One of my supporters, my sovereign sister Rose wanted to know my thoughts on this video in the link below called: Larken Rose and Adam Kokesh Debate on ANARCHAST
So I felt inspired to do a short essay about it also incorporating what I feel are relevant, edgy topics in the Truth Community...so I present to you my first current event video, on politics, human drama, and Natural Law...hopefully in the future these will be more timely and less verbose.
My Video:
It is mentally easy to become polarized, while it is more challenging to be holistic, and in this case to see both sides of the Larken Rose/Adam Kokesh debate, without contracting into sides.
Larken Rose, author of The Most Dangerous Superstition, correctly points out how supporting the political system through voting and election, as ex-marine Adam Kokesh desires to do is in the PHILOSOPHICAL SENSE antithetical to the anarchist movement and contradictory to the principles of freedom and truth.
Yet, Kokesh believes that by running for president through the libertarian campaign, he can awaken many to the principles of anarchy and the illusion of authority. After he is elected as president, Kokesh plans to resign and abolish the government as a “custodian,” thus revealing that his intentions were to never be part of the political system or become any type of “ruler,” but to use it as a means for its own destruction, saying things like “Adam for NOT president,” etc. I think Adam deserves more credit than Larken is giving, for a political campaign is actually a brilliant marketing strategy to sell Adam's Anarchist book FREEDOM, getting the message out to the greater public. In this context, his presidential campaign is a clever infiltration and hijacking of mainstream media, as Adam is using drama and satire, playing the devil's advocate, folding the system against itself to awaken our zombie nation. And Larken seems to take such a ploy quite literally, being locked within a purely rational framework, which does not cohere with this type of social activism, artistry, and paradoxical play that isn't necessarily classified as contradictory and hypocritical. Adam is the court jester poking at the king, the wild card in a staged-play, the anomaly in the political matrix.
Yet, Larken admits that being part of the political system to mock it and reveal the circus-show that it is could be an acceptable and a potentially fruitful plan for the anarchist. While this does seem like it is what Adam is doing, Larken claims it is not and his evidence for this is Adam's website and its failure to list the philosophical principles of voluntarism and self-ownership at the get go, which seems to instead promote the political process itself, as if it were legitimate. But his end game is clearly put on his website that he desires to dissolve government and his own position as president, which seems to fit in line with Larken's own justification for using such a strategy (we will get to where this doesn't fit later on).
Adam seems perfect to play this role, producing activist content all the time, almost up to 1,500 videos including political stunts, debates, direct interaction with the public, and multiple arrests for “civil disobedience,” like loading a shotgun in D.C. His ability to talk to the average person about anarchy stepping down to people's level, even the cops, with grace, wit, and tact is no easy task and is commendable. He is quite effective using his skills of language, likability, and debate, with an egalitarian method. He puts himself out there at a very personable level, is bold and courageous and thus becomes an easy attack for the inactive anarchists who prefer to hide in the side-lines and throw tomatoes, so they can never be criticized, protected in their ivory tower, echo chamber of like-minded friends, and the impersonal screen of social media...harping on the imperfections of those who take action instead of taking actions themselves and letting go of this ideal of perfection (and self-loathing).
Now Larken suggests that if Adam was sincere he would come out and say that he is not going to win the election and that the whole thing is a joke, but if Adam is going to play this role, he has to be committed and go all the way for it to have any meaning and be effective at all. Adam desires to follow a similar campaign model as Ron Paul, who helped many individuals wake up to the corruption of government and who have today become full-fledged anarchists. Without seriousness, Adam's campaign would be a passing stunt, meme, and joke for a day and people would move on. So Adam must play to win and act as if he can to truly make an impact, but the actual win should be taken in the correct context. Winning is simply spreading the anarchist message far and wide and the vote is merely a public statement that we are done with government. This will require a lot of self-mastery in Adam to delicately balance seriousness and light-heartedness, as to not lose sight of the real goal, which is to use the political scheme as a MEANS not an END. For too much seriousness can backfire and make him forgetful of his original intent, which we get to later...
In a sense, Adam is being an anarchist in a politician's clothing, which humorously reverses the more common expression of a “wolf in sheep's clothing,” ...and so the important question here is if playing the “Trojan horse” in this way is ETHICAL? We will elaborate on this in a sec, but to Larken it is not ethical because it befuddles anarchist principles, spreading half-truths and mixed messages, such as the myth that government could actually end with a vote. It is obviously easy to criticize Adam's strategy from a puritanical philosophical perspective, an easy target for Larken, who understands the principles better, as Adam is a libertarian and tends to vacillate between anarchist and minarchist perspectives (more on that soon). However, it is important to differentiate between Adam's philosophy and his strategy, as his philosophy based in the book Freedom reflects important basic truths such as that taxation is theft, self-ownership is real, anarchy means no rulers, and that government is immoral, etc. Furthermore, his strategy is less easy to criticize when we consider the tyrannical conditions of humanity and the fact that more effective measures need to take place to wake people up from the corruption. Civilization has already effectively collapsed from a moral standpoint and the numbers game Adam is playing is vitally important. Awake anarchists cannot segregate themselves from society and expect to create global change or even survive, even if this conditional fact is wrong. Our tactics must become radical and creative as to tap the many levels of the spectrum of humanity at every level of learning. Absolutist thinking may cause us to condemn what could be helpful in our very gray world.
