Ten Reasons to Consider Bioregionalism

     Bioregionalism is a set of views regarding how our politics, culture, and ecology should be shaped by our environment and surroundings; in particular based on “bioregions”. Bioregional politics is the idea that governments should make reforms which reshape government according to the previously existing bioregions which are found in nature.

     Perhaps the most important set of reforms which bioregionalists support, have to do with borders and boundaries. Bioregionalists suggest using to our advantage the mountain ranges and watersheds with which nature has already gifted us, to determine where political boundaries lie.

     Mountain ranges form the perimeters of watersheds, funneling all rain water into river valleys and towards the sea. Basins have mountain ranges as perimeters as well, although they do not funnel water towards the sea. Mountain ranges and seashores already tell us a lot about where the boundaries of these bioregions lie, and mountain ranges form natural borders, forming a natural protection against military invasion. So why not use mountain ranges as our borders?

     Here are ten reasons why making every watershed or bioregion into an independent nation – and replacing all currently existing “straight line” and river borders with mountain range and sea borders – will create a legally simpler, more ecologically sustainable, and all around better, world.

     1. SIMPLIFY BORDERS BY FOCUSING ON RIVER VALLEY POPULATIONS.

     The major civilizations around the world grew out of river valleys, and most populations (large or small) are centered on river valleys. River valleys – and the watersheds which bound them – just group people together conveniently. Bioregionalism would thus lead to increased political simplicity, in terms of where borders, boundaries, and jurisdictions are drawn. We don't have to guess about where the borders should be, nor do we have to suggest our own, if they already exist.

     2. SAVE MONEY, LIVES, AND EFFORT, BY AVOIDING MAKING BORDERS.

     Using mountain ranges as natural borders is more military and financially defensible than using rivers and lines as borders, and erecting physical borders. For one: building walls and fences takes work, when nature already did all the work for us which was necessary to create mountain ranges. When mountain ranges already exist that we can use for free, to do any more work creating borders would be an unnecessary waste of money, effort, labor, time, and resources.

     Mountain ranges form a physical barrier against military invasions, while river boundaries and “lines drawn on the ground by dead men” are much more difficult to defend against a military attack. Additionally, building-up physical defenses – such as walls and fencing – would be difficult to justify if our borders were mountains, than if our borders were to remain rivers and lines (like they are at the U.S.-Mexico and U.S.-Canada borders today), because the mountains already form physically huge barriers which are difficult for militaries to penetrate.

     Moreover, it is much more dangerous and difficult to climb a mountain range than it is to cross a river or a line on land; while people who are looking for a better and safer life for their families are much more likely to want to cross a river or a line than a mountain range (which means that people coming over a mountain range are much more likely to be attempting an invasion, than are people crossing a river or land boundary).

     Also, existing land borders are problematic for several reasons. Border walls unnecessarily restrict the flow of labor and capital, which has to move freely in order for trade to occur freely and without undue hindrance. Border walls are also unpopular, expensive, and sometimes resort to eminent domain takings. For those reasons, using the borders nature gave us - that is, mountain ranges - is just safer, more cost-efficient, and more labor-efficient, than making our own.

     3. REDUCE CONFLICT OVER RIVERS AND FRESH WATER.

     By ending the practice of using rivers as borders, a transition to bioregionalism will result in reduced conflict over sources of fresh water. As long as political and ethnic minorities are adequately represented and see their freedoms preserved, ending river boundaries will end the need for tribes to worry about rival tribes sneaking across the river and attacking them, or crossing the river to gain control over it.

     Reducing conflict over rivers – and affording full and equal human rights and legal rights, in the same political entity, to people on both sides - will also help reduce wars, terrorism, and kidnapping of members of one tribe by another, while increasing rates of intermarriage between tribes. In a bioregionalist independent state, all those who live in a river valley would be free to access it, and to control access to that river valley.

     4. SIMPLIFY & LOCALIZE ENVIRONMENTAL LAW.

     Grouping people together by river valley, can lead to increased political simplicity in terms of environmental policy and lawsuits, as well as in terms of borders. Water safety issues tend to affect people on the basis of the quality of “the local water supply”. So it only makes sense that political jurisdictions be broken down on the basis of which water supply affects which geographical community of people.

     Nowadays, watersheds are shared across multiple states; this state of affairs risks allowing the federal government to intervene in too many water pollution cases which could easily be resolved locally, within and by a single political entity occupying an entire watershed.

     Since mountain ranges funnel all water into a single river valley, anyone who is downstream of a water polluter will know that the tainted water came from the same jurisdiction (and the same watershed) in which they live. This will help people whose water is being polluted, track the source of their water pollution easily, because the source of water pollution will always be someone upstream who is in the same watershed. That means that in the vast majority of water pollution lawsuits, the plaintiff and defendant will be based in the same political jurisdiction, thus allowing the plaintiff to sue the defendant without creating a situation in which the outcome of the case could potentially affect the laws of two political entities. That helps bypass a potential conflict of interest between states, which only a higher authority (most likely a central government) could resolve with any finality.

     Bioregionalism will thus enable water pollution to be solved by the members of the community whom are most directly affected by it; whether as activists, as legislators on environmental policy, or as jurors in water pollution cases.

     5. MAKE WATERSHEDS SELF-CONTAINED & SELF-SUSTAINING
     Making watersheds self-contained in terms of environmental policy and military defense over borders, while using pre-existing mountain range borders to our full advantage, will increase the chances that an independent bioregionalist state could become economically and financially self-contained.

     This could be done several ways: 1) through enacting clean water reforms, and then putting the state on a path to sourcing all water from within the state; 2) through enacting reforms to putting the state on a trajectory of becoming ecologically and financially sustainable at the same time. This could be done through “Agenda 21” and “Green New Deal” -type measures, which would involve “re-greening” and retro-fitting buildings to be environmentally sustainable. This will help ensure an equitable distribution of wealth across geography, without threatening encroachment upon animal habitats and lands in need of preservation.

