Planet Of The Slaves

Mendax News Service

I must be one of the very few people who has never seen any of the Planet of the Apes movies, but around the same time of the first one there was a commercial failure made called Planet of the Slaves.

If I remember correctly it was produced by Milton Mayer, with a screenplay by Lysander Spooner and starred a B-grade actor named Robert Nozick who plays the protagonist W. L “Bill” Garrison.

Garrison and his band land on a planet that is governed by a kakistocracy of omnicompetent – or so they think – men. The people seem happy and brag to the visitors about their freedom and how they have all kinds of rights that are protected and enumerated by their foundational charter. The visitors discover that the people of the planet are known as the Snacirema and that they are hospitable to strangers, but easily herded into a sort of unanimity of thought. There are a few independent thinkers, but they are derided as “Nockites” or “Remnantists.”

After a few days of intermingling, Garrison becomes convinced that all the supposed rights and freedoms the Snacirema brag about are illusory, in fact he becomes convinced that they are slaves.

His first inkling is when Ollie Holmes, one of the people he has befriended mentions that he has to send the government part of his wages or he will be jailed or have his property seized. Garrison is incredulous, but Holmes explains that it's only one percent and that it is the price of civilization. Garrison tries to explain that it isn't the amount that makes him a slave, it's the fact that the government has a superior claim to the fruits of his labor. Holmes is unconvinced.

A few days later, Garrison discovers that the people are compelled to send their children to school and that the government operates a huge network of schools that teach many things that the parents find repugnant. There are some people who teach their children at home and there are a few private schools, but they aren't free like the government schools.

The Snacirema maintain an enormous military with land, sea and air forces in which boys are required to register for service in if called. The chances of actually being called are very small since the whole apparatus is for defense, not aggression, and they haven't been attacked in over seventy years. Still, Garrison doesn't see how compulsory service is compatible with the freedom he keeps hearing about.

One day, as Holmes is taking Garrison to see the Thomas W. Wilson Memorial, they are stopped by a Compliance Officer – sort of like police – for not paying alimony and not having insurance. Garrison asks the officer how he knew that Holmes hadn't paid alimony and the officer explains that there are tag reading cameras everywhere that alert the officer if someone is “out of compliance.” After they are on their way again Garrison tells Holmes that he doesn't see how mass surveillance is compatible with freedom. Holmes explains that it's no big deal if you have nothing to hide and that he'll get matter resolved.

The next day Garrison finds that there is a meeting of Nockites at the Horatio Bunce Auditorium that night. He decides to go and see what their opinions are, but he can't persuade Holmes to accompany him since they are viewed as kooks, so he has to go alone.

When he gets there he sees that it's a very small group and they all seem to know each other and suspect he's some kind of spy or agent provocateur. He explains that he is from another planet and is only studying their beliefs and customs. A man named Fishel Chodorovic introduces himself as one of the group's founders and launches into a litany of objections to the way the planet is run and explains that the people are slaves without chains.

Garrison doesn't contradict Chodorovic, but asks him why he thinks as he does since most of the people seem to be perfectly happy or at least accepting of the situation.

Chodorovic responds that the people are bound with mental chains almost from birth and that they are firmly fastened by the compulsory school system which those in charge style “education.”

Garrison: Why don't the people just refuse to send their children to be indoctrinated?

Chodorovic: Most of the people not only don't object, they think it's a good idea to have compulsory schooling and if the parents don't send the children the children will be taken away and become wards of the state. The people are inured to control by everything they see and hear. Is something harmful? Outlaw it, or license it. There is a license for everything. Do you want to get married? You need a license. Do you want to braid hair? You need a license. Do you want to grow tobacco or peanuts? You need a license. You need a license to do everything: sell real estate, carry a gun, practice medicine, operate a motor vehicle, fly a plane, operate a business, practice law, sell used cars, cash checks, put up a sign, hold a garage sale, hunt or fish, dance in a strip club, sell alcohol, operate a boiler, sell firearms, sell insurance, ad infinitum. Then there are permits which are licenses by another name, building permits, electrical permits, plumbing permits, tree-cutting permits, etc. There are also requirements that you do as you're told: wear your seat belt, buy insurance on your car, buy medical insurance, keep your grass cut below a designated height, tag your car and your dog. The people have accepted control over everything.

The control is so complete that politicians seeking office promise to cut income taxes or “reform” the code, but never to eliminate and forbid income taxation. It is taken for granted that government has first claim on all income and can raise or lower its share at will.

There are prohibitions against having certain plants because somebody thinks you might do something harmful with them. Imagine that, outlawing plants! There are also certain drugs and treatments you aren't allowed to use because they are “unapproved.” The great god government has decreed that you can't use them, so needless to say they aren't covered under your mandatory insurance.

