With respect to “soci­ety”, I am com­pletely out of “con­trol”. With respect to my “con­science”, I am the con­sum­mate “conformist”.

I feel it nec­es­sary to pref­ace the fol­low­ing remarks; to speak unequiv­o­cally, delib­er­ately, and pur­pose­fully. What­ever actions may result sub­se­quent to my state­ments will be shoul­dered by those ini­ti­at­ing such actions. You may twist my words, but you will never bend my will. I would rel­ish the oppor­tu­nity to look any would-be actor, usurper, agent, or pro­po­nent of con­trol, gov­er­nance, or reg­u­la­tion in the eye and say what I have taken time to write on the pages con­tained herein. I am not a vio­lent man. I reserve my right to self-defense, should I choose to exer­cise same. Hold­ing true to that com­mit­ment, I like­wise reserve my right to act in what­ever man­ner I see fit, peace­ably, and with due regard and care for oth­ers. I will NOT obey what many igno­rantly call “the law” which in real­ity are leg­isla­tive and arbi­trary pro­hi­bi­tions on oth­er­wise peace­able and non-violent actions. What­ever the edict, procla­ma­tion, com­mand, or rule; I will refuse to act or com­ply. I under­stand that all power resides with the indi­vid­ual and only by way of my igno­rance and fear may you gain con­trol of me; and in a purely philo­soph­i­cal sense, it is I who con­trols myself to step into the shack­les you lay before me. I have come to under­stand too much to allow that to hap­pen. I admon­ish, cau­tion, warn, and with­out reser­va­tion com­mand you to cease any desire to engage me. Read on and do what you will, and I will live my life with nary a synapse cross­ing my con­scious­ness which is tainted with any con­cept of your vileness.

I have authored a doc­u­ment titled “Pub­lic Dec­la­ra­tion of Sov­er­eignty, Expa­tri­a­tion, and Dis­so­lu­tion of all Pre­vi­ous National and Polit­i­cal Alle­giance”. Why, you ask? If we are defined by our actions then I may be deemed to be a cit­i­zen, sub­ject, or per­son sub­ject to the laws of gov­ern­ments. In the past, I did igno­rantly con­sent. I believed I was required to. Mov­ing for­ward, I wanted to put those who believe they con­trol me on notice. That is a respon­si­ble thing to do. From that point on, there is no con­fu­sion about what I claim my posi­tion to be in rela­tion to gov­ern­ment and my defense of my rights when under assault by gov­ern­ment actors. They say, igno­rance of the law is no excuse. I say igno­rance of my rights is no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for gov­ern­ment to deem to con­trol my pri­vate, peace­able, actions. I have pro­claimed my rights, nat­ural and unalien­able; and gov­ern­ment mov­ing against me and any result­ing defense of my rights does not indict me, and absolve them.

