What About the Roads? Boone County Voluntarily Funds and Fixes Infrastructure

Posted on June 10, 2022 by DJ Heal

Times are harder for many these days. Perhaps that is felt most in small town, rural America. This story of self-reliance and voluntary solution can be traced back to the 1980’s. Boone County Nebraska was affected quite negatively by the farming crisis of the time. Many viewed living a life and raising a family there as an undesirable goal. A large amount of the teenagers and young adults of that time would leave once they got their high school diploma in hand to settle and pursue careers elsewhere across the country.

This left a lot of questions and very few answers for how this county and its small towns would survive future generations if the trend continued. Jay Wolf, a local rancher, recalled a quote he heard from his father, “As my dad used to say, it wasn’t a place you chose to live necessarily.”

Even during these rough times in the 80’s the county showed signs of life by being able to keep the local hospital in town, which today employs the highest number of workers in the area. The hospital continues to steadily grow and succeed. The county began to come back to life in the 90’s when it began a community foundation. They were able to focus the energy from this foundation to help jump-start a community looking for hope. They constructed a brand new fitness center with its main feature being a swimming pool and spin classes that are quite uncommon in rural towns.

By the time the early 00’s rolled around the community was already feeling more optimistic. Local teachers, students, and citizens raised the funds to renovate the town’s historic theater in 2002. That theater is now showing blockbuster films on the weekends and mostly employs local high school students, giving them a sense of pride and community as they begin to enter adulthood.

A handful of years later the town decided the senior citizen center was in desperate need of a renovation. The biggest challenge was finding a way to raise the 2.5 million dollars that were required to pull it off when they had never funded something at even a fraction of the cost. Jay Wolf said about the project, “We had never raised even 250,000 for anything in this town.” That didn’t stop them from trying. Not only did they raise the 2.5 million they needed, they managed to double that once they realized the senior center needed much more help than was thought before.

The proof was now in the pudding, so to speak. This county can and will survive with the help of its charitable citizens. Not long after fixing the senior center, they fixed up their local public swimming pool. After that, they got a 2-mile-long hiking trail funded and built. With this momentum, the county, and Albion, the main city of the county, has continued to invest in itself through charitable donations. It has found new life, and people now want to live and invest there.

They now proudly have breweries, new restaurants, a beautiful golf course, a renovated hospital, and an overwhelming feeling of optimism that can be felt throughout Albion and Boone County. Lindsay Jarecki who moved to the town with her husband, who began a law practice in his hometown, has noticed big changes in the decade they’ve been there. “It seems like when one person takes a risk, it nudges someone else on the edge and they do it too. So much of this stuff simply wasn’t here when we got here… You can practically feel the confidence building.”

Confidence booming, Albion and the county took on its biggest challenge to date, trying to renovate the agricultural center/fairgrounds and build a brand new childcare center for families in the area. Childcare was severely lacking in this rural area, as it is in most rural areas. The importance and size of these tasks were daunting on their own but to attempt both at the same time was bold to say the least. “There was fear, so we had to come together. We decided we were gonna support each other no matter what…We trusted each other…and the community trusted us.” Jackie said about the idea.

Boone County’s citizens delivered. They raised a vast majority of the funds for the childcare center within county lines. The agricultural center and fairgrounds project raised nearly all of the money needed through local donors and county funds. Kurt Kruse, owner of Kruse Farms recalls how amazing it was to see the community rally behind both causes and their importance, “One cool thing that happened is a lot of people gave to both projects. But the ag building also attracted some rural people who hadn’t previously given. Both these things…will help the area grow. They will bring people to town.”

The agricultural building and fairgrounds is now a hotspot for tourism in their area, hosting many exciting events. Barrel racing, rodeo, junior rodeo, livestock shows, horse riding, and other events draw in large crowds from all over Nebraska. Some folks come from as far as 100 miles away. These opportunities and events just were not possible before the community rallied to build a place for them to exist. Now it is hosting events featuring commerce and people from over a handful of states such as, concerts, bull riding, and dog shows.