Now, by seeing the positive of Adam's chosen strategy, this could be seen as an “ends justify the means” argument, but only if ethics weren't taken into consideration, for the question here is whether the means Adam has implemented ethical or not? Self-promotion as an activist and anarchist is not necessarily unethical, as generating financial support to spread the message of anarchy without conforming to the system is incredibly important, so we shouldn't be quick to judge Adam as being an egotistical narcissist because of the attention he attracts to himself. The deeper question is whether it is ethical to use the statist system to spread the message of anarchy? In the purist sense, being part of the system in any capacity is unethical (i.e. employment, corporations, taxes, votes, complying with statist regulations, etc.) since such a system is based in false realities and immoral authority...for even if you use money, an imaginary creation from a “bankster,” you are supporting war and the ruling class. Yet, this is not a refined enough moral perspective, taking into consideration that the system is forced upon us against our will, entangled with survival, and is where the aggregate consciousness operates through, the consciousness we need to help evolve. Thus, being part of the system is not unethical in the bigger picture, and it is also context-dependent. However, there are two very unethical actions that SHOULD NOT be taken in system participation and this is because they directly violate another person's rights through order-following, and that is joining the military and police. On this note, it helps to understand Adam's psychology of why his activism is so radical. As a former marine in the Iraq war he realized how the virtues of self-sacrifice, altruism, courage, and taking a stand for truth and freedom were grotesquely twisted into their exact opposites; American soldiers, the so-called “patriots” were merely the terrorists of the middle east. This is an incredibly traumatizing experience and we can understand why he would want to turn the evil machine in on itself, as once a gear in the death machine of the military-industrial-complex. In a way, Adam is attempting to achieve some cosmic balance, justice, and purpose from his past experience as an activist, using the real virtues of courage and self-sacrifice to make a change.
Going back to the question of ethics and political participation, the REALITY is that ANY participation in the political or voting system, even paying taxes does nothing to actually feed the system itself in terms of sustenance, and is merely the entertainment, mockery, and added hardship of human slaves. (For example, taxes are that yearly reminder during the Season of Sacrifice that we are all owned, a little extra weight for our burdens, when the bankers could care less about YOUR money, they make it out of nothing! Literally! It's all dark sorcery folks!) If everyone withdrew their participation in the political system, it wouldn't even really matter, as there was never consent by the people in the first place. It is simply a tool of conditioning to false reality and hypnosis through a meaningless ritual. The system is entirely owned and dominated, and has been since the dawn of civilization and we don't have any power over it at all, they merely have us think that we do, an added level of humor for them. Media and politics are just a game with no real content, mocking the stupidity of man who is completely delusional about how reality works. As Larken points out the president has no power and neither does any campaign or voting process. What the controllers want happens. Political parties, are just that “parties” where no real work or governance takes place, just the illusion of it, obfuscating who is really in control, additionally pandering to people's lower consciousness and their needs for ego, wealth, status, and power, the fuel of the Control System.
While philosophical principles need to be refined, which we will get to, we must also consider that we live in immoral unjust conditions of human slavery in which we cannot execute our principles in an absolutist manner. Unfortunately, varying degrees of compromise and hypocrisy are required just to live and to learn, evolve, and accomplish the tasks we set out for ourselves, including ending human slavery (the Great Work). Waking up to truth is difficult because the absolutist clear and distinct line between right and wrong, truth and falsity is metaphysically discovered and defined, while our actions cannot always be executed with the same clarity and definition, presenting some level of dissonance, as we live in a system that is so opposed to the principles of truth and morality that all actions are compromised to some degree. We have to each day do our best to minimize this compromise and not fall into self-loathing because of it. We should not allow this dissonance and contradictory life condition to discourage us, but to be part of the energy needed to learn about truth and freedom and to take action and speak out. As freedom-fighters, we are not attempting to stop human slavery from occurring, it has already happened and has been happening in the endless cycles on this planet, the school ground for the experiential education of morality for the evolution of consciousness, in which through manifest polarity we can recognize the True Essence of Reality, the Good, the True, the Beautiful.
