So... on this Chaz thing in Seattle. Neither you nor I have a damned clue what is going on there. I’m not there, you’re most likely not there, and it will become ground zero for misinformation in the media. It will be painted by the right as a serious left communist threat to our democracy. It will be painted by the left as a dangerous, violent mafia-style chaos with evil guns everywhere.
We can try to piece some things together via pages like https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Autonomous_Zone to at least know what is being said about it, but we won’t really know how those experiencing it feel. I imagine there’s going to be a lot of misinformation and propaganda around this very soon.
Why? Well, becuase it is dangerous. The idea of a free people governing themselves is dangerous to those in power because it exposes their power as not only unnecessary, but coercive, destructive, and toxic. Think it’s no big deal? Here’s what the “most powerful person on the planet” (the U.S. President) tweeted about it:
@realDonaldTrump (June 10, 2020). "Radical Left Governor @JayInslee and the Mayor of Seattle are being taunted and played at a level that our great Country has never seen before. Take back your city NOW. If you don't do it, I will. This is not a game. These ugly Anarchists must be stooped IMMEDIATELY. MOVE FAST!”
Why would a few blocks get so much attention? Why does it need an immediate response by authoritarian power? What makes it so dangerous?
Well, here’s a few key quotes from a document you maybe haven’t read in a while but should: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript
In Congress, July 4, 1776.The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
...all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.
The irony is not lost on me that this document was penned during a time when all people were not at all seen as equal and those putting it forth were actively destroying the “savages” on their frontiers and taking their land.
I won’t romanticize the past becuase it was brutal and unjust. But even then, they understood what oppression looks like and they were seen as heroes for destroying some property like tea in a Boston harbor. They put their names down to sign away their lives and their fortunes because they knew the importance of freedom.
Do you?
Are you so scared of change that you’d prefer to be ruled? Are you so scared of others wanting to experiment with freedom that you’d want them shut down and put in their place?
Chaz may turn into a communist hell hole. It may turn into an anarcho-capitalist mini utopia. Either way, I’m glad it exists. I hope for hundreds of thousands of experiments just like it.
Why? Becuase that’s the start of a potentially resilient, evolutionarily stable strategy. What we have now is a monopolistic monoculture of governance. It is failing, and we have no robust replacements becuase we are too afraid of experimentation and change. We want the illusion of security over actual freedom.
I hope we learn a lot from this. I hope we see thousands of seasteading examples as well, becuase it’s almost inevitable that even within a small community, there won’t be 100% consensus. If your home could just float over to another community, that’s real freedom. I wonder why the Thai government got so scared of the latest expression of that experiment?
Maybe it’s becuase some people are waking up to thier enslavement.
Question is, what will they do with that awareness?