     Perhaps fulfilling certain standards regarding environmental sustainability and economic equity could be used as a way to justify “fast-tracking” bioregionalist independence movements (such as Cascadia in the Northwest United States and Southwestern Canada) and securing their status as fully independent states.

     6. NATURAL BORDERS LAST LONGER AND DON'T NEED FORTIFICATION.
     Determining borders based on mountain ranges, made by nature, will result in borders lasting longer – much longer – than they do now. As it stands right now, borders exist – and change - because of political instability, military conflict, and the need to micromanage and control people.

     To resolve to permanently base all borders on natural geological features, on the other hand – and to do it worldwide say, in the U.N., in an international court, or via some other method – could help guard against the risk of military invasion, through permanently ensuring that borders will never change.

     Ensuring that borders will never change, will especially help guard against the risk of a violent invasion, if full rights to control one's share of resources are afforded to any and all people who come into the watershed peacefully. That's because guaranteeing full voting rights and full right to access one's share of water and other resources, will reduce the likelihood that foreigners will resort to using force or violence in order to invade, or else resort to invading with intentions of overthrowing the government. Doing such things would be unnecessary to guarantee their safety, freedom, and ability to control the resource they need to survive.

     7. HELP PEOPLE AND INSTITUTIONS ATTUNE TO NATURE.
     As explained above, if borders were determined by mountain ranges, then borders would last a very long time. The only problem is what to do when there earthquakes take place, which drastically change the incline of the land and change the courses of rivers.

     Fortunately, however, earthquakes that make such significant change to the outline of the bioregion do not come around that often. Additionally – especially in the short term – earthquakes alter rivers' courses in a much less drastic manner than the manner in which they change the perimeters of bioregions (i.e., the general location of mountain ranges and seashores).

     But whether or not we experience geological events significant enough to affect and change borders during our own lifetimes, adopting bioregionalism will help put us on a track to being able to do that easily in case we ever have to. Bioregionalism is fundamentally about making sure that our ecology, culture, and politics follow nature's lead. “Taking nature's lead” in terms of what we do about borders and environmental policy is how we accomplish that, and basing borders on mountain ranges is the first step.

     But it's not as simple as just redrawing the borders; part of that first step has to involve planning for how to change borders in the manner which is least likely to result in conflict and competition over resources. Maybe when only earthquakes can change the borders, people will not only have a respect for nature's ultimate authority over our political affairs; maybe people will wonder whether God Himself is telling us when we need to change our borders.

     8. CREATE MORE OPPORTUNITIES FOR LAND REFORM.
     Re-focusing politics on bioregions and the needs of the ecology, could help restore attention to the need for improvement of environmental quality (such as our air, water, and land), and to the need to ensure that land can be distributed in an equitable fashion across the country and across the world.

Increased interest in, and popularity of, bioregionalism, could thus lead to increased attention to land reforms such as Land Value Taxation, and the representation of land in legislative branches and/or electoral processes. Land Value Taxation would reform landed property ownership, tenancy, economic rents, land allocation, taxation, welfare, and what to do about lands that fall into blight and unuseability; while representing land in legislative branches or electoral processes could help reduce the ability of elites in government to undermine the will of the people.

     The U.S. Senate (and the 100 votes in the Electoral College which represent it) exist because people are not supposed to be the only thing represented in legislative branches and elections. The Electoral College is structured the way it is – in an anti-democratic fashion – to make presidential candidates more likely to visit low-population states.

     However, in practice, the purpose of the Electoral College has lately been to balance-out the voting power of high-population states by giving power to elite superdelegates, often working in government, who choose our electors; while until the 17^th Amendment the purpose of the Senate was to balance-out the voting power of high-population states by giving power to governors who appointed senators.

     Instead of using the power of the elite to balance-out the power of large populations, why don't we use land? Shouldn't we be more worried about making sure that people and the planet can co-exist, than about making sure that elites in government, campaign superdelegates, and elite landowners, have enough sway in policymaking?

     In the U.S. Congress, there is a Senate and a House of Representatives. Why not add a third house, to represent land area? Perhaps it could be comprised of environmental scientists, climate activists, environmental health specialists, food and agricultural scientists, etc.. Each state could decide independently whether those officials would be appointed or elected.

     A house representing land area could even replace the U.S. Senate, and probably should. Replacing the Senate with a literal “House of Commons” (that is, a house whose members represent not population, but parcels of “the commons”, i.e., common land) would not only reduce elite power in government; it could also help save operating costs. In particular, the entire budget of the U.S. Senate. Environmental experts would likely opt to receive much less than the $200,000 salaries to which senators are accustomed, so it's possible that such a “House of Commons” could even afford to have more than one hundred members (which could help represent land in Congress efficiently).
     Increasing the representation of land will hopefully also result in an increased attention to the needs of ranchers and farmers in large, low-population states, to use resources (including, possibly, federal resources) to make the area habitable for population. Some farmers believe that the federal government should be paying ranchers directly to do the work that is necessary to make use of the land we have (without harming native species, of course).
     Increasing influence in Congress based on land area, will help represent nature itself in the halls of Congress, while replacing the elite with nature as the only thing capable of bossing large populations around (as it should be).

     9. DIMINISH FAITH IN BORDERS AND END TWO-DIMENSIONAL THINKING, AND
     10. REDUCE CONFLICT OVER LAND AREA.
     Adopting mountain ranges as borders, will show that river borders and land boundaries don't work nearly as well as the pre-existing borders which nature gave us. This will help reduce faith in the current set of borders, which by and large is composed of river borders that enable competition over water instead of reducing it, and of “lines on the ground, drawn on a map by dead men, to mark the places where their armies decided to stop fighting”.

     There is enough conflict over resources in the world, without conflict being viewed as a struggle for territory itself; this “two-dimensional thinking” only compounds the level of conflict and competition for resources. Nearly all resources which are useful to us, are three-dimensional, not two-dimensional; water, air, foods, consumer goods, etc..
     But land area is not a resource which we can consume. We can make use of land area, but monopolistic, sovereign control over two-dimensional land territory is not necessary; neither to secure one's safety, nor to subscribe to the services provided by a government.