For the record, and full dis­clo­sure to gov­ern­ment actors who believe they pos­sess some power over me, I do not “con­sent“! I am not one of the so-called “con­sent­ing gov­erned”, and I pub­licly rebut any such pre­sump­tion. I am not a sub­ject to any earthly mas­ter or author­ity. I rescind all explicit or tacit alle­giances to ANY gov­ern­ment for the pro­tec­tion of My rights, life, or prop­erty, and I assume full and total respon­si­bil­ity for My pro­tec­tion of same. I will pay My own way, through vol­un­tary taxes or fees, for any bur­den I place on gov­ern­ment or soci­ety through the use of any priv­i­lege or ben­e­fit. I oper­ate under no priv­i­lege or license; I am armed, capa­ble, and pre­pared to  pro­vide for My own defense, the defense of My loved ones, and any who may seek My aid. I am knowl­edge­able, informed, and aware of all the absolute, nat­ural, unalien­able, and invi­o­lable rights bestowed by My Cre­ator; and I will live My life under the terms of My con­science; acted upon through My rea­son, and for any trans­gres­sion against the like rights, free­doms or prop­erty of another, be sub­ject to the pun­ish­ment of my per­son; save but for My own pri­vate actions, shall I be ulti­mately account­able to no one or no thing other than My Cre­ator. Any action taken by any one or any thing that poses a threat, dimin­ish­ment, vio­la­tion or penalty to Myself or My prop­erty will be met with resis­tance, bel­liger­ence, resolve, deter­mi­na­tion and, if need-be, force. I Under­stand and acknowl­edge the per­va­sive igno­rance that per­me­ates and pol­lutes many of the minds of today, and I objec­tion­ably and reluc­tantly sub­mit to some level of incon­ve­nience upon My per­son by the unthink­ing, igno­rant, and fear­ful automa­tons who have sold them­selves into servi­tude, thereby hav­ing aban­doned their con­science in favor of the man­dates and dic­tates of arti­fi­cial rea­son. I find it more humane and expe­di­ent to not bemoan a rip­ple of inequity that finds it ori­gin in a sea of tyranny. I will reach out to My fel­low man, though they may move from a posi­tion of igno­rance and fear. Should My peace­ful offer of under­stand­ing and rea­son be denied in favor of the anes­thetiz­ing fog of  igno­rance, I will deliver upon them a blow indis­tin­guish­able from that which is reserved for an ill dis­posed despot should they attempt to act upon that igno­rance to My injury. I unequiv­o­cally and defin­i­tively claim My life, free­dom and prop­erty as Mine, and Mine alone, not sub­ject to the whim or needs of any soci­ety, gov­ern­ment, or incor­po­real con­struct of the mind of man. I will assert My life and free­dom in a peace­able and civil man­ner; will resolve to obey no one; will sub­mit Myself to just penal­ties for my trans­gres­sions; and under coer­cion, threat, or force will retal­i­ate in-kind for My preser­va­tion and pro­tec­tion. So help Me God!

“Know all men by these presents, that I, Mark McCoy, do not wish to be regarded as a mem­ber of any incor­po­rated soci­ety, incor­po­real body, or legal con­struct which I have not vol­un­tar­ily, explic­itly, and with fully informed con­sent, joined.”

What I have to say I do so after much anguish and reflec­tion. The evi­dence, as I see it, is irrefutable and abun­dant. The assem­bly of free and inde­pen­dent states that is called Amer­ica has been rel­e­gated to the pages of his­tory and replaced by a de-facto gov­ern­ment called the “United States”, with no basis in the will of the Peo­ple, but rather by the con­sent of the igno­rant. Will and con­sent are not synonymous.

Will is vol­un­tary, pur­pose­ful, and delib­er­ate. It is a desire and com­mand for some­thing. Con­sent is vol­un­tary, whether know­ingly or igno­rantly, and per­mis­sive. It is also acqui­es­cence, capit­u­la­tion, sur­ren­der or apa­thy. The will of the Peo­ple cre­ated a gov­ern­ment, but only to act upon the con­sent of the gov­erned. I no longer offer my con­sent. In my opin­ion, mod­ern gov­ern­ment is an anachro­nis­tic insti­tu­tion that has out­lived its pur­pose. It is widely held that the ONLY legit­i­mate pur­pose of gov­ern­ment is the pro­tec­tion of the rights and prop­erty of the Peo­ple. Gov­ern­ment is NOT to dis­pense ben­e­fits, admin­is­ter pro­grams, heal, clothe, and edu­cate peo­ple. These duties should be left to society-at-large. This notion is often impugned by those ensconced in the col­lec­tivist camp because soci­ety, more specif­i­cally peo­ple, can­not be trusted to man­age such endeav­ors. My response is then, if Peo­ple can­not be trusted to act char­i­ta­bly, com­pas­sion­ately, phil­an­throp­i­cally, or respon­si­bly towards their fellow-man, then how can such incom­pe­tent Peo­ple be trusted to col­lec­tively dis­cern from the pop­u­la­tion, and vote for, a body of com­pe­tent Peo­ple charged with tax­ing, reg­u­lat­ing, con­trol­ling, and pun­ish­ing the Peo­ple for their polit­i­cal and nat­ural transgressions?