We are already in CRISIS as the global dictatorship will only get worse (FEMA concentration camps, martial law, technocratic smart cities) and this makes waking up humanity in the masses incredibly important for our collective fate, which can make fighting about our respect strategies and levels of understanding less important, as the real divide is between us and those who find human slavery legitimate, which is not in their RIGHT, this point elucidated by Mark Passio's latest seminar at Truth-Mind-Reality Conference titled: Duress, Dissidence, and Deadly Force... Now, as an important side note, another point from Mark's seminar, it is in our RIGHT to NOT compromise with the system at all using the self-defense principle of whatever force is necessary to stop the violence of duress and subjugation, including deadly force. But because our reality is so twisted doing the right thing (self-defense against the violations of government) has negative consequences, like death, (although in the spiritual realm there will not be negative consequences for the soul), thus doing what is within our “right” may do LESS good overall towards the Great Work, in which we are much more effective when we are ALIVE. Once we recognize that our mind and souls are still free, our participation in the system has no real hold on us, and can become a tool.
While some of Adam's philosophical notions may be incorrect, we cannot fault Adam for not taking action, as he is an activist on FIRE! and sometimes the person who takes more action is less philosophically-inclined, while the more philosophically-inclined person take less action, there are strengths and faults for both. Because the conditions are this bad, any and all effort to end slavery should be supported to some degree, not to support their errors but the spirit and effort behind. And so far Adam does seem genuine and sincere about his efforts. We need to see the bigger picture and the war we are currently in, instead of being critical to the point of condemnation, fueling petty wars within our community that act as a distraction.
Truth is a learning process and there will always be people at different levels of understanding of philosophical principles. Absolute principles exist and so do relative levels of understanding. Libertarians and minarchists are rightfully critical of statists, the controlled left-right dialectic, and the violence of government. Anarchists are additionally critical of libertarians and minarchists for desiring the oxymoron of a “voluntary” government (voluntary authority), seeking political reform in an entirely co-opted system, and seeing some value in the erroneous notion of “collective” action. Natural Law Anarchists are additionally critical of “general anarchists” for not understanding anarchy in terms of consciousness, mind-control, and Natural Law, which even Larken has only partially demonstrated, revealing where his own principles can still be refined.
The end of government is more than understanding its nature to be immoral, but understanding that our lower nature and ego-identification is as immoral as the willful rejection of truth and Natural Law. The ending of slavery involves active evolution of our consciousness with will, care, and courage, to leave the old imprisoned belief systems, of religion, money, government, scientism, and the new age behind and into the Truth of Self, Natural Law, and What actually Exists (metaphysically and conditionally). In addition to being created by our false beliefs, government is also created through our fear, apathy, and selfishness and the egoic doctrine of moral relativism. When we don't care about truth and morality, we get slavery. Government is not simply about a bunch of crooks taking over in which we must gain our power back; as the phenomenon is much more spiritually demanding than that as the master-slave dialectic is a manifestation of our own imbalanced consciousness. Thus, we must become holistic to transcend the mind-control of the Control System and its false dialects as to come to know the objective difference between right and wrong, between the non-aggression principle and self-defense, to be accountable to Moral Law, which exists objectively in nature. We must also understand and develop our True Self beyond ego-identification and worldview schism. Even the principles of voluntarism, self-ownership, and non-aggression can fall short when not metaphysically anchored with Natural Law, as until this understanding is attained humans will attempt to mimic the workings of nature seeing a collective system of control a necessity, when in reality there is only self-government under Natural Law.
(Images from https://whatonearthishappening.com)
Now, its time to be a little critical of Adam and consider what Larken is saying...Contrary to his book, Adam has some philosophical issues that could cause serious problems for his campaign. For one, like most libertarians, Adam seems to be naive about political reform, saying the drug laws were reduced due to the political process of libertarians, failing to comprehend the fact that any political change is only made to suit the ruling class, these man-made law changes are the engineered self-serving artificial “freedoms” given to the masses. In this case, legalized drugs are more profitable in the open-market. Minarchists, libertarians, and voluntarists, like Adam desire the contradiction of “voluntary government” as a peaceful coalition of non-coercion. If that were the case then what would separate government from business or a group of individuals united together to achieve a common goal? The practical running of ANYTHING in society does not require government, it merely requires actions within Natural Law boundary conditions. Government is by definition the artificial right for some people to rule over others with violence, with fake laws. Government means to govern OTHER people, key word OTHER...One of its false tenets is the collectivist notion that certain individuals can represent and take action on behalf of other individuals. This is the ideological basis for what the entire political scheme advertises, aka “representative democracy”, which could never be true! A sovereign person represents himself as he cannot abdicate his own moral responsibility, and he can only take individual action, which is either in harmony with natural law or not. Each individual is responsible for his actions and cannot take actions for another, especially collective action. Representation in a pyramid scheme will always be violent, and based on a master-slave hierarchy, as even when majority rules, the rights of the minority are violated. But Adam already knows all this?? We do not need controllers or system engineers or politicians to “fabricate” order and security at the collective level in the organization called government. It is fear that clings to collectivism for safety, when ignorant of cosmic order and that the system of nature is intelligent, moral, and divine...and that the individual is the principle unit of reality, in which “control” should be “self-control.” Hence, the entire political process obfuscates individual sovereignty with the false notion that we should have power and control over other people. If Adam believes that he can have the power, control, and authority to dissolve the government and re-allocate the resources government has “stolen” from us as “custodian,” then he is falling into their trap, besides naively thinking that government is actually operated by human consent in which such a possibility exists. It is possible that Adam is saying this as part of the stunt, as to reinforce the fact that government has stolen from us. Government is based on “might makes right,' immoral power, and coercion, underneath the elaborate “political” facade, the EMPTY SHOW. Also, the stolen property is mainly “money” which has no real existence in the first place...this is all mind-control peoples! If the endgame of Adam's presidency is to give him the authority to control how government is dissolved, then he is clearly missing the mark. But I don't feel he is purposely deceiving others, just confused here. Adam only owns his body-mind-soul and his property and that's that...THAT is what he should manage and control, as he is not an extension of the “American People.” There is no action he can take on my behalf as, again, the Individual is the Fundamental Unit of Reality. The correction to global government, since our problem is WAY beyond federal government, is not local government, its the evolution of consciousness out of the collectivist belief system itself.
