May the SNaP Be with You, Part 2
Making it so: SNaP strategy and first practical steps

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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Note: Much of the following appears in Chapter 6 of my upcoming book, The Sacred Nonaggression Principle, and in its advance "field manual."

The first column in this series on the Sacred Nonaggression Principle (SNaP) was actually a summary of what (at that time) was my idea for the book of the same name. When I wrote that summary column, I had not come up with the notion for writing an 'advance copy' of the SNaP book and publishing it via Lulu (a print-on-demand publishing firm with whom I've already published two books: NPC and TMBSM)... in order to meet the urgency of having something for this year's Free State Liberty Forum.

The subsequent columns in this series actually reflect the advance 'field manual' for the SNaP, which contains six chapters titled as follows:

The Big Universal Problem (BUP)—starting the discovery process with an awareness (felt deeply by the freedom community) of an "unease or restlessness" that something just isn't right in the world, and in fact by another phrase would be referred to as 'incipient tyranny.'
The "We", the "They", and the Rest—pondering just who's who in this struggle between the freedom principle and the tyranny principle, in order to better understand (as partisans for liberty) exactly what we are up against, and how to render agents of the 'Dark Side' impotent and ineffectual.
Spiritual Kindergarten—pointing to the foundation of the human spirit that gives rise to 'the sacred' in terms of social behavior; the kindergarten lesson, "don't hit, don't steal, keep promises," becomes the highest mantra...
Nonaggression 101—just as chapter 3 is the moral-emotional calling for the nonaggression principle, chapter 4 consists of the analytical meat of the argument; on theoretical and practical planes we see that the SNaP is the ultimate political principle that trumps all others: there is indeed none higher.
May the SNaP Be with You, Part 1—subtitled, "shouting it from the rafters and taking it to the streets," this chapter is written to the 'average Joe and Jane,' conveying a vision of the natural, absolutely real benefits that come when humanity lays down the gun: abundance, peace, safety, and spiritual awakening.
May the SNaP Be with You, Part 2—represented in this particular column, chapter 6 aims to be the meat and potatoes—whether it's the strategy or the grand strategy I'm not sure—of how we (starting with the freedom activists) proceed in concrete reality to spread the SNaP to turn minds and culture toward The Light.

The orange links for chapters three thru five above are to the corresponding Coffee Coaster columns that precede this ultimate one. And for the practical-minded American audience—I'm starting in America for a couple of reasons[1], but mainly it's the only country I know—I surmise this "What do we do?" discussion is the walk-off home run, the sole reason to read the book or consider the central argument. Very well, let's get started.

The Objective

Stated for the record, my[2] objective is to quickly and effectively spread and teach the SNaP. I want to see the SNaP become the mother's milk of human civilization, its sine qua non, its political alpha and omega, its new social metaphysics. As I mention in the subtitle for the SNaP field manual, the advance book is particularly addressed to teachers and public servants.

I would like to see lovingly nourished in every child in every school across this great land of ours—particularly the children in every government K-12 school we have today—the notion that their kindergarten rules are sacred (the highest social imperative) now and for the rest of their lives... for everyone.[3]

Freedom is for everyone. — Russell Means

Then as the children grow to become adults, as they assume responsibility for their political system, they will insist that nothing in the public framework—from natural-resource management, to maintenance of public buildings and facilities, to property-rights adjudication, to roads, to fire protection, to police, courts, and military, etc.—be accomplished by resort to coercive mechanisms. Further, as they look around at "the economy"—that whole complex of relationships by which material existence is accomplished—they will insist that absolutely no privileges be accorded by the state to any enterprise or organization for any purpose whatsoever.

Thus, to the natural human child, as to the natural human adult, the only valid relationships are consensual and voluntary... and the only acceptable use of physical force in society is responsive. Which is to say, not initiatory. It must be used either to protect or prevent aggression or to ameliorate its effects (e.g. apprehending aggressors and imposing restitution).[4]

And the SNaP is good because the SNaP brings all the benefits discussed in the previous column.

The Strategy—A Suggestion

If the ultimate objective is achieved when children around the world learn from the cradle to honor and sanctify the nonaggression principle, the intermediate objective is to plant the knowledge among the parents and the teachers of those children. In other words, we must do what we can quickly to entrain the SNaP within the minds of our peers in the community where we live.