If I do not have the power to remove myself from a polit­i­cal body then I could also not have the power to give myself to such an insti­tu­tion. There­fore, if I have not given myself to a polit­i­cal body, any polit­i­cal body exer­cis­ing con­trol over my per­son is act­ing as a mas­ter and usurper, against my will. An indi­vid­ual is a self-owner, and not part of the com­mon stock. Pos­i­tive, or man-made law, derives from con­sent. Gov­ern­ment thrives on con­sent; be it express or tacit. It is that con­sent which lends legit­i­macy to the harm it causes. With­out con­sent, much of what gov­ern­ment does could be iden­ti­fied as tyran­ni­cal, despotic, ter­ror­is­tic, oppres­sive, and vio­lent, if it weren’t for the Peo­ple duti­fully trudg­ing off to the polls to cast their con­sent to the wind in hopes that a despot-in-waiting will rain less injury down upon them than the pre­vi­ous despot. And what recourse may pro­vide us relief should the elec­tion cycle result in more tyranny with the only chance of relief being years away in another elec­tion? Must the Peo­ple be forced to suf­fer for no other rea­son than there be no polit­i­cal relief from a despot? Or may the Peo­ple shed their polit­i­cal shack­les so that they may find relief in their nat­ural state, absent the trap­pings of polit­i­cal edi­fices, and sim­ply vow to obey no more?

Where does this lead me? I really can­not say. I know only of a few instances where this phi­los­o­phy has been applied. Henry David Thoreau, I believe, was the first to put it into appli­ca­tion. Later, Mahatma Gandhi and Mar­tin Luther King took the same path. Each, of their own appli­ca­tion of this prin­ci­ple, involved peace­ful, non-violent, civil dis­obe­di­ence. It may be worth­while to inves­ti­gate the impli­ca­tions of that appli­ca­tion, as it may stand in con­tradis­tinc­tion to self-defense, even if such defense appears to be vio­lent. How­ever, what I engage is not nec­es­sar­ily civil dis­obe­di­ence. Civil dis­obe­di­ence car­ries the mean­ing of dis­obey­ing a law which one finds unjust or immoral; which means there must first be a law. For there to be a law there must be an author­ity, a law-giver. Man is not capa­ble of cre­at­ing law. What he does is within the lim­ited con­text of the author­ity he has either usurped or been endowed with by oth­ers, but the rules pro­mul­gated under that con­di­tion are not law.

Law is bind­ing upon all, and bind­ing upon all equally. There can be no jus­tice where a law pre­scribes a behav­ior or pro­hibits an act upon a class while at the same time exclud­ing a class. It can also not take that which is against the moral or nat­ural law and make it law­ful, such as mur­der, tax­a­tion, emi­nent domain…. A right to prop­erty, peace­ful actions, vol­un­tary inter­ac­tion, “inalien­able rights” are absolute. They do not exist in the­ory wait­ing for a leg­is­la­ture or court to dis­tin­guish lim­i­ta­tions upon the exer­cise of such rights in pur­suit of the “greater good”. The pur­pose of gov­ern­ment is not to fur­ther the “greater good”, but to pro­tect the rights of the indi­vid­ual. The greater good is char­ac­ter­ized by the least amount of gov­ern­ment; for if soci­ety is gen­er­ally peace­ful, there is lit­tle need for gov­ern­ment. Law is not to be the gate through which our thoughts and actions must pass for inspec­tion by some arbi­trary author­ity, but a prism through which rea­son, moral­ity, equal­ity, tol­er­ance, and peace are revealed from the light of human interaction.

If I refuse con­sent to being gov­erned by a sys­tem, or by men and women employed by such sys­tem, who have no author­ity over me then the alter­na­tive would be to have a sys­tem imposed upon me against my will; com­pelling me to act; pro­hibit­ing me from act­ing; and extract­ing from me my prop­erty, free­dom, lib­erty and labor.