     Suppose that, in a small ten-story building, one family occupies each level; and each family for some reason wants to be part of a different political system. That is possible, as long as they are not stopped from leaving the building by the people at the bottom floor, nor by anyone else. As long as government employees can logistically reach a group of people who want to subscribe to and receive that government's services, then there is no reason to limit such a government from doing so. There is especially no reason to require a government selected by one family in that building, to force all other families in that building to subscribe to its services (based on the idea that if all ten families live on the same parcel of land, they must subscribe to the same government, because statist governments are territorial). Neither the family at the top of the building, nor the family at the bottom, nor any government, ought to be free to stop any household from choosing which government it wants to be a part of. If free travel throughout the hallways, staircases, and elevators of the building can be secured – and especially if helipads can be set up on the roof – then there will always remain the potential for free association between different governments and different households at that address.

     There is no reason for governments to run based on territorial boundaries. Granted, changing where our statist borders are, and changing what they're based on, will not end the territorial nature of statist government. That is to say that it will not change the operation of the state based on the definition “an entity capable of wielding a credible monopoly on the legitimate use of force within a given territory” (“territory” being the operative word).

     But fortunately, reforming our borders will make more people question the set of borders which currently exists right now. And we can't envision the sort of “three-dimensional government” which I've described above, unless and until we see that the current set of borders isn't working.

     Fortunately, since bioregionalist reforms would likely result in adopting the kind of simultaneous ecological and economic reforms which I outlined in #6 above, mixed-use development (a type of zoning ensuring a mix of uses in a neighborhood) would probably become more popular and widespread. If areas practicing mixed-use development begin to devote different levels of buildings to different uses, then that will result in “multi-level mixed-use zoning” or “zoning with mixed use by level”. If that practice is successful and takes off, then in addition to having different economic uses on each level, more people would be able to conceptualize what “three-dimensional government” looks like, and communities could foster different political membership by each household or level of a building.

     “Three-dimensional government”, or “spatial government”, could mean panarchist proposals such as Functional Overlapping and Competing Jurisdictions, and National Personal Autonomy. These systems propose creating a sort of “government without borders”.

     Another thing that will help visualize three-dimensional government – as well as reduce conflict and competition over land area and territory – is “building up”. While making more efficient use of land area is important, making more efficient use of space is too. The most important way to do both of those (aside from to actually expand into space) is to build up and let people live on top of each other. “Building up instead of building out” will help us maximize the efficiency of use of the spaces which human settlements are already occupying, thus avoid the need to continue expanding outwards into surrounding areas. The fewer resources we want to devote towards the difficult process of economizing large amounts of land (all of which we might not need), the more we should focus on building upwards – that is, building on top of existing structures – without urbanizing any more land area (destroying forests and other environments in the process).

     I urge my readers to learn about bioregionalism, bioregions, the locations of the various watersheds and their mountain and sea boundaries, the movement for the independence of the Cascadia watershed, and the various bioregionalist and panarchist proposals which could potentially result in either the drastic reform of borders or else in their total abolition.

     I would also like to urge my readers to read my May 2013 article “Cascadia Proposal”, which contains a map and an outline of how a legislative body could be constructed for the bioregion. What I have referred to above as a “House of Commons”, is called a “Council on Natural Resources” in the “Cascadia Proposal” article. That 2013 article is available at the following link:

http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/02/cascadia-proposal.html

Written and originally published on September 2^nd, 2019

Based on notes taken on August 31^st, 2019

Licensing Breeds Licentiousness: Speech to the Waukegan City Council on July 15th, 2019

     On July 15th, 2019, I wrote the following in order to criticize the activities of the city council of Waukegan, Illinois, which I witnessed at a public meeting on July 1st, 2019.

     Due to the three-minute limitation on the speaking time of each individual member of the public at these meetings, I was not able to read the entire speech which follows below. Instead, I summarized the following speech, after addressing the issue of why I believe the governor of Illinois should use Jeffersonian nullification to enjoin and prevent federal immigration authorities from rounding up undocumented immigrants (and also to enjoin federal authorities from taking the 2020 census).

     The title of my speech is “Licensing Breeds Licentiousness”. This title refers to the manner in which people tend to take liberties with other people, while they are in bars or casinos. I mean to imply that the government's endorsement of drinking and gambling, by way of approving liquor licenses and casino permits, communicates a libertinistic attitude towards the role of government in society.

     Namely, that if the government approves of the establishment existing and abiding by the law, then the owner has total leeway in regards to what rules (if any) will exist on his “private” property. [Which is, of course, usually publicly sponsored, because local Register of Deeds' offices register all “private” property claims. I say “private” because the public government's registration and tracking of all of these property claims, makes them quite not private].

     In the text that follows, I will explain why I believe that the taxpayer-funded local government, and its system of licensing and permits (and its monopoly to profit therefrom) offer perverse incentives to residents and establishment owners, regarding where, and under what legal circumstances, they engage in non-useful socio-economic activities; focusing on permitted legal drinking and gambling on government-registered “private” property. I will also explain why I believe that when the government is careless about what licenses and permits to approve and deny, harm to economic activity, the public's career opportunities, and social mores (especially in regard to our standards regarding business ethics, and whether we will take a demeaning or demoralizing job) are bound to result.

     I first came to this city council meeting two weeks ago. If what happened during that meeting is any indication of what usually goes on here, then it is a cause for concern, from both a constitutional and a theory of government perspective. What you aldermen do here – issue and deny licenses and permits – is not necessary, and constitutes a public harm rather than a public good, and I'll explain why.

     I'd like to make a comment about the woman who, two weeks ago, asked the city to require all people who wish to hold garage sales and yard sales, to apply for (and pay for) permits to do so. That resident made her statement without demonstrating why the fact that a lot of people are having garage sales in her neighborhood, constitutes any form of damage to her, or to the community.

     Garage sale signs never become eyesores, they increase economic activity in the community, and they provide people who have too much junk with a way to part with their things without letting go of too much monetizable value.