The childcare center, Boone Beginnings, is also a major success and has relieved the stress for dozens of families of having to find affordable and quality childcare. Many families were anxious about finding childcare for their little ones. Now that worry is gone and the local parents and families couldn’t be more excited.

Albion and Boone County still have pressing needs, but have shown the resilience needed to face them through voluntary charity locally. Their main problem now is the one facing all of America: housing. It’s simply too expensive to build nice middle-class homes, and that’s their next target. Boone County and Albion have about 7 million in reserve in the Boone County Community Fund and other similar charities. Estimated costs put the needed total to be somewhere around 30 million to achieve its goals.

It sounds like a steep ask but it may not be too difficult with a town raring to grow and provide for itself. The extra money and wealth being brought in will go a long way when paired with the sense of community that is now felt throughout Boone County. “My sense is that, in the last 20 years, the conversation has shifted dramatically in Albion. We work with a lot of places that have one or two successes. In Boone County they now have almost a dozen things they can point to and say, ‘Look at that. We did that.’” Jeff Yost, CEO of the Nebraska Community Foundation, who does work with 270 communities in Nebraska as well as Albion.

What a remarkable story from this rural county in fly-over country. This city and county took it upon themselves to address dire needs and solve them. I have little doubt that they will continue to find ways to thrive with the giving and caring spirit that has gotten them this far. Not only did they face issues that city, county, state, and federal level governments try to fix and struggle with on a routine basis, they did it through voluntary means. That’s a big reason for its success, if you ask me. That type of fundraising and charity creates a real sense of pride, joy, and love not only for yourself but your neighbors and community as well.

Taxation: The Antithesis of A Civilized Society

Posted on June 26, 2021 by Logan Davies

Across political spectrums, surely an agreement can be made that each and every human should have freedom and the absence of bondage—especially in a civilized society. Self-ownership is fundamental to freedom, and it can irrefutably be argued that self-ownership implies you are private property to yourself.

Therefore, private property is a reflection of self-ownership, and the fruits of one’s labor is their private property. Those fruits are an extension of the individual due to it being received voluntarily from another individual through some form of trade for their output.

The notion that man is indebted to society assumes that man is not a free individual, rather a statistic whom is shackled by a controlling and overreaching society who uses legislation as a means of tyranny. Man is not in debt to society for simply existing.

Man’s only debt is to suppress his urge to violate the rights of others in exchange for the respect of his own, essentially sacrificing freedom for liberty. This ensures man’s tendencies are limited, so that another is not negatively impacted by one’s action.

Ultimately, the price one pays to live in a civilized society is a voluntary mutual covenant to restrict certain actions that harm others, placing an emphasis on liberty. Forcing man to sacrifice his property in the name of progress by use of coercion is hardly civilized. Rather, it is barbaric.

The idea that we must pay taxes to protect our rights is the epitome of irony. Having a gun held to one’s head in order to fund the entities that vow to protect you is preposterous. Instead of voluntary actions or perhaps diplomacy in any non-aggressive form, they assert the only way to obtain harmony is through violence. In essence, the statist believes plunder is the only medium to subsidize shared services. The taxpayers are simply owned by the collectors, due to this illusion of debt.

This is why many assert that taxation is theft. This statement isn’t simply a principle that is tied to a particular ideology. It is an observation and conclusion from deductive reasoning.
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This begs the question, at what exact percentage of your labor being subject to the legal confiscation by another constitutes you a free individual? Is a man not a slave if his fruits are appropriated at 99%? He still owes debts to another without signing a valid contract for simply producing. If you are not enslaved because your labor is not taxed at 100%, what if one does not consent at any given percentage? A collectivist would perhaps introduce the “social contract” as an answer, though it could be refuted due to the signee being under duress, through threat of jail or violence. This undoubtedly invalidates the contract in jurisprudence.