This is where Adam's ego can be tempted into personal agendas of self-aggrandizement moving him away from his original intent to spread the message of freedom, since the nature of the political system feeds off our lower selves. It is a high-level and high-skilled game he is playing, and if he doesn't have the respective level of self-mastery, playing the game WILL play him back. Adam is attempting to co-opt a very old dialectical system of dark sorcery, a worthy cause, but this system has much more experience with co-opting, unfortunately to a genius degree. For the political structure by necessity tempts ego, pride, and status as the microcosm to worldwide corruption, being diametrically opposed to Natural law. There is a correspondence between the egotism of the politician and the poverty and war of populations. While Adam discusses how the co-intel-pro (counter intelligence program) infiltrates groups to cause division, the division he accuses Larken of creating, the infiltration of “supporting” agents should be more feared, those who befriend Adam to help increase his status, profit, and popularity. The darkest war is the war within. Challenges, like that from Larken keep us on our toes, while egoic resonance of so-called “friends” imprisons us to our subjectivity and blindspots... So hopeful this dialogue has been productive for Adam as a caution towards potential future temptations, as there is always pride before the fall and the activist must fully confront his darkside, or his darkside will wipe him out. If Adam has naive ideas about his presidential campaign being anything other than a clever marketing plan for his book and the message of freedom, this will lead to disappointment. He must be a warrior with a strategy, using the role of politician as a tool, while not becoming one, if he is to maintain integrity and truly speak the message of freedom.
In closing, I think that while Larken's philosophical points have value, he is being a too harsh on Adam as there is a difference between a critique and an attack and Larken's posts can ride that fine line of character assassination, when Adam hasn't really crossed any ethical lines here. It is unfair of Larken to attack Adam, then to say he is not attacking, and then judge Adam's defensive energy as more fuel for attack, which can be seen in his steemit post. https://steemit.com/anarchy/@larkenrose/not-kokesh-for-not-president-part-1-of-2 In Larken's facebook post, which started the feud, we can clearly see the word “YUCK” used many times to describe his feeling towards Adam when he got the misinformation that Adam was using bail money towards the libertarian party, while Adam was in jail and couldn't defend himself, when such accusations were a miscommunication. And in Larken's steemit article, he insinuates that Adam is a narcissist who only cares about himself, which seems extreme. While it is good to be critical, it is not necessary to denigrate the efforts of others, who aren't perfect and may still have some incorrect notions of reality, but are still trying to create some positive change on a larger scale. When we take into consideration what Adam has done our judgment should be more balanced. In terms of numbers, Adam is making an impact, which could ultimately lead many to Larken Rose's work ...and hopefully to Mark Passio's Natural Law seminar; why not encourage this? Is there nothing intriguing or at least refreshing about spreading the message of anarchy through the very system that opposes it? Hopeful his campaign will make an impact and open a door for those just beginning to wake up, to question authority, discovering the true and eternal nature of our own sovereignty!
At the same time, Adam must confront the contradictions between his philosophical understanding and political campaign so that his strategy does not overtake his philosophy as to create more corruption within, diluting his alignment with the principles of anarchy. Ultimately, you cannot serve two masters and a high level game demands total mastery so that one does not succumb to the temptations of the game itself. But even if Adam fails this could be an important learning experience to learn why “ethical politics” is an oxymoron.
TRUTH, LOVE, FREEDOM my friends!
Jana Espiritu-Santo