     To require yard sale operators to get permits, is to effectively ban people from having garage sales, unless they apply for permission from their government, and pay their government, for the privilege to do so. Making a few dollars off of some items we don't need anymore, should not be a privilege; it should not be something we have to beg and pay our government in order to do. Adult citizens are responsible enough to have garage sales without your permission.

     The 9^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” In modern English, this means “The fact that certain rights are listed in the Constitution, should not be used to deny the fact that the people have other rights”, meaning rights which are not listed in the Constitution.

     So what are those rights? The rights to defend ourselves, and speak freely, are listed specifically. But others are not, such as things we need to do in order to survive and have families; like the rights to move around and travel (locomotion); the rights to eat, drink, and breathe; to hunt, gather, fish, trap, and forage; to work and to join or start a union; to enter into a domestic union (meaning to marry whom we please).
     Things we need to do, in order to eat and work and survive and have families, should never require begging or paying the government for permission. They are natural human rights, which the government should either protect, or (if it cannot) leave us alone to protect those rights ourselves without government help. If ever a government becomes destructive of our abilities to provide for ourselves in these manners, then such a government forfeits its privilege to exist, which in a free society it can only derive from the consent and permission of the people.

     Members of the city council, why are we still requiring licensing and license applications for people over the age of 18 to get married? Why are Evanston, Illinois, New York, Hawaii, and other jurisdictions considering raising the tobacco purchase age to 18? Why can't an 18-year-old rent a car until they turn 25? Do taxpaying, voting-age adults really need this much coddling from their government?
     And who has the right to derive exclusive privilege, and profit, from the issuance or denial of these permits? The city council. And since every local government must comport with federal rules, all permit and license fees must be paid in the uniform monopoly currency which is issued by the Federal Reserve. Which, I remind you, (theoretically) operates under the auspices of the U.S. Constitution, which established gold as the sole legal currency, but through which, also, the Congress gives itself the power to “regulate the value” of the U.S. currency.

     Supposedly, the people need the city council to issue and deny permits and licenses, because if it didn't, nobody else is going to do it. However, through the fact of the federal government's monopoly on the issuance of currency, and the state's monopoly on the legitimate use of force within a given territory, we only “need” the city council, because the city council gives itself the sole authority to issue or deny them.

     If you take liberties with the word “regulate” in “regulate the value”, you can basically excuse the federal government (or the Congress, or the Federal Reserve) manipulating the value, and doing so legally. The federal, state, and local governments' profiteering off of its self-granted monopoly on licenses and permits – with the help of the federal government's manipulation of the value of our money – constitute what would be considered a racketeering operation, if it were taking place in the private sector. But it is taking place in the public sector, where government monopoly prevents any and all alternative agencies which would compete for legitimacy against the existing government (and thus prevents truly effective transparency and accountability of government).

     What if we had independent, de-politicized agencies, whose membership were fully optional, that could fulfill the role that “checks and balances” and Register of Deeds offices currently fulfill in our society? These agencies could act sort of like independent business alliances, while registering property claims, and engaging in academic study regarding how to raise the standards of business ethics (which would guide their policies surrounding whether, and when, and how, to shut abusive and fraudulent businesses out of business, and if necessary, confiscate their property for legitimate public use). And the best parts: Nobody could be compelled to fund any one of these agencies whose practices they didn't agree with, and if there were any fees for licenses and permits, they could be paid with anything but the U.S. Dollar (whether that's silver, gold, Bitcoin, labor, a labor-backed currency, a resource-backed currency, a local currency, forms of promissory notes such as mutuum cheques, or any item that holds and/or represents a real store of value).

     There's just one problem: If we had independent, de-politicized organizations, competing for legitimacy against each other and against the government, which could issue licenses and permits (and, if necessary, shut companies out of business for fraud and abuse), then it's quite likely that this would cause the government itself to go out of business. That's because government is operating a racketeering operation, in operating the system of licenses and permits. I say this because the government has, again, granted itself the sole authority to profit off of fees collected for issuing licenses and permits. Denying those permits only raises the demand for those permits, which increases their price; while they also increase demand for ways to get around the requirement of permits and licenses. If the public has no way to peacefully circumvent the requirement of licenses and permits which they cannot afford - and which are not reasonable because they infringe on our everyday abilities to move around and make a living and put food on our tables to feed our families – then the state's system of licensing and permission will lose legitimacy in the public mind, such that developing alternatives, and even abolishing licensing itself, begin to seem like reasonable alternatives.

     I suggest that the Waukegan City Council dissolve. The mayor should retain his post, but the decisions regarding whether to issue or deny permits and licenses, which are being made by aldermen at the present time, could just as easily be decided by the members of the audience who agree to attend this bi-monthly meeting of the city council. I suggest that the aldermen on the panel be replaced with a single clerk, who can read the meeting's agenda to the audience, which can decide on the basis of a majority vote whether to deny or issue a permit. If you aldermen want to have a vote, then you can and show up and vote on the floor with the rest of us, while the mayor and the clerk retain their posts. If not that, then at the very least, aldermen should have strict term limits, or could even be made instantly recallable. I assure you that any resident could do just as good of a job as these city council members, or better.

     If all the residents in attendance today got a vote, do you think that what happened here two weeks ago, would have happened? The City Council confirmed liquor licenses for several establishments, without questioning the purpose, or what economic good the community derives from these establishments having these licenses; meanwhile, the issue of whether a sports facility that serves youths should be adequately lit with the help of public funds, had to be debated before it was accepted? If the public were in charge of the votes at this meeting, wouldn't it be the other way around? Wouldn't we be more worried about who's getting a liquor license, than whether our kids have enough lighting to play basketball under?

     It's one thing to promote youth sports as a matter of increasing sports- and leisure- related tourism to Waukegan (which, in turn, increases construction and property values) and to promote local interests, but it's another thing to support youth sports because it's the right thing to do. Does it promote local interests to sponsor a young athlete, if that child grows up to leave town? No; but that should not be the local government's worry.

     To cease worrying about the loss of local benefit which that athlete leaving town would bring, though, would require the local government to cease doing what is in its own nature; that is, to promote its own interests, by way of promoting local interests. And that is why local government – and all governments - should never be trusted, except to rule in their own interests (and also in the interest of the property developers who stand to bring the most property value, taxable revenue, and/or “jobs” to the community).