This is why many assert that taxation is theft. This statement isn’t simply a principle that is tied to a particular ideology. It is an observation and conclusion from deductive reasoning. Unless the taxpayer consents or has the ability to opt out of society’s fiscal requirements, taxation certainly is theft.

If one is to put a gun to a wealthy, elderly woman’s head and demand her money, and then direct the plunder towards a poor family, is that not armed robbery? What the armed robber does with the money does not remove the initial act of theft. To make the claim that it is not theft and rather a sacrifice for sake of civilization… is nothing more than a poor attempt at rationalization.

What is it that makes sexual intercourse not be rape? It’s consent, certainly. This example further illustrates that without consent, any method of force used in a sequence of means to reach an end is robbery, extortion or some form of involuntary act in which one gains and one loses. Therefore, theft.

To counter this reasoning, one will produce dozens of examples of public utilities that taxpayers use, and conclude that since we use the services, the services conveniently negate the taxing entity’s initial means to produce the services. The use of these services by the taxpayer does not legitimize the legal plunder. By this logic, it is perfectly fine to remove another individual’s property for your own use, as long as you grant them the ability to use a portion of it at your discretion.

The taxpayer must still optimize any means to obtain their desired end, even if it means using the displaced wealth. They were cornered into this position, and have limited options due to being insidiously handicapped and subdued. For example, the governing entity monopolizes roads and highway systems, and charges one to use them through taxation.

The individual has no other choice but to use the roads they were forced to initially subsidize. Even if a large contingent of individuals opted out of taxation and combined resources to construct their own highway systems, any attempt at free enterprise in the controlled industry would end in an unfair advantage due to the government having the ability to regulate and ultimately control its competition.

One can justify the use of theft, and perhaps in some instances the justification may very well be seen as reasonable within some contexts, although this is entirely subjective. However, one cannot simply disregard the initial action, being theft, which brought forth the public utility or service. When one utters ‘Taxation is the price one pays for a civilized society,’ is to insinuate that ‘We are free, only if we are enslaved.’

This article was originally published on the website Being Libertarian. It can be found on their website here.

It’s a Voluntary Life

Posted on November 18, 2020 by Guest Author

This essay by Sean Gale is the winner of VIA's 2020 Higher Education Grant essay contest.

The state has consistently used force to monopolize every aspect of human life, including the purge of voluntary association and transaction. This single statement is an immutable fact, as the list of laws, regulations, permit requirements, licensing, trade inhibitions, and wars against personal vices is nauseatingly long and wrought with violence. Conversely, there is a philosophy that resists tyrannous intervention, and seeks to bring about change in a free and nonexploitative manner. Voluntaryism, or the belief that the world should and would function without coercive and vile intercession, is one such belief.

The general populace appears unable to fathom that good can be done in the world without the hand of godlike men redirecting stolen funds to fuel an ever-hungry vacuous machine. If that mentality were to be lessened or dispersed, then the question remains: What would a world of voluntary transactions look like, and how would said world function? To answer in the simplest terms possible, this hypothetical place would not be absolved from the evils that plague the mortal plane, but would have strategies based on free will and choice that aid in the handling of complex and moral issues. A voluntary world is no utopia; however, the wickedness of man and the violence of the earth can be better handled through individualistic means. Choice would reign supreme in this scenario, and as Murray Rothbard once said, “There can be no truly moral choice unless that choice is made in freedom” (FEE.org, 2018).

Social welfare programs have neither ended poverty, nor done anything but create a cycle of dependence that drains money from the productive to give to their antithesis.
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Firstly, social welfare is a system that statists consistently point to as if it is the only means by which those who have fallen on hard times can be lifted from poverty. In fact, many people use this one clause as a reason to submit to the state and resist voluntaryism entirely. Social welfare programs have neither ended poverty, nor done anything but create a cycle of dependence that drains money from the productive to give to their antithesis (Baetjer, 1984). In a world of voluntary association, economic strife would be lessened or managed via charity organizations, mutual aid societies, activist groups, food banks, friendly societies, educational and student led organizations, entrepreneurial endeavors unhindered by the state, religious groups, fraternal orders, and trade unions.

