Freedom Enough 032 - The Voluntaryist Teachings of Lysander Spooner

The entire world has been enslaved.

For anyone who loves freedom, the future looks utterly dreadful.

Where can we find hope?

Throwing off this tyranny is going to require changing the hearts and minds of billions of other people. How is this possible?

It is possible. Great societal change, whether for the better or worse, always begins with the ideas in YOUR MIND. Your choice is binary - either you believe in self ownership, or you are a slave.

Hello World, I'm Alexander C. Baker, J.D. expert in the law that should exist, but doesn't exist. I'm not the only one who became a legal expert, only to then report that we have all been enslaved by the people calling themselves your government.

It's August 20, 2023, Today on Freedom Enough # 32 - The Voluntaryist Teachings of Lysander Spooner.

Back in the 19th century, there was a very brilliant, courageous, and fiercely honest man named Lysander Spooner (1808–1887). He was an entrepreneur, a slavery abolitionist, a political and legal theorist.
I'm going to read and comment on some passages from Spooner, whose ideas are just as relevant, just as applicable today as they were back in the 1800's when he was writing.

In fact, Spooner's ideas are more urgently needed today than ever. All the political debate in the world won't solve anything if you don't have the right set of principles in your mind to begin with.

-----

Vices are not crimes

"The object aimed at in the punishment of vices is to deprive every man of his natural right and liberty to pursue his own happiness under the guidance of his own judgment and by the use of his own property."

--

The American Letter Mail Company

Throughout the 1840s, the rates of the Post Office were a source of national controversy, with many Americans considering them exorbitantly high. For context, in those days it cost 25 cents to send a letter from Boston to Washington, D.C. That’s about $7.50 in 2020 dollars. Freight, however, was significantly cheaper: a barrel of flour cost about 2/3 what it cost to send that very same letter.

Spooner astutely noticed that while the Constitution provides for a state-run Post Office, it does not prohibit private citizens from running their own independent post office. With Spooner’s independent solution on the market, prices began to drop significantly. Court cases were generally found in Spooner’s favor, with the U.S. Circuit Court agreeing with his argument that the United States government had no right to monopolize the mail system. Congress took action, passing a law in 1851, that made the United States Post Office a legal monopoly.

This spelled the end of Spooner’s company, but he was known thereafter as “the father of the 3-cent stamp.”

https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/spooner-the-unconstitutionality-of-the-laws-of-congress-prohibiting-private-mails-1844

Abolition Plan
Open Letter TO THE NON-SLAVEHOLDERS OF THE SOUTH.

• Spooner opposed slavery based on first principles.

https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/spooner-a-plan-for-the-abolition-of-slavery-and-to-the-non-slaveholders-of-the-south-1858

• By urging people to not vote for slave-holders, we can see that Spooner was possibly still holding out some hope for the possibility of good government.

• By 1870, that would change

• What happened?

• Opposed the invasion of the South by Lincoln’s army

• Isn’t he contradicting himself? No.

• the so-called civil war was never about freeing the slaves, it was about “preserving the Union”, i.e. the tax base of the U.S. federal government.

• Story changed in the middle of the war.

No Treason – the Constitution of No Authority

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/36145/pg36145-images.html