     Finally, I would like to “thank” the city council for approving the casino that will be coming to town. There have been concerns that the approved casino developer has a history of serving alcohol to minors. This suggests that the casino which is coming, will find ways to circumvent local liquor licensing requirements.

     I hope the city council realizes that carding minors for alcohol is, if only in some small way, essentially a policing, executive function, and as such, is not something to be taken lightly. Can we really entrust alcohol servers at private establishments with a police function? I hope that the city is prepared to police underage drinking in this casino, if it must be built. I would suggest that it not be built, or at least that it not have a liquor license.

     Alcohol has been shown to impair people's ability to make responsible decisions, casinos are nowhere for an impaired person to be, the casino could not stay in business unless it took more of people's money than it paid out, and the city should not directly promote (nor should it even appear to promote) drinking and gambling for leisure. Throwing one's money away on gambling and betting, is by no means a thing that merits official promotion by way of taxpayer-funded benefits, subsidies, and privileges.
     Despite the concerns about the likelihood that underage drinking will occur at this casino, you, the members of the city council, have made the bold move to approve the casino. And thank God you did, or how else would financially irresponsible people find a way to gamble away all of their hard-earned money; money which could have been spent feeding their families, putting a roof over their heads, making car and home repairs, etc.? What would we do without the city council to offer financially irresponsible people perverse incentives such as these?

     I'd love to be a teenager graduating from Waukegan High School right about now, looking at the job prospects available to me, thanks to this new casino. Especially from a young woman's perspective: “Let's see, I can work at a casino, and deal cards or serve alcohol to older men who will leer at me; or I can join the R.O.T.C., and let the Army beat the shit out of me and inject me with unknown chemicals for some paltry sum; or I can work for Medline or some other pharmaceutical company that makes pills while also creating the same problems those pills solve by emitting toxic chemicals. What a myriad of options, what freedom and opportunity!”

     I urge the city council to – if possible – rescind the order to approve the permit for the new casino. The risks to the community which will be caused by the perverse incentives offered by public approval of this casino, are too great. Unhesitating approvals of liquor licenses and gaming facilities will only lead to increased (private) demand for venues such as strip clubs and massage parlors. But should the public necessarily sponsor venues which would exist conditional upon prevailing private demand in the market? Absolutely not; I do not wish to see any taxpayer funds disbursed in order to turn downtown Waukegan into an “economic opportunity zone” full of drinkers, gamblers, strippers, and (coming soon) legalized brothels.

     Government must not send the message to kids coming out of public school, that these jobs – and the military, and working for companies releasing toxic pollutants – is their best bet on a long-term career. These jobs are only good for short-term profit, because they destroy as much as they create. Until the economy improves, many kids coming out of Waukegan schools will be stuck in Waukegan for a while. Does a downtown Waukegan full of legal, publicly-supported, publicly-funded drinking and gambling really send the right message about either the importance of civic engagement or the value of working hard to build your own business?

     As much as I am pleased that the city council has taken caution to avoid building the casino too close to a school, but should we really have a similar requirement that the casino be far enough away from a church? Where are these gamblers supposed to go after they've blown all the money they would have otherwise spent feeding and sheltering their families? They're going to want to go to church. If it were up to me, there would be a city ordinance requiring every casino and bar to be surrounded by churches.

     You members of the city council - you aldermen - you get paid more than the average citizen. Which begs two questions: 1) Why can't you solve these problems, and protect the public from pernicious outside property developers, and 2) Why shouldn't you cease to exist, seeing that you are a permanent political class whose members permanently earn more than the average citizen? Doesn't the fact that you pay yourself more than us, prove that you are one of the fundamental causes of our economic problems?

     The needs to secure property, protect it, and provide for basic zoning to separate residential from commercial properties, are the fundamental ideas upon which the government and its necessity are predicated. However, that fact entails that the nature of zoning is thus, that the government cannot avoid but to separate where wealth is earned from where people live. Zoning, quite simply, causes regional economic disparities; and the government's power to perform zoning can only result from property takings that intrinsically subvert the very same principle of property ownership upon which the necessity of government is more firmly based.

     Furthermore, any local government that does not employ multi-use and/or multi-use-on-multi-level zoning, is wasting space, and is contributing to a problem which it should be solving (namely, unequal economic development over territory).

     And now the city council is considering taking away our right to have garage sales without paying for applications and receiving permission? I know a family of lawyers, which operates a law firm out of their residence. Why can't everybody else turn their homes into small businesses, without them being deemed full-scale commercial enterprises, to be regulated and zoned as such? Let's not be ridiculous; nobody who's holding garage sales, is running delivery trucks through their neighborhood.
     Is the value we'll get from either legitimizing or criminalizing all economic activity which occurs without the permission of the state, really worth the cost we'll lose from suppressing the economic activity, opportunity, and creativity of the people of this community? From suppressing the American dream of equal economic opportunity; to sell your own possessions on your own property?

     What value will we bring to the community, if we are bringing tourists to Waukegan, only to expose them to the diverse set of pollutants which are emanating from the various factories, rock-crushing operations, chemical spills, and pharmaceutical and sterilization companies scattered around Lake County?

     We can complain all we want about the frauds and abuses committed by these "private" companies, but while they continue to receive public funds to balance their books, and public supports and privileges, should they really be considered private? Why should we expect anything other than abuses to occur on sites which are deemed "private" but which are in fact backed up by public promises of bailouts?
     Waukegan City Council, why aren't you protecting us? If you're not going to protect us, then why are you here? To offer outside property developers opportunities to exploit our labor and environment, while we are effectively conscripted into working for them, having no other viable options? And soon, we may no longer be free to hold garage sales without government permission, in order to avoid accepting demoralizing jobs.
     What is the point of government, if we get nothing from it but more problems, which the government gives itself the sole authority to solve, whether it feels like doing its job or not?