Context

I've drawn up a control-context figure for the modern era:

The idea behind this sketch is to convey an understanding of the layers of control with which a would-be-free individual has to contend in modern Western democracies... though this figure and my description are specific to America. The thicker the arrow, the more potent the line of control. One can see the average American individual is very strongly affected, indeed ruled, by means of the "academedia" (my term for institutional knowledge/information domination[5]) indicated by the #1 line of force. The various levels of government essentially carry out "corporate" policy, ruling the individual as indicated via lines of force 2-4.

In my diagram, the box labeled "Corp" stands for the whole enchilada of the elaborate, largely hidden money-power infrastructure including the central banks of the West, the international banks behind them, and all the cartel machinery manifested through large mostly transnational corporations. [I'm obviously not including the sole proprietorship that shovels snow from your condo parking lot in the winter.] The "corporation" life form is essential to the authoritarian "They1" domination of human society since the monarchy-leftovers began to subvert the Enlightenment.[6]

Choosing the right lines of force

Note that the average individual's lines of force (control) are strongest toward the grouping of citizens that compose the local officialdom, then perhaps even stronger toward other nonofficial citizens... indicated as a) and b) on the diagram. Also consider the special circumstance for our American citizenry of a written constitution that recognizes fundamental natural rights by means of prohibiting government force in key areas.

That the government(s) has abrogated the fundamental agreement is demonstrated by the size of the lines of force 1 thru 3; lines 1 and 2 would hardly exist under constitutional liberty, and line 3 for the power of individual states would be much fainter. The lines c) and d) which show the control of the citizenry and their constitution over their governments today are faint, but should be (will be) strong and thick.

An important reality I wanted to show is that all the subgroupings of control exist within the universe of citizens: your city councilman, your state legislator, your ordinary federale, and your international bankster are citizens like you... only in the world of presumed equals they've connived to make themselves more equal than others. But inasmuch as the blood of citizenship is common, everything we can do to focus our persuasive efforts at the level where we actually live—in the neighborhoods and the communities—will produce the biggest payoff. A brief description of lines a) and b):

Line a): toward local public servants

As citizen-apostles of the SNaP, we need little more than some literature and some time to devote to our town or city public meetings. I'm not so sure that the SNaP field manual or arguments countering larger classes of government aggression—which generally occur at the state and federal level—are appropriate in this milieu. But for general psychological and community health, we can simply make ourselves known as neighbors... eventually to be followed with explicit identification of "where we're coming from." Taking part is essential to taking back freedom.

The SNaP book or something like it should be constantly available to local officials. Presentations of the kind I'll be delivering at the Liberty Forum are important, as well, augmented with talking points that pertain to specifics that help to move the particular community toward a "zero-tolerance" policy on government aggression—whether local, state, or federal. A pertinent example is when local governments are given money or issued instructions to enforce unconstitutional statutes, particularly the drug laws. Local SNaP advocates (SNaPsters?) can lobby effectively with SNaP materials and related literature to prevent communities from taking money or executing programs that so clearly aggress.

For approaching local officials who are in law enforcement, see below.

Line b): toward fellow citizens

Here we work with existing libertarian activity, basically providing a much needed boost by insinuating the SNaP meme into day-to-day political discourse. In the beginning, the SNaP field manual will mainly be printed on demand for use in line "a)" activism toward local governments, but a promotional campaign will be developed that thrusts the SNaP book into the hands of ordinary citizens without having to penetrate the conventional publishing outlets dominated by the academedia giants.

Certainly some revisions will come to both this SNaP field manual, as well as to the unabridged treatment I have in progress, that will lend stature and more substance to the SNaP argument. My vision is that within about six to nine months of SNaP launch, a professionally promoted, adequately funded mass-distribution program thru conventional publishing outlets will take place. At that point in priority communities, primarily in the Free State, the SNaP will have made significant converts and inroads among our neighbors in the town halls.

Note: we are not truly having to convert anyone, it's more a case of reminding people of the need to be consistent with their core values.

Obviously, a lot of detail remains to be worked out in the prosecution of the main "line of attack" toward the general citizenry. One opportunity presents itself here by virtue of our good fortune to be Americans and to have the Bill of Rights as a unifying theme: we can cooperate with the Rational Review and other organizations who have been prosecuting the zero-aggression policy by enforcing the Bill of Rights on runaway government. The SNaP vehicle, through the book and ancillary materials to come, can give a needed boost to the new American revolution...