These organized groups already exist and have worked throughout history to support the wellbeing of their members and the general public. Examples include Odd Fellows, Free African Society of Philadelphia, Sanctuary Homeless Refuge, National FFA Organization, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, Key Club, Shriners, Habitat for Humanity, Kiwanis, American Red Cross, 4-H, Boys and Girls Club of America, and Voluntaryism In Action to name just a few.

These entities can support members, perform community outreach, aid the impoverished, feed and care for the homeless, provide healthcare, educate youth, and assist the unemployed in finding jobs. In fact these organizations are so powerful at providing goods and services to those in need that “with the exception of churches, mutual aid networks constituted the most popular form of voluntary association in the US throughout the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A 1933 report by the President’s research committee estimates that one in three adult men were members of a fraternal society by 1920” (Adereth, 2020). Their effectiveness, and low cost of enrollment, made many organizations perfect for low income people to get aid.

The connective facet of each aid society or volunteer group is that the public good is being achieved via voluntary means. No one is being extorted through taxes, those getting help are being helped by real people void of state bureaucracy, and dependence on benefits is limited. Government welfare does not influence work or help to those who most need it and is vastly detached from the needs of the individual. Volunteer groups usually benefit their direct community, or one in dire need, through the work of average people. This directs the help from a complex, top down system to a one-way pipeline of goods and services to those who need them most. In a world of voluntaryism, these brotherhoods and organizations would be paramount to the benefit of all people in place of the current model.

The connective facet of each aid society or volunteer group is that the public good is being achieved via voluntary means.
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Tangent to charity and volunteer work is the realm of business and the adjustment of price that would benefit lower income communities. Without state interference, people could use their resources and property to generate revenue that would potentially lift them from poverty. If someone did not have the means to do such, then they could sell their labor for a consented upon amount. These voluntary transactions would help provide for those that are suffering. Additionally, businesses would compete for labor and profit, meaning higher wages and cheaper goods for the general populace. The limited supply of money and goods would drive costs down due to price being reflective of consumer demand, leading to an overall benefit to all parties involved. Businesses would have no state enforced monopoly that allows them to be detached from the purchaser, meaning they would have to appease patrons in order to make money. Voluntaryism would promote free markets that better suit the needs of the consumer and do not leave them falling for enforced prices and involuntary transactions.

An example of the previous paragraph’s content would come in the form of the pharmaceutical industry. Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Merck, Gilead, Amgen and AbbVie are all companies that reside in the United States and are given monopolies over their market through the FDA and intellectual property laws (Compton, 2020). People could receive cheaper drugs if the market were not dominated by the same six companies, and if other innovators had the opportunity to benefit the healthcare industry. Instead, the state currently allows these companies to monopolize medicine and line their pockets with taxpayer and private dollars. Without these special protections they would have to modulate production for end users thus benefitting those with limited funds for treatment.

Another important facet of voluntary lifestyles is the internal locus of control that it propagates. People will have less ability to blame parties beyond their power for the circumstances of their lives, and the state would no longer be able to arbitrarily create criminals. Instead of leveraging power and violence, people will be forced to make good arguments for their causes and will no longer have the authority to condemn others for life choices that do not involve the former party. This will be especially important regarding victimless crimes, with an extreme focus on drugs and possession. What substances one seeks to put in their body is between them solely, however, the state does not see it that way. In fact, inmates with drug charges constitute 46.1% of the total prison population according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Poverty can tend to influence choosing alternative ways of making money, criminality, and substance abuse, and criminalizing that merely enslaves the poor to the prison-industrial complex. It is a vicious cycle, but not one that a voluntary world could not solve. The lack of arbitrary imprisonment would allow people to make money through unconventional means and use what substances they see fit. Aid for addicts would be given on a voluntary basis, as it vastly is through the innumerable private halfway houses and narcotics programs, though would perhaps lack the forced nature that the state uses to enroll people in such. A voluntary society would remove the life-ruining effects that the state imposes for victimless offenses, leading to a far more productive and happy society.

