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August 22, 2013

Ladar Levison’s Lesson

STRATEGIC COMMENTARY

Why We Must Awaken Conscience…

…if we want to end state-based criminality.

When we ask people to Withdraw Allegiance from this so-called “government,” we're trying to awaken their conscience. We're trying to get as many people as possible, including those with State-bestowed powers, to reconsider their previous way of thinking.

Yet we've heard from those who said it's pointless to register personal dissent. “Congress doesn’t pay attention,” we're told. But appeals to conscience can, over time, make a difference.

Hard as it is to believe, people do make decisions that are opposite their profitable interests. Their conscience insists they must. I want to introduce you to a man who has an awakened conscience. He placed his conscience above personal benefit.

Ladar Levison created an encrypted email service called Lavabit. Levison invested ten years of his life. He accumulated 350,000 customers. Whistleblower, Edward Snowden, was one of those customers. Naturally, the Federal State wanted to dragnet all Lavabit communications.

Instead of complying with a State request that he help spy on all of his customers, Levison

Shut down his service! His moving, open letter says that he did not want to “become complicit in crimes against the American people.”

Ladar Levison is an example of acting on an awakened conscience. How else would you explain his actions, which were so obviously opposite his profitable interests?

But Levison's statement, that he didn't want to “become complicit in crimes against the American people,” along with his bold action, provoked this thought

We need a mass of people, be they your neighbors or your so-called representatives, who will, like Ladar Levison, declare,I don’t want to become complicit in crimes against the American people.” If enough people decide to obey their sensitized conscience, the statist system will falter, if not implode.

This thought is important, perhaps even urgent, because

Bureaucrats, inspectors, cops, and soldiers have guns. All of them, whether they realize it or not, have the power to damage and even ruin lives. When that happens, some maintain they're just following orders.

Instead, I want them to have a crisis of conscience. I want them to learn Ladar Levison's lesson and declare, “I don’t want to become complicit in crimes against the American people.” Let me explain

Right now, there’s a vast and growing body of evidence that the police are not here to protect and serve. They’re being given unlawful or immoral orders. Yet they’re NOT responding with Ladar Levison's words.

  • Arrests for victimless “crimes” consume most of the department's time and budget
  • There have been reports of homeowner, gun confiscation, from law-abiding persons, in New York and California
  • Police in many states have confiscated, erased, and broken cameras of people recording their public actions. Recently, one man had his dog shot for video-recording the police in a public place

Would it not be better if the police had an awakening of conscience? Imagine them organizing (many of them have a union, after all) and demanding of their bosses, “We will neither commit nor be complicit in these and other crimes against the American people?” Well

That’s why we need to teach EVERYONE, including people on The State’s payroll, to follow Ladar Levison’s example. We want them to have a sensitized conscience — even profound empathy. We want them to protect that conscience by refusing to obey immoral and unlawful orders, even if it costs them something.

Thus, Withdrawing Allegiance is a “heresy” campaign designed to make people pause and think new, more empathetic thoughts. That is something The State cannot long abide. So, in your conversations

Speak to the moral conscience, both of your neighbors and of those who claim they are your representatives. It will make a difference.

To keep this unique message going, we encourage you to start a monthly pledge or make a generous one-time donation.

Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.
& (coming soon) the Zero Aggression Project

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