These columns (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) are intended as a "field manual" that I have in mind to make up for in practical focus what they lack in analytical depth. Probably the most practical and effective action for SNaP proselytization is to convince two key categories of people: teachers and law enforcement personnel:

Teaching the Teachers

As I suggested above, we'll know we've arrived, that the sacred day has come, when every school child from coast to coast knows by heart the highest phrase: "Nobody shall initiate force against another for any purpose whatsoever..." and applies it universally into adulthood. Parents and teachers constitute the first line of relearning what has been lost through deception by the Kleptocons and our own simple inattention.

In that relearning task, people qua teachers fortunately have a raft of literature on which to rely from Dr. Mary Ruwart's Healing Our World, to David Bergland's Libertarianism in One Lesson, to Rand, to Rothbard, to all the rest... literally thousands of titles from brilliant minds are little more than a click away. A quick Google turns up this very brief list of solid references[7], and several libertarian bookstores are out there, too.

In the vein of "teaching the teachers" (and serving as a kernel of educational materials to come) let me proffer two brief tables: one dispelling a number of fallacies about the SNaP and the other identifying which instances of aggression we should attend to first:

***Table 1: Answers to Common SNaP Fallacies***
#	Question/Fallacy	Answer
1	It's impossible to define aggression; what is an act of force for you may be simple persuasion for me. How can we possibly ban aggression?	Aggression is the initiation of physical force, depriving someone of a value without their consent. Ask a well-adjusted five-year-old for more clarification.
2	Is it technically aggression if I do not actually steal from you immediately but will confine you or harm you if you do not pay me?	Yes, again, apply the five-year-old test. The threat of force is force: if you do not do as what the threatener says, you are struck, jailed, shot, robbed, etc.
3	Well, how about something like being ostracized or some other forms of social disapproval?	No, it is not aggression unless the opprobrium is accompanied by an act of physical coercion. In fact public disapproval is sometimes cited as a disincentive for assuring payment for government services.
4	Okay, so it's aggression if I hold you up on the street. But what if a majority votes to tax you for schools? Is that aggression?	Yes, unless the tax is voluntary and you do not go to jail or suffer aggression (force) for deciding voluntarily not to contribute.
5	Coercive taxes are aggression?	Yes, coercion is aggression.
6	Then I guess drug prohibition laws are out of the question...	Yes, prohibition is aggression. Not Constitutional. Not allowed.
7	Wow, I'm running out of ideas for what government can do without initiating force. Government sure takes on a lot now that seems like aggression. Can you even have a government?	Well, it isn't easy, because as Washington said, government is force. But, if government is voluntarily funded and strictly confined to protecting rights, it can have a reasonable role in society.
8	All right, then, but what we have today is a lot of stuff the government does that a lot of people don't think is aggression.	The people have been deceived (by those who profit by the deceit) into thinking if a "democratic" government forces you then somehow it isn't force.
9	Can we give special prerogatives to institutions such as banks or corporations and not violate the nonaggression principle?	No, prerogative is another word for privilege, which means private law. Simply put, if the private law entails violating the common law (which applies to businesses and persons and is based on the SNaP) then it violates the SNaP.[6]
10	So banks, as currently franchised by the state, and the Federal Reserve Bank (or any central bank) are not in conformance with the SNaP...	You are correct. No one gets a special deal under the SNaP. In particular, central banks like the Fed are guilty of fraudulently transferring value from the productive class to the political class through "debt-counterfeiting."[8]
11	Where is the aggression in the central bank system?	Legal tender laws dictate by legal force what shall be accepted as money. Also, the customary corporate privileges accorded to banks constitute an insidious aggression.
12	Shouldn't the government have control of the money supply and the currency of a country?	No. What people in their voluntary trade relationships regard as valuable will dictate what money is and how it will be made and used.
13	Don't we need strong government or corporate franchise by the state to handle "big" projects that the market cannot do by itself?	The Alaska pipeline was a large privately funded and run project ($8 billion); many others exist. Men can voluntarily cooperate on any worthwhile project of any size.
14	How about for military defense? Don't we need a large central government spending a lot of money that can only be provided by tax dollars?	Military defense lies in the province of what many libertarians feel government should do. a) In a SNaP world, there is no need for militaries as such, and b) w/o coercive taxation to fund the military, the military establishment (and national security state apparatus) cannot become the cause of war as it is today.[8]
15	Wow, again. Full application of the SNaP will produce a radically different human society from what we have today. It does seem a lot better, but how de we get there without creating panic?	Two steps: 1) Eliminate "as immediately as possible" systems that would be wrong even if private individuals did them e.g. drug prohibition. 2) Phase out (by transitioning functions to private citizens, businesses, and communities) coercive systems like money, banking, govt. schools, and corporations.