On another note, society’s problems can never be truly eradicated due to the nature of this broken world; however, through voluntary means, the blunt of disease, injury, death, famine, natural disaster, poverty, and loss can be better aided as each instance occurs. These unfortunate yet immutable facets of human existence can be better addressed when the person is the highest level of authority, and needs are handled on a purely individual level. It should also be noted that many problems in society would cease to exist due to the absence of an abusive and coercive state.

Money that is taxed from the poor can instead be used to care for their needs, an incentive to work and self-reliance would be bolstered, those experiencing financial woes could create new businesses which would flourish without state associated fines and permits, and intellectual property would not stop innovation from reaching areas that many monopolies feel are not worth the investment. The state creates innumerable societal issues that negatively impact everyone, especially those susceptible to welfare dependence. Adopting the voluntary lifestyle would combat regime dominance and put power in the hands of everyone instead of those who believe it is their right to dictate how everyone should live their life.

A voluntary life has choice as its cornerstone and freedom as its pinnacle.
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Additionally, to think the state has aided in the end of societal issues, or has impaired such, is fundamentally flawed. Poverty is as rampant as ever, especially considering government intervention during Covid-19. Voluntaryism provides numerous ways to treat human problems and leaves the solutions to be as creative and individual choice-based as possible. The said philosophy does not provide a clear-cut, one size fits all solution to complex and nuanced issues, which appears to model the complexity and nuance of the individual. Government does the exact opposite by creating problems and enforcing poor, broad fixes that almost never truly address what they were intended to. The solutions to life’s multitude of calamities should be derived from free will and be given directly from the grace of those who seek to do good. An action cannot be good when the means to achieve it were wrought in theft and violence, as the perpetrator merely committed evil to benefit who they saw fit.

A voluntary life has choice as its cornerstone and freedom as its pinnacle. The world would function based on consent and aiding those who need it from a place of goodness rather than immorality. The ills of this mortal coil would not simply dissipate because the system has changed—however, the escapes from said ills would be numerous and not monopolized by a force driven entity. All solutions listed are but a drop in an endless ocean of creative, complex, and personalized possibilities for a voluntary society. This “perfect” world would never be truly utopic, however, the means to solve world problems would be morally justified. Voluntaryism is thusly the supreme societal format as it relies on the individual needs and wants of people rather than the needs of the elite beings elevated above all others.

Works Cited

Adereth, Maya, et al. “The United States Has a Long History of Mutual Aid Organizing.” Jacobin, www.jacobinmag.com/2020/06/mutual-aid-united-states-unions.

Baetjer, Howard. “Does Welfare Diminish Poverty?: Howard Baetjer, Jr.” FEE Freeman Article, Foundation for Economic Education, 1 Apr. 1984, fee.org/articles/does-welfare-diminish-poverty/.

Compton, Michelle. “Big Pharma – Drug & Device Companies, Lawsuits & Facts.” Drugwatch.com, 20 Apr. 2020, www.drugwatch.com/manufacturers/.

“Federal Bureau of Prisons.” BOP Statistics: Inmate Offenses, www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp.

Galles, Gary M. “33 Choice Quotes from the Great Murray Rothbard: Gary M. Galles.” FEE Freeman Article, Foundation for Economic Education, 2 Mar. 2018, fee.org/articles/33-choice-quotes-from-the-great-murray-rothbard/.

What are Natural Rights?