To watch videos of me summarizing this article, please click on the following links:

- “Licensing Breeds Licentiousness: Speech to the Waukegan City Council”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=326V8zVCY7E

- “Nullify Federal Immigration Laws and Abolish Government Licensing”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiAISB94GXs

Written on July 15th, 2019

Video Links Filmed on July 15th, 2019,

and Added on July 19th, 2019

Papers, Please!?: Freedom vs. Permission

Based on Posts Written on May 23^rd, 2015

Expanded on December 15^th, 17^th, 22^nd, and 23^rd, 2015, and February 12^th and 13^th, 2016

Edited on January 22^nd and 23^rd, and February 12^th and 13^th, 2016

            American civil society is not based on freedom and liberty; is it based on legality and permission.

The Ninth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads, “the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

The majority in the case of Murdock v. Pennsylvania ruled that “no state shall convert a liberty into a license, and charge a fee therefore.” The majority in Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham, Alabama ruled that “If the State converts a right (liberty) into a privilege, the citizen can ignore the license and fee and engage in the right (liberty) with impunity.”

Nowhere does the Constitution mention home ownership, car ownership, marriage, sex, drug use, nor commercial activity which does not cross state lines. Since they are not mentioned, the federal government does not have jurisdiction to regulate those activities, so according to the Tenth Amendment, they are rights that are retained by the states, and/or – depending on the content of the various state constitutions – the people.

It would seem that these kinds of property ownership and activities are natural liberties, which existed prior to, and without, government, and therefore they should not, and cannot, be rightfully limited, nor conditioned, by governments.

However, many manners of ownership and types of activities such as these – including ownership and activities which neither harm, nor even affect, anyone else, if properly maintained and undertaken – are routinely, and egregiously, taxed and regulated by governments. Moreover, they have all kinds of permission and licensure requirements imposed on them; requirements that all sorts of documentation be presented to authorities in order to continue.

Proponents of gun control sometimes argue that guns should be treated like cars. As an internet meme on the subject reads, “It’s done for a car, why not a gun? Get a learner’s permit. Take a written test to prove your knowledge of gun laws, usage and safety. Take your weapon for a ‘road test’ to obtain a license. Obtain insurance, pay to register it every few years and have it inspected on a regular basis.”

But is it really necessary to have a driver’s license in order to enjoy the right to drive? No; in fact, between 1868 and 1972, no less than 24 cases in the United States effectively affirmed either 1) that driving is a fundamental right, rather than a privilege; and / or 2) that one’s mode of transportation is a matter of personal choice; and / or 3a) that it is not necessary to obtain a license nor registration in order to drive or travel; and / or 3b) that it is not necessary to pay a licensing fee, nor any other tax or duty; and / or 4a) that the only thing required to drive a vehicle is reasonable care in its operation, and / or 4b) to obey the common law of the road.

The first in these cases was Crandall v. Nevada (1868, Nevada), the ruling in which actually goes so far as to suggest that requirements to pay for drivers’ licenses are taxes which inhibit people from leaving their state.

Twenty-three other cases which affirm the liberties which I mentioned above are: Arthur v. Morgan (1884, U.S.); Swift v. City of Topeka (1890, Kansas); City of Chicago v. Collins (1898, Illinois); Ex Parte Dickey (Dickey v. Davis) (1904, California); Indiana Springs Co. v. Brown (1905, Indiana); Christy v. Elliot (1905, Illinois); Hillhouse v. United States (1907, U.S.); Simeone v. Lindsay (1907, Delaware); Brinkman v. Pacholke (1908, Indiana); Cecchi v. Lindsay (1910, Delaware);vFarnsworth v. Tampa Electric Co. (1911, Florida); State v. Armstead (1913, Mississippi); Escobedo v. California (1914, California); Butler v. Cabe (1914, Arkansas); Chicago Motor Coach Co. v. City of Chicago (1929, Illinois); Thompson v. Smith (1930, Virginia); Teche Lines, Inc. v. Danforth (1943, Mississippi); Berberian v. Lussier (1958, Rhode Island); Schecter v. Killingsworth (1963, Arizona); Adams v. City of Pocatello (1966, Idaho); California v. Farley (1971, California); People v. Horton (1971, California); and Ward v. Meredith (1972, California).

This shows that the gun control proponent’s argument holds no weight, when predicated on the idea that gun licensing requirements can be justified on the grounds that one must be licensed in order to drive a car.

But let us (ahem) shift gears for a moment, from cars and guns, to gay marriage: proponents of gay marriage often argue that homosexual couples should be “free” to marry just like heterosexual couples. However, they often neglect to mention that the legal right to marry is not a freedom, but a privilege; a privilege which is only granted if the civil government deigns to grant permission for the union.

Given that, before 1967, most states in the union had anti-miscegenation laws that prohibited people from different races from intermarrying, isn’t it obvious that a government which has the ability to deny the legal right to marry on the basis of race, is a government which is powerful enough to deny the legal right to marry on the basis of sexual orientation, and moreover, a government powerful enough to reverse its stance on criminalizing marriage across races? And isn't it obvious that a government powerful enough to have once restricted the conditions for blacks to own firearms, is powerful enough to do it again?

Given all this – and the fact that in some states (particularly, Illinois), couples actually have to apply for an application to obtain a marriage license (that’s right, you have to apply in order to apply) – why should marriage be a privilege, but not a freedom? If my spouse and I agree that we are married, and we have a verbal or written agreement between ourselves, and/or mark that fact down in our family Bible (or our copy of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, or wherever we want to write it down), then what is a government to tell us otherwise? How does our status as an informally married couple interfere with the rights or freedoms of anybody else?

Similarly, the proponents of marijuana legalization have argued in favor of legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana use, sale, and possession, but rarely support making marijuana use a freedom. While it is conducive to increasing personal liberty to reduce criminal penalties for using, selling, and possessing marijuana, to “legalize” marijuana serves only to create new sets of laws which control how, and when, and by whom, marijuana is used. To “legalize” marijuana is not to normalize it – making its use and sale “free” – but to (as I like to say) “legal it up”.

