Celebrate Your Individual Independence on Independence Day

It’s hard to say you have your independence in New York City when the government controls what you can charge for rent on a property you own, or when the federal government tells you that you aren’t allowed to evict a non-paying tenant or drink a 32-ounce soda or whatever whimsical control they come up with next.

But you still have some independence. Just not as much as if you didn’t have government compelling you here and there.

In my view, it would be nice to have no one ruling over me. To live anarchically.

Important point here for those not aware. Monarchy means one ruler; oligarchy means several rulers. So anarchy means no rulers. Anarchy does not mean no rules.

Rules still apply in anarchy. The two specific rules are: do what you agree to do, and don’t initiate force or fraud against another person or their property. If I am not to be ruled, it is essential that I myself abide by these two rules.

As I go through life, I strive for my independence from coercion by other people (usually government officials). Because when someone else is forcing me, I could be forced to do something I consider immoral. After all, people who use force to accomplish their aims are immoral people.

As I think through my day, I am living roughly 85% or so anarchically, moment to moment, with no one compelling me to do things. Unfortunately, about 15% of my day is spent doing things that I am forced by one government agency or another to do.

We use the political realm, and occasionally resort to revolutionary wars or wars of secession, in our struggle to gain independence from the whims of people who chose to be government officials.

Of course, like all of us, I am also forced by circumstances and by Nature to undertake certain actions. I need to eat, I need protection from the elements, etc. But that is not other people forcing me. It’s not a moral issue. (Nature, by the way, is not moral and it cares not one whit for humans. It has a million ways to kill us.)

What makes for human progress is our continual struggle to have more independence from the whims of Nature.

Wealth and independence

To both decrease the impact of people who want to rule over us, and also to decrease the impact of nature’s ability to kill us, it’s good to accumulate wealth. If we have a good moral foundation, wealth gives us power to prevent people and circumstances and Nature from injuring us. Wealth improves (in small ways) our independence from government. For example, those of us with any degree of wealth don’t need to ask bureaucrats for our welfare check, our food stamps or our medical access. In regard to independence from Nature’s whims, if we are wealthy enough to have air conditioning, we don’t have to roast on these hot summer days.

Wealth is a path to partial personal anarchy—to be less ruled by others and more protected from Nature’s inherent tendency to kill us. Wealth seeking—by people of good morality who seek their wealth through moral means—is a good thing for humanity and individual humans.

It is our job and passion at Crisis Investing to help you increase your independence, and the percentage of your life you can live anarchically, unruled by others. Not complete anarchy, but as big a percentage as we can reasonably get.

Speculation becoming investment

On Tuesday, we published a long analysis of a mining company that I think will rise in stock price as it starts the process of creating new wealth. It’s moving from a speculation to an investment opportunity. You can read about it by becoming a paid subscriber to Crisis Investing. You can join us in this effort at wealth creation, and in other ways we identify in the future. The wealth you generate will inure to your own independence.

Tomorrow I will celebrate my 85% independence. Next year I hope to celebrate my 88% independence. I feel sorry for those in New York City who will be losing some of their independence this year under the charismatic destruction by Mamdani.

And I will also appreciate the speculative risk that the founding fathers of America took, and their investment in liberty, for they made a valiant effort to create a lasting template so that we would be able to live a larger percentage of each day without rulers.

It’s up to people living today, not the American founding fathers (and certainly not governments), to prevent the ruling types from stealing a growing percentage of each day. Whether or not we are citizens of the US, each of us can honor Independence Day by remembering this. And it wouldn’t hurt to forward this to people who might benefit. Please do.

Happy Partial Independence Day!

John Hunt, MD