Basically, the best way to make transitions from an aggression-based economic system to a nonaggression-based system is to remove the compulsion in the law. For example, to remedy a bloated war machine that relies on coercive taxation, you make taxation voluntary. To end the central bank money monopoly, simply repeal the legal tender laws and it will die a natural death with minimum disruption to wealth-production. Table 2 is one suggested sequence of legal-aggression removals:

***Table 2: Suggested SNaP* *Implementation* *Priorities***
#	Aggression to Remove	Description/Rationale
1	Drug prohibition laws	Like the National Nightmare of alcohol prohibition in the 1920s, only worse. Immediate repeal will hugely benefit everyone.
2	Military empire	Unnecessary $trillion/year wealth transfer for purposes of malevolent destruction.
3	Agricultural hemp ban	Lifting the ban on the non-psychoactive native strain of cannabis will be an economic boon (eventually ~$1 trillion/yr.) to tens of thousands: farmers, merchants, individuals.[9]
4	Corporate privilege	End legal personhood, legal immunities, and phase out limited liability; end special treatment e.g. tax abatements.
5	Federal Reserve Act	Thanks to Ron Paul and the Honest Money Act we already have a bill in the mill that will repeal the government money monopoly.
6	Government schools	The most insidious encroachment on human freedom, also entrenched; best accomplished by withdrawal of compulsory funding.
7	Coercive taxation	The introduction of voluntary government-services financing will result in people getting the government services they want.
8	Eminent domain	This one is behind so many transgressions in favoritism in the name of progress; repeal for transportation and development freedom.
9	Nanny state laws	We can put this toward the top, because repeal is easy: seatbelt laws, helmet laws, smoking bans; no need, into the shitcan.
10	Licensing and regulation	Good example: if taxi cabs were free market —no mandatory city fee and license—jitneys would solve traffic congestion now.

These tables give the bigger picture of how we progress toward a society without coercion. The next section describes a peculiar impediment that needs to be addressed in the short term.

Special SNaP Appeal to Law Enforcement Community

By the persuasive methods through local government we have discussed, our cities and towns can relatively quickly come to reign in aggression in various areas... but particularly in the police function. These days programs related to prohibition, such as training dogs, hiring more officers, buying expensive surveillance equipment, and so on—often the funding comes from federal sources that weaker-minded leadership becomes addicted to—are abundant. Most states also receive massive amounts of federal cash for enforcing nanny laws like mandatory seat belts, which, in addition to the tax ripoff, inflict heavy fines on hundreds of thousands of citizen victims.

Thus although we can be effective in reducing police aggression through normal channels, the special imminence of the police-state power and the massive burden of prison planet bear down upon our culture like a 900-pound gorilla. I have already written a few articles on this subject, for example, An Open Letter to the Law Enforcement Community. In that letter I remind my countrymen in the LE community that they are, indeed, my countrymen. And for the most part they have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, which includes a very strict prohibition of government aggression known as the Bill of Rights.

"They who take the sword die by the sword." — Jesus

A properly laid out SNaP program emphasizes to the LE community that giving lip service to the Bill of Rights and the SNaP is not sufficient: they are bound to enforce the Bill of Rights. This means, my fellow citizens, that you do not participate in any act of aggression against your fellow human beings: you don't go on drug raids, you don't participate in seat-belt stings, you don't enforce confiscation orders in tax cases, you don't evict people who protest eminent domain, the list is—unfortunately —quite long these days, and it's also obvious. Ask your kindergartner.

Soon, just as we'll have certification agencies for government conformance to the SNaP, we'll also have law enforcement organizations (e.g. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) such as Law Enforcement for the Bill of Rights (LEBOR). If you're a cop and nobody shows up in the next few months to start a LEBOR chapter, then go ahead and start a chapter yourself. Believe me, we'll have plenty of material to help you get started in earnest, and many fine people of liberty will come to your town for all the right reasons.