Some states, regrettably, are so eager to make marijuana use more free, that they are willing to tax it, albeit for some arguably good purposes, such as education. But when the State of Oregon considered its own legislation to legalize recreational marijuana use, clever lawmakers were able to hide the fact that nearly half of the funds from legal marijuana taxation went to law enforcement. They did this by breaking up funding for police into three different items, such that the single item appearing to reap the most funding – because it had the highest percentage of funding for a single item – was education and schools, rather than policing.

The result is that, while police may cease enforcing laws against personal marijuana use, the taxes reaped from legal marijuana sales in Oregon, now fund the enforcement of laws, including laws against selling marijuana without the proper business permits (in the case of Oregon, that is, unless the buyer is a medicinal marijuana patient, in which case, they, too, have to go through the proper channels, obtaining diagnoses from doctors, and permits).

Although in some states, obtaining a marriage license entitles couples to some hundreds of legally protected rights (in the case of New York, fourteen hundred), and permits for guns and marijuana protect those who own and use them against unlawful aggression by the police, these are not true protections of already existing freedoms, i.e., liberties, but rather, privileges, which are only gained upon the satisfaction of certain conditions, and which can be altered and taken away through elections and legislation.

Aside from applications, and permits, and licenses, we often use the term “registration” to describe the application process for obtaining such privileges; registering your car, registering your gun, registering to vote, et cetera. But what is really going on here is that the roots of the word “register” are the Latin words regis (“of the king”) and rex (“king”).

We do not own our cars, nor our guns, nor the right to vote, nor the terms of our marriage, nor the substances we use in the privacy of “our own homes”. We register those things with the civil government, and with the aristocrats who run it. They own the titles to those things; we merely rent, or use, or occupy them. They can take those things away from us, when and if we fail to use them, how, and when, and for what purposes, they – the legal owners – would prefer us to. We pay property taxes, and rent, and fees for licenses, permits, and registration, in order to gain and retain possession of those things.

As the liberal supporters of gay marriage and marijuana legalization tell us, we should have to register our guns and obtain permits, and the taxes from legal marijuana sales should go to fund schools, and perhaps law enforcement. But what if we treated gay marriage and gay sex the same way their proponents wish to treat gun ownership and use?

Why, if one must obtain permission from the government in order to own a gun, or marijuana – and own and use them on what is supposedly our own private property – should a gay couple not be obligated to obtain permission from the government in order to do what they do in the privacy of their own homes?

And hey, as long as we’re requiring permission for gay sex and gay marriage, and imposing taxes on marijuana, why don’t we tax gay sex too!? “You don’t want to pay the government a dollar to help build a school, each time you have gay sex? You must hate children!” …Or I just don’t want to help fund the police and the political and bureaucratic classes every time I exercise a basic personal freedom.

Anyway, this may sound ridiculous, and, of course, gay couples should not have to apply for permission to do have sex. But what if they want to call their relationship a marriage? In that case, those same liberals are perfectly happy to fight for a decade or two in order to turn what was already a liberty, into a privilege, granted through government permission, and protected by law.

As 2004 Libertarian Party presidential candidate Michael Badnarik explained, common-law marriage already exists (at least in nine or ten states, but it used to be more prevalent). In some states, you can be in a committed relationship with somebody, live with them, have children together, and call what you have a “marriage”, and the government will, or at least should, recognize it as such. So, then, why, in the push to legalize same-sex marriage, was the debate framed in terms of “government giving or granting us equal rights”, rather than in terms of “government legally recognizing and protecting an equal right that we already have”?

Even more disturbing than the idea that our rights come from government, and that government can deny the privilege to marry on the basis of race or sexual orientation, is the implication of something else that Badnarik explained. Namely, if I have to ask the government for the legal permission to have sex with my spouse and to call that a marriage, and the government has the authority to deny me that privilege, then doesn’t this imply that the government is the legal possessor of the original right to have sex with my spouse, and to call that a marriage?

Furthermore, why should I have to pay sixty dollars to the government for a marriage license, in order to fuck my wife, when this woman has already agreed to let me fuck her, and call her “my wife” (or “Britney Spears”, or “Donald Duck”, or whatever I please) for a mere fifty dollars!? These questions may seem crass, but they beg asking. After all, isn’t it the fault of government that the economy has been so poorly managed that the resulting poverty has driven many people into prostitution?

Simply put, in that we are all potential spouses, isn’t government little more than the abusive marital partner, and the pimp, of us all?

But the fact that privileges masquerade as freedoms, rights, and liberties, does not only apply to guns, marriage, illicit substances, and the other things I mentioned; it also applies to identification documents, and substances which the government does not regard as illicit.

Take, for example, tobacco and alcohol. Suppose that I want to buy a pack of cigarettes or a six-pack of beer. In order to do so, I have to prove that I’m above some age predetermined through government legislation. That is so, even if it is obvious that I am above that age, and whether or not I am an emancipated minor, and/or mature enough to smoke or drink. The transaction between me and the merchant cannot be described as either mutual nor free-market; there is a third party involved that taxes, regulates, and conditions the transaction.

By the way, even if I have the proper identification document – such as a driver’s license or a state-issued photo identification card – there is no guarantee that the merchant will accept it, because state I.D.s and driver’s licenses can look very dissimilar, and because the merchant might not be sure that the I.D. is real. This problem could very well be used as justification for ushering in a National I.D. Card, but I argue that personal privacy would be surrendered in the implementation of such a thing.

Even now, without a National I.D. Card, if you do manage to get your I.D. accepted by the merchant, he or she might not simply read it in order to verify it, they might run it under an electronic scanner, and who knows where that information is going?

Not only are possession, use, and sale of marijuana, tobacco, and alcohol conditioned by government; so too are accessories and paraphernalia. Lighters, rolling papers, keg taps… none of these things will get you high or drunk, but you still – in some circumstances and jurisdictions – have to prove you’re above some legal age in order to buy them.

Say I, to the merchant: “Papers, please?”. Reply he: “Papers, please!?”.