Garrison: That does sound like government is more intrusive than I had heard, but how does it keep track of who's doing what?

Chodorovic: Everybody is required to send in a tax return with their address and an identifying number unless they didn't have any “taxable income.” To claim dependents, each one also has to have a number.
To open a bank account you need a number and the banks have to report any “suspicious activity.”
It's considered suspicious if you structure you banking transactions to avoid being reported.
There are tag readers that record your location and time. All of your mail is photographed front and back. All of your electronic communications are intercepted and stored. It's not known if it's being done, but you could be tracked and recorded continuously by having a phone on you.

Garrison: Do you think it's possible to reverse this?

Chodorovic: It's an uphill battle, but if I could do one thing with the wave of a magic wand it would be to forbid government involvement of any kind in schooling. No compulsion, no certification, no textbook advice, no grants of money or property, no teacher licensing, no tax credits, no nothing. And if I had a second wave of the wand I would utterly forbid any taxation of income from whatever source derived. Without funding there can be no tyranny.

Garrison: Well, I've got to be leaving for home tomorrow, but if I ever get back to Earth I'm going to see how you're progressing – or regressing – with your program of deconstruction.

Chodorovic: It's at least a fifty-year project.

Nowhere To Run

The Fugitive Slave Act was passed in 1850 to deal with the problem of runaway slaves and the weakening of a 1793 law with the same objective. All people want to keep the fruits of their labor and when this desire is violated they seek some remedy, whether it be a change in the law or a change in location. If a slave could make it to Canada he was probably safe from the slave catchers. Some northern states had laws against black people – slave or free – moving into the state, so Canada was probably the best option. If a slave could escape to a free area he could keep all his earnings since there was no income tax at the time.

Today the state of affairs is a little different. If an American citizen wants to keep all his income there is no place to escape to. If such a person moves to Switzerland, Uganda, Haiti or Antarctica the IRS wants its “share” of his income. It doesn't matter that the person no longer lives in the US or makes any money in the US, just by virtue of citizenship, Uncle Sam wants his share.

If the plantation owner of yesteryear could somehow reap the benefits of the runaway slave's labor no matter where he was, he would have had no incentive to capture him and bring him back. What difference would it make where he was if the “owner” still had an irrevocable claim against his productivity? The slave had an advantage over the modern counterpart if he could escape the country.

In feudal times there were serfs known as serfs “regardant” and serfs “in gross.” A serf regardant was only a serf in regards to one Lord, otherwise he was free. A serf in gross was a serf always and everywhere no matter who he worked for. Americans are now what could be described as serfs in gross. No matter where they live or work, the federal vampire demands its gallon of blood even though the victim is using none of its “services.”

Every time a national holiday of some sort comes around, be it Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, Veteran's Day or some other, we hear the usual script about how Americans are free and that we owe a huge debt to founders, veterans or somebody for all the freedom we enjoy. This presents an odd definition of freedom. What exactly does it mean to be free? Is it possible to be free when someone has an irrevocable, unlimited claim on everything you earn? Some will object that the income tax is not unlimited, it's “only” thirty-nine percent or whatever it happens to be, but this can be changed at any time for any reason. Serfs generally owed about twenty percent to the Lord - were they free?

Americans are so indoctrinated in the slave mentality that they will refer to someone who wants to keep the fruits of his labor as a “tax cheat.” Our Founding Fathers probably would not even have understood such a term. Weren't all of them aspiring tax cheats?

During every election politicians prattle on about reducing taxes, closing loopholes, tax reform or some other bromide to hoodwink the greatest number of voters. Almost none ever talk about abolishing the income tax and abolishing the IRS. The government loves an income tax because it allows it to pry into the financial affairs of all its citizens and it gives it a sword of Damocles to hold over any person or group that might have the wrong opinions. Many people like the income tax because they envy those more successful than themselves and like to see them punished. Marx and Engels undoubtedly realized this when they made “A heavy progressive or graduated income tax” the second plank of the Communist Manifesto. Anything short of abolition is adjusting the fit of the chains on the slaves.

Not only does the government tax income of those living outside the country, it prohibits those who “owe” back taxes from leaving the plantation country. Nobody is free who has a master that has first claim against all his earnings. Proverbs XXII:7 says that the borrower is slave to the lender, but in the land of the free, even those who haven't borrowed are slaves by virtue of citizenship, and there's nowhere to run.

