How I Became A Voluntaryist: A Farewell to Tax-Financed Murder

Voluntaryist, The, Second Quarter 2008 by Knaebel, Jeff

[Editor's Note: In December 2006, I received an order for books from Pune, India. The purchaser was Jeff Knaebel. In April 2007, Jeff sent me his book, Experiments In Moral Sovereignty: Notes of An American Exile, which he had published in October 2006.1 discovered that Jeff was a tax expatriate, as well as a person who believes that "a man needs a country but would be better off without a government." I read Jeff's book and asked him to write the story of his life, explaining how he became a voluntaryist. The following article was pieced together from Jeff's writings and his correspondence with me during May-June 2007. He has read, edited, and approved the publication of this final version. His book, Experiments In Moral Sovereignty, is available from The Voluntaryist, $ 20 postpaid. I highly recommend it. His personal website is www.Stateless-Freedom.org.]

Introductory Note

I was surprised and pleased to receive Carl's request to write this essay. It provides an opportunity to do my homework. My job is to send a voice-to speak truth to power. My mission is to reclaim the human birthright to self-ownership, together with the right to respect the lives of others. Life is liberty. Authority is violence. Blind obedience is insanity. I am refusing to be a tax-paying accomplice to State murder.

Although I seek mostly to write in terms of timeless, impersonal principles as they relate to individual action, I agreed to write this personal story in hope to help "spread the word" that we must elevate our consciousness or risk premature extinction as a species. The battle is for the mind of man, and it can be engaged only one by one. Perhaps these notes of my small efforts might be of use to others in the struggle. Ultimately the power of ideas must translate into individual action on the ground.

The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.

-Stephen Biko, quoted in Endgame, by Derrick Jensen

"Free Your Mind," says The Voluntaryist. Be Not State Property, if I may add.

Study of The Voluntaryist has been influential and helpful. I support all the goals of "voluntaryism" as known to me at this point. As a philosophy of life and social harmony, I believe it is the way we must go. However, I am instinctively wary of personal labels. They seem intrinsically dangerous because they tend to put us into ideological boxes from which heartto-heart communication is distorted or muted. We are actually being-becomings whose language is older than words. When we place ourselves into mental boxes, we tend to bump into each other, rather than flowing in the constantly changing flux of energy in which we have our being.

I would label myself an "absolute freedom-seeker," acting in accord with the laws of equal liberty and nonviolence, guided by an unspoken charter of free inquiry. We must tear apart the boxes around our minds, board by board, so that we may relate to each other as equal beings in an energy field of loving kindness. As said by Kurt Vonnegut, "We are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is."

Carl has asked for a biographical sketch of my life. So here it is.

Tagging along in the wake of my father's career as mining engineer kept me on the move during the first twelve years of my life. Born 1939 in San Francisco, within two weeks I was in Canada, thence upstate New York, on to New Mexico, Utah, New York, Brazil, and British Guiana, followed by a return to boarding school in New Hampshire at age 11.

We lived in mining exploration camps of thatchedroof huts in South America, swept away tarantulas before showering with rain water collected in a converted 55 gallon drum, and ate game procured from the jungle by native hunters using bows and arrows. Experiences during a brief stint in a Brazilian school had included my younger brother (age 5) having his left arm tied and his palms struck repeatedly with a ruler in order to force him into right-handed penmanship-to suit the authorities of an education system grounded in structural violence.

The mindless violence of American adults "sport fishing" the Essequibo River with dynamite, along with airborne "sport" hunting of crocodiles, etched a deep negative impression into my young mind. In a land of brown people, we were clearly invaders.

Interaction since early childhood with multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual peoples is perhaps the origin of my conviction that all people are "my relations" and that no person is less than me.

Age 12 found me in New Mexico, during the breakup of my parental family. I was shuffled among relatives and boarding school in California and New Mexico. The U.S. government public school system exposed me to a lot of violence. Corporal punishment was routine. Schoolyard fights were sometimes instigated by teachers and staff. My short term in the Boy Scouts was led by a Scoutmaster just returned from the Korean War. He seemed to think his mission was to train the coming generation of infantrymen, which he did by putting us through live-fire exercises in remote areas.