50 Ways To Leave Leviathan

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:26:13 GMT  <== Politics ==> 

The Hunter at The Price of Liberty - this is a reprint from many years back, as you can tell by the broken links, but they're still good.

11. Attend a solemn public appearance of a political candidate or public figure advocating we sacrifice freedom for security. Choose your event with some care, you will see why in a moment. When they get to some point in their presentation or speech where they say something really ridiculous with a straight face and everyone in the audience is nodding stupidly and politely applauding, start laughing. Do not stop until they throw you out. It is not as hard as it used to be... either the laughing or the getting thrown out. Be warned that at least in theory you can probably be prosecuted for some folderol or other, but it might be worth it to get on the stand and say "I'm sorry, your honor, I found his views hysterically funny. You mean he was SERIOUS?" Heckling they are used to and can deal with, laughing at them they seem to prefer to sweep under the rug.

35. Most "guides to activism" I have ever read advise that when you are writing a letter to the editor you should be polite, persausive, and respectful so you don't come across as an unreasonable nut. I used to believe that, until I became familiar with the work of L Neil Smith, and lately Jay Severin's radio show. Both of them taught me an important lesson -- "unreasonable nuts" get press. Pick your target carefully, and intelligently make vicious fun of the stupidity of their position. Make clever jokes at their expense -- send in a letter to the editor in verse if you are good enough to pull it off. Your goal here is to make the submission SO juicy and SO over the top that the editors just can not help but want to use it. The best part is, quite often what THEY think is crazy a lot of their readers will nod and say "about time this rag printed something sensible".

37. Buy gold, silver, or other precious metals. They are pretty, they are practical, and they really wow the ladies. My mom and sister are STILL on about some ten ounce silver bars I had several years ago. They were horrified when I explained I bought them to cast into bullets and asked them if they knew where I could get a good deal on black masks. Like their idea of having jewelry made out of them was any more practical...

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