But why should you have to prove that you’re old enough to use tobacco, in order to buy a lighter? What if you don’t smoke, and you’re only buying a lighter because you’re about to go to the woods and light a camp fire? If the answer is because the merchant doesn’t know for what purpose you’re going to use the lighter, why should that matter, if once you buy the lighter, it becomes your property, and thus yours to do with however you wish, as long as your use of it doesn’t harm anyone else’s person or legitimate property?

What is going to happen after a monetary, governmental, and industrial collapse force us into bare subsistence mode? Are we still going to ask for government permission to build fires in order to survive?

Furthermore, where should we draw the line between work, labor, and action? As Hannah Arendt explained in The Human Condition, some forms of action are undertaken solely for the purpose of sustenance of life, while others are undertaken for the purpose of producing some enduring item or artefact (this is Arendt’s distinction between labor and work, respectively). Arendt’s distinction is a philosophical one, but what is the difference between labor and work in legal terms?

As comedian Doug Stanhope noted, “You need a diploma in this country to cut hair.” Cosmetology students are required to take a national examination in order to get licensed and become practicing cosmetologists. Obtaining and renewing licenses range from $30 to $150, and in some jurisdictions they require more hours of training than the medical profession.

If I cut my (hypothetical) child’s hair, or anybody else’s, for free, am I engaged in a form of work and commerce; the kind that warrants being taxed and regulated, and warrants legislation requiring that I must apply for a permit in order to do so? Am I engaging in underground market activity, cheating the taxman, the regulators and bureaucrats, and the permit and licensure systems? Furthermore, if I receive no monetary compensation for doing so, am I engaging in a kind of uncompensated labor which can rightfully be described as involuntary servitude, i.e., slavery?

Am I, by cutting my own hair, or anyone else’s, depriving licensed barbers and cosmetologists of their jobs, and engaging in the kind of behavior which should merit me having my knees crowbarred by the local barbers’ union?

Or, by cutting someone’s hair, am I simply engaging in a basic liberty, which is no business of anybody else, unless I elect to call my enterprise (i.e., an undertaking) an enterprise (i.e., a business), and choose to have any income taxed, and my actions regulated?

What about cooking and washing dishes? If I invite people into “my” home, and feed them, and wash their dishes afterwards, then shouldn’t I be paid for my service, or at least compensated for the cost of the food, and the soap and water? What if I provide the cooking, and the food, and dish washing, for free, but I accept voluntary donations? If I reap income from that service, should that income be taxed? Is that commercial activity, the kind which should get me in trouble with local zoning boards, because I am engaging in business activity in a residential area?

If so, then what’s to stop the government – the pimp of us all – from declaring the sex that I have, to be untaxed, unregulated commercial activity in a non-business residential zone, requiring me to get a government whoring license, obey regulations and pay taxes, and put me out of business and send me to jail for prostitution?

While we’re on the topic of prostitution, why does “legalizing” prostitution involve licensing, permits, regulation, and S.T.D. testing? Why can’t “legalizing” prostitution involve making prostitution a liberty; making it free? Do governments that legalize prostitution expect most prostitutes to have their lives together enough to pay for these permits and tests, join a whores’ union, and fill out reams of government paperwork?

But back to serving food: Should I get in trouble with the local health inspector for serving uninspected food? Again, this may sound ridiculous, but mothers of school children who were involved in bake sales to raise money for their schools, have had their home-made baked goods destroyed because they were made in the home, rather than in places where sanitary conditions could be ensured by the health inspector.

Not only that, but in various states, police have shut down children’s lemonade stands because the children and their parents did not apply for the appropriate vendors’ licenses and permits. Lemonade stands have even been shut down for fear that the drinks sold could be poisonous, like the Kool-Aid served at Jonestown in Guyana, which led to the death of over 900 people in a mass suicide.

Eleven-year-old Madison “Mistletoe Maddie” Root was denied the freedom to walk around and sell hand-picked mistletoe at a street fair in Portland, Oregon – and told to beg for money like a homeless person – because she did not obtain a permit, and also out of concerns for the plant’s psychotropic effects. Again, “it’s poison!” Some people are allergic!

So I guess we need vendors’ permits, and also child labor laws, to stop our children from becoming exploited slaves, and somehow also, at the same time, members of terrorist religious cults. Warren Buffett gets to sell peanuts at the age of eight for five cents here and ten cents here, and now he’s a billionaire, but yeah, our children are terrorists if they can’t learn to respect the police’s goddamn authoritaw.

Clearly the problem is insufficiently enforced child labor laws, and vendors’ licensing standards, not a reckless obedience to authority that leaves us blind to the importance of instilling a work ethic in the next generation, and teaching them the value of a dollar. It’s best to just let the snow pile up on the State of New Jersey day after day, and hope that twelve-year-old boys will figure out a way to raise the $350 necessary to obtain a permit to shovel their neighbors’ driveways. Those neighbors need to get to work to slave away for their employers and the government? Tough shit.

Whether you’re an illegal immigrant buying a six-pack of beer or a pack of cigarettes after a hard day of underground labor; or a kid selling some peanuts or lemonade; or a dude who just lost his wallet and I.D. cards buying a pack of rolling papers; or a gay guy having sex with his boyfriend and wanting to call it a marriage; or a black cohabiting couple with children, trying to get their common-law marriage recognized; or a wannabe hairdresser giving out free samples; or a family baking some cookies to help fund a school; or a dude with glaucoma (or just the munchies) smoking weed in his basement (or his mom’s basement); or a mutual aid society trying to feed a group of homeless people in a public park without being obligated to pay a fine; or a poor person trying to register to vote; or a black farmer in the early 20th century trying to get a gun to fend off crows, or enforcers of Jim Crow laws; or a minor driving their collapsed parent to the hospital; or a lady who wants to possess her car or home in a manner that resembles full ownership (including the right to deny others, including law enforcement officials, the right to search that property); or just a person walking around doing some unspecified thing that could, by some contrived stretch of government imagination, be construed as commercial activity… basically, fuck you, get your Nazi paperwork in order.

So go hit the books. Just don’t read the Ninth or Tenth Amendments to the Constitution, or the part of the Fourth Amendment about the right to be secure in our papers.