Posted on March 15, 2020 by Sarah Perry

We’ve all heard of Rights: Equal Rights, Human Rights, and various types of political or social “rights” du jour. Amazingly, there are many people who have never heard the term “natural rights” before and don’t know what that means, or don’t have an accurate and clear understanding of what rights are because the term is so often misused. So what are natural rights?

Philosopher John Locke wrote extensively and passionately about natural rights, which include the right to life, liberty, and property. Locke asserted that these rights are inherent in our nature as humans. This means they cannot be given nor taken away by any governments, politicians, nor documents such as the Constitution of the United States or the Bill of Rights—we simply have them.

Other natural rights that stem from Locke’s trifecta include the right to self-defense, the right of free movement, the right of privacy, the rights to free and independent thought and speech…the list can go on and on. Essentially, the key to remember here is that a natural right is something that you have the power of choice and action over that does not use force or coercion on others. As Ayn Rand wrote in her book The Virtue of Selfishness: “Remember that rights are moral principles which define and protect a man’s freedom of action, but impose no obligations on other men.”

Right To Life

“All mankind…being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.” —John Locke

By your own efforts, you have the right to work to obtain food, housing, and healthcare. Something that often gets muddled in discussions about this natural right is that some people think these things are owed to them by society. But something is not a true “right” if you use force or coercion to take the things you want and need from others, because that would be encroaching upon their natural rights.

You do not have the natural right to slave labor, which is what you are advocating for if you are demanding food, housing, healthcare, and other life-sustaining goods and services to be given to you for free. Ayn Rand put it this way: “No right can require the material implementation of that right by another man.”

Voluntary exchange and mutual cooperation ensure that everyone’s natural rights are respected, and the more the state can be kept out of transactions between consenting individuals the more freedom, prosperity, and higher quality of life everyone can enjoy.

Liberty

“I have no reason to suppose that he who would take away my liberty, would not when he had me in his power, take away everything else.” —John Locke

This is a word that some people often misuse in a similar way to the word “rights.” They talk about freedom from poverty, freedom from hunger, freedom from debt, etc. Others think of freedom as the license to do anything, without consequences. Both of these approaches are mistaken.

Poverty and hunger are the natural state of humans, and “freedom” from them makes as much sense as talking about freedom from youth or old age. Debt is something that is voluntarily undertaken, and to be “freed” from a debt voluntarily incurred is as silly as saying that you’re “free” from a restrictive piece of clothing you put on—true in a literal sense but not a philosophical one.

The “freedom” from the consequences of your actions is not freedom or liberty at all, because with that liberty you would be able to kill, steal, and enslave others with impunity—not liberty at all, but tyranny. Liberty can only be liberty if everyone possesses it, and so the only possible meaningful definition of liberty is that it is liberty from the interference of others—including the state.

Freedom from the state is important for the preservation of liberty and the other natural rights of individuals. This is what some of the Founding Fathers tried to guarantee with the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights, but as Lysander Spooner wrote: “The Constitution has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it.” Sadly, the only person who truly has the power to defend your personal liberty is yourself, and no government office can be relied upon to safeguard this treasure.

Property Rights

“Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself.” —John Locke

Writer and economist Murray Rothbard has argued that all natural rights can be traced back to property rights alone: your body is considered your property, therefore you have the natural right to consume whatever you wish and move your body wherever you wish (so long as you respect the private property rights of others).

You have the natural right to preserve your body (your property) via self-defense. Owning property such as land gives you the means to provide life-sustaining food and shelter for yourself. The work of your body—physical and mental—can be traded with other people for property, including food and shelter.

Natural Rights and Voluntaryism

What does this have to do with voluntaryism? Voluntaryists believe in social and financial transactions based strictly on consent. This is completely in line with respecting the natural rights of others and ourselves.

The more you understand about natural rights, the clearer it becomes why we should assert them and defend them. A society free of force and coercion is a society firmly rooted in an understanding of natural rights, and a voluntaryist philosophy naturally and effortlessly follows.

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