102 Quotes by Larken Rose

The message here is not that we should try to create a world without “authority”; instead, the message is that it would behoove human beings to accept the fact that a world without “authority” is all that has ever existed, and that mankind would be far better off, and people would behave in a far more rational, moral and civilized manner, if that fact were widely understood.

Those who fight for any “government,” even if they believe they are “fighting for their country,” can never achieve freedom and justice, because a ruling class, by its very nature, never wants freedom and justice, even for its own subjects, or it would cease to exist. However noble their motives, and however courageous their actions, ultimately the only thing “government” soldiers can ever achieve is subjugation and domination.

If a hundred people were shipwrecked on an island, who would imagine that forcing most of them to serve and obey a “protector” would be necessary or useful? And who would imagine that letting one or two of them forcibly impose their morals on the rest would make such a group more virtuous?

The “left” and “right” are merely two masks which the one ruling class wears, and making a new mask which is a compromise between the other two will have no effect whatsoever upon the nature of the beast or the destruction it causes.

Mortals cannot alter morality any more than they can alter the laws of mathematics. Their understanding of something may change, but they cannot, by decree, change the nature of the universe. Nor would anyone sane attempt to. Yet that is what every new “law” passed by politicians pretends to be: a change in what constitutes moral behavior.

There is a certain feeling of comfort and safety that one gets by conforming and obeying. Believing that things are in someone else’s hands, and having trust that someone else will make things right, is a way to avoid responsibility.

The entire notion of “a government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” while it makes nice feel-good political rhetoric, is a logical impossibility. A ruling class cannot serve or represent those it rules any more than a slave owner can serve or represent his slaves.

On the contrary, being a moral person requires taking on the personal responsibility of judging right from wrong and following one’s own conscience, the opposite of respecting and obeying “authority.

Note the drastic contrast between the usual connotations of those terms – “anarchy” sounding scary and violent, “law and order” sounding civilized and just – and the real-world results of following conscience versus following rulers. The level of evil committed by individuals acting on their own is completely dwarfed by the level of evil committed by people obeying a perceived “authority.