of no burden to society.
It makes no logical sense, and therein lies the key to why people get upset. It's called cognitive dissonance. We say we want freedom. However, when a recipe for freedom is presented and acted upon by some of us, the rest of us react in horror. We would rather continue paying into pension funds that "invest" our savings into wind turbines, weapons of war, and bridges to nowhere. Most of us refuse to take full responsibility for our lives.
We tell ourselves that the system is too holy to be challenged directly. We have to petition our rulers for change. We have to vote. Anything else would be anarchy, and God forbid that such freedom should ever be widely accepted. So when I tell people that I've taken care of my own pension by parking my wealth outside the system, it's suddenly my fault that pension funds are doomed. When I tell people that the entire system is about to collapse, they attack me for not playing by the rules.
We don't want to know how easily freedom can be achieved, because we don't want to be free. We don't want to know that we can choose to save in gold and silver and that we can barter and trade without registering what we're doing. Freedom is always within reach, yet most of us will not take the opportunity to become completely free once the current system collapses. Rather, we'll rally around anyone promising to build some new system of slavery. Our hostility towards those who are truly free is in fact hostility towards the very idea of freedom itself.
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