Sup­pose an offi­cer of the gov­ern­ment approaches a child of early years who has not yet been exposed to the con­cept of gov­ern­ment. Of what con­se­quence will there be for a child who fails to rec­og­nize a badge, uni­form, statute, sum­mons? To the child, the offi­cer is just an adult exert­ing power with noth­ing more than the threat of force. That child doesn’t rec­og­nize the author­ity of that offi­cer. Actu­ally, the only thing that gives that offi­cer any author­ity is the mind rec­og­niz­ing that man as some­thing that has power. The power comes from within us. With­out it, offi­cers are just peo­ple play­ing a role that gives them, as they per­ceive it, power to force us to obey their com­mands. Once we real­ize we are not deal­ing with gov­ern­ment, an arti­fi­cial thing that exists only on paper and in our minds, but instead gov­ern­ment actors, peo­ple, who are rely­ing upon our igno­rance and fear to empower them, then the game is exposed and the truth revealed. The ques­tion then becomes, who has any right to com­pel obe­di­ence from any­body else when there is actu­ally no higher author­ity than that of our Cre­ator and our conscience?

I now real­ize that we are cap­tives. We are sur­rounded by the pres­ence of a stand­ing army of gov­ern­ment agents, police and offi­cers. We are liv­ing in a gilded cage. Our keep­ers are armed, aggres­sive, and deter­mined to com­pel our obe­di­ence. We are led to believe that we must obey and com­ply with the orders of any­one in pos­ses­sion of a badge, gun, or wear­ing the trap­pings of a fig­ure of author­ity. I do not rec­og­nize, chose to obey, nor offer my con­sent to such a premise or per­son who would deem to be so fool­ish as to believe that I am oblig­ated to obey any com­mand of another human being.

Some Peo­ple who hear these words become uneasy and skep­ti­cal. It is com­fort­ing to have a force to rely upon for pro­tec­tion from mal­con­tents. There is lit­tle cir­cum­spec­tion when we hear of some­one being tasered to death;detained at a road­side check­point; have their prop­erty con­fis­cated for ties to “drugs”; fail­ing to act in a cer­tain way pre­scribed by gov­ern­ment; or have their chil­dren taken away for unac­cept­able par­ent­ing. We qui­etly thank our lucky stars, look ship-shape, and pray the next act of aggres­sion befalls any­body but our­selves. Despite every­thing gov­ern­ment does, it never suc­ceeds in cre­at­ing the utopian soci­ety it promises if we only “give a lit­tle more”. Then slowly through rep­e­ti­tion, expo­sure, indoc­tri­na­tion, and com­plic­ity, we sub­con­sciously acqui­esce to despo­tism while we shut our eyes and repeat the words “land of the free and home of the brave” over and over, as if chant­ing and dis­en­gage­ment will some­how pro­duce a soci­ety we long for, but are too igno­rant or fear­ful to invest our­selves in.

It is time to face facts. We are not free. Nei­ther as a peo­ple, a coun­try, a world; we are not free. The chains grow ever more heavy, the walls ever more closer, and the con­trol ever more per­va­sive. The unnat­ural and per­verse feel­ings that per­me­ate my being speak to a jux­ta­po­si­tion of the nat­ural and unnat­ural. It is not nat­ural to be duty-bound to another per­son. It is not nat­ural to ques­tion your own actions for fear of trans­gress­ing on an arbi­trary edict of a pre­sumed author­ity. It is not nat­ural to con­struct our lives so as to remain between the drawn lines of gov­ern­ment and it’s min­ions in observ­ing and inspect­ing our every move and action for pos­si­ble vio­la­tions. I say, let what­ever per­ceived vio­la­tions man­i­fest in the most pro­lific way. Over­whelm the tyrants with the task of main­tain­ing their paper-driven world by our refusal to acqui­esce. Belea­guer them with resis­tance, dis­obe­di­ence and revolution.