"Just Friggin' Do It!" — Nonviolent Resistance

As I put the finishing touches on this column and the book it will be going into, it occurs to me that I have not spoken of a key component to any prospect of success of the SNaP: mass citizen defiance of acts of government aggression. Take some guidance in this area from Thoreau, from Gandhi, from Martin Luther King... or Willie Nelson and Farm Aid. Just one perfect example of a Farm Aid resistance that would work:

Take all the American farmers who want to grow hemp in the 15-odd states which have made it legal to do so (pending DEA approval). Procure and distribute among yourselves a quantity of hemp seeds so that each of you has one hemp seed. Pick a day in spring, or whatever season is best for seeding a hemp crop, announce to the world that on that day at a specific time, all of you without exception are going to walk out into your fields with a shovel or a trowel and plant your hemp seed. Take pictures and videos of your lawbreaking activity, then en masse send the evidence to your local, state, and federal law enforcement officials demanding to be arrested and tried for your crime. [City folk can do the same thing in their back yards or in a planter on their window sills.] I'll leave it there; Surely some bright young libertarian farmer types can work out the details.

"A planting heard 'round the world!"

A Thought on SNaP Program Sequencing

Because of the peculiar advantages for SNaP promulgation inherent in the Free State, I envision the initial rollout of the SNaP program here. One advantage of the Free State is that the line of control shown in the figure above as c) (going from the individual to the state level) is much stronger and thicker than illustrated above: in the Free State, advocates of liberty count at the state house in Concord. And in fact a couple of the legislators are pure, unadulterated liberty people themselves... fully committed to the SNaP.

It should then be a straightforward job to apply what we learn in Free State One to all the other states, regions, and countries yearning to be free. As I stated in the previous column, once the SNaP takes hold in the minds of the people, there is no turning back. Once liberty infects the body politic, there is no cure from the perspective of the authoritarian dinosaur. As John Adams put it so eloquently:

The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations... This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution.

Once more again into the breach, dear Americans, with feeling. The world is not "theirs," it's "ours."

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[1] The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are two very good reasons. Reasons that we can have success by appealing to them

[2] I want at the outset to disavow the wrong kind of ego involvement in the SNaP project: When I speak of my objective, I really mean our objective, where "our" consists of a voluntary collection of leading activists in the freedom movement who see the value in the SNaP as a "enlightenment virus" that can correct the course of civilization. My only pecuniary interest lies in the SNaP book sales and compensation for other promotional materials I write for the "SNaP movement"... probably prosecuted via a Web site, then possibly thru bricks and mortar community education facilities. The SNaP is not a proprietary concept; if you have a different idea of how to configure the tenet or how to promulgate it, by all means go for it. It would be nice if we could stay coordinated, though.

[3] Needless to say, anyone who learns the SNaP will see clearly that the practice of compulsory state schooling itself is one of the principle's most widespread and dangerous violations. But what better, quicker route toward educational freedom than to have teachers trapped inside the state-schooling machinery plant the seeds of knowledge in their charges (and in themselves) that bloom into the jettisoning of systematic government aggression upon young minds... and the spawning of the joy of learning in a vibrant, voluntary (lifelong) human marketplace.

[4] There is a group that I'm aware of who would even go further and not use force against others, at all for any reason, even against those who initiate its use. They're known as anarcho-pacifists or autarchists, and generally adhere to the thinking and writings of Robert LeFevre. All I have to say about them is, "... and people call me naive."

[5] The Internet still lives, but for broadcast of "approved" knowledge and news we have but one mainstream media cartel and, until unregulated (pirate) radio/TV transmissions can be generated and received independently of the state-corporate Matrix, the majority is clamped in a seemingly impregnable mind-vise.

[6] I've discussed the problem with corporations before, principally in my review of Thom Hartmann's excellent work, Unequal Protection: The rise of corporate dominance and the theft of human rights. Understanding this topic is crucial to unraveling the BUP, but is outside the scope of this particular exercise.

[7] One day I'll be making my own list, which needs to be thoughtfully composed and eclectic. From the glossary of my SNaP book, I think I've culled a unique listing of some of the most timely books bearing on our progress toward the SNaP.

[8] For a description of the fraud that has been perpetrated through the American central banking system, please refer to the book of 21st-century economic enlightenment, The Creature from Jekyll Island, by G. Edward Griffin. The book also includes a thorough expose on how the money-elites generate perpetual war in order to reap perpetual profits; when the citizenry upholds the SNaP, the elites are toast.

[9] Hemp Industries Association.