Frederick Douglass And Modern Slavery

Drapetomania was a supposed mental disorder that caused slaves to run away from their masters. Anyone paying attention to the emigration of many Americans to freer countries might think that drapetomania is striking the wealthier classes.

A man who knew something about drapetomania - in fact he had it, even if undiagnosed - was Frederick Douglass. After his escape he wrote a short autobiography titled Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. His narrative is of interest not just because of its first hand account of slavery, but because of the insights he relates that are applicable to many people today.
Many people realize that the government they live under is a criminal organization, but will jump to its defense when some foreigner criticizes the actions or policies of their government.

Douglass relates how slaves would argue about whose master was greatest even though they might hate their master.  

"The same traits of character might be seen in Colonel Lloyd's slaves, as are seen in the slaves of the political parties..... Indeed, it is not uncommon for slaves even to fall out and quarrel among themselves about the relative goodness of their masters, each contending for the superior goodness of his own over that of the others. At the very same time, they mutually execrate their masters when viewed separately. It was so on our plantation. When Colonel Lloyd's slaves met the slaves of Jacob Jepson, they seldom parted without a quarrel about their masters; Colonel Lloyd's slaves contending that he was the richest, and Mr. Jepson's slaves that he was the smartest, and most of a man. Colonel Lloyd's slaves would boast his ability to buy and sell Jacob Jepson. Mr. Jepson's slaves would boast his ability to whip Colonel Lloyd. These quarrels would almost always end in a fight between the parties, and those that whipped were supposed to have gained the point at issue. They seemed to think that the greatness of their masters was transferable to themselves. It was considered as being bad enough to be a slave; but to be a poor man's slave was deemed a disgrace indeed!"

The issue of transferability is evident in people bragging about their country, school or football team as though they are bathed in some kind of reflected glory from the entity in question. 

An incident that illustrates how slave owners and governments can brook no disobedience is related in the account of the murder of a slave named Demby. Mr Gore, the overseer, shot Demby in the head for disobedience.  

"He was asked by Colonel Lloyd and my old master, why he resorted to this extraordinary expedient. His reply was, (as well as I can remember,) that Demby had become unmanageable. He was setting a dangerous example to the other slaves,-one which, if suffered to pass without some such demonstration on his part, would finally lead to the total subversion of all rule and order upon the plantation."

This is probably why dissidents such as Sophie Scholl, Cardinal Mindszenty and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn are celebrated here, but indigenous protesters or dissidents are not.

Learning to read was viewed by Douglass as the road to freedom, but government schools have blunted the efficacy of this for many people by teaching them very early lots of erroneous or incomplete information.

"Very soon after I went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Auld, she very kindly commenced to teach me the A, B, C. After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters. Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read....I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty-to wit, the white man's power to enslave the black man. It was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. It was just what I wanted, and I got it at a time when I the least expected it. Whilst I was saddened by the thought of losing the aid of my kind mistress, I was gladdened by the invaluable instruction which, by the merest accident, I had gained from my master. Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read."

Government schooling is probably the greatest mechanism of control yet discovered. It is the modern equivalent of enforced illiteracy. Reading is fine as long as you don't read the wrong things. This is why the internet is a lethal menace to government's organized ignorance.

Almost everyone has heard the phrase "bread and circuses" to describe the method used by Rome to keep the populace pacified, but it works in almost any setting and with any people.

"This will be seen by the fact, that the slaveholders like to have their slaves spend those [holi]days just in such a manner as to make them as glad of their ending as of their beginning. Their object seems to be, to disgust their slaves with freedom, by plunging them into the lowest depths of dissipation. For instance, the slaveholders not only like to see the slave drink of his own accord, but will adopt various plans to make him drunk. One plan is, to make bets on their slaves, as to who can drink the most whisky without getting drunk; and in this way they succeed in getting whole multitudes to drink to excess. Thus, when the slave asks for virtuous freedom, the cunning slaveholder, knowing his ignorance, cheats him with a dose of vicious dissipation, artfully labelled with the name of liberty. The most of us used to drink it down, and the result was just what might be supposed; many of us were led to think that there was little to choose between liberty and slavery. We felt, and very properly too, that we had almost as well be slaves to man as to rum. So, when the holidays ended, we staggered up from the filth of our wallowing, took a long breath, and marched to the field,-feeling, upon the whole, rather glad to go, from what our master had deceived us into a belief was freedom, back to the arms of slavery."

When someone tries to keep the fruits of his labor or escape government control, he is denounced as a "tax cheat" or just an over all ungrateful traitor, the same as with a slave who tries unsuccessfully to escape. Douglass attempted an escape with some other slaves, but was thwarted because of someone reporting the plan. In typical fashion, he was the bad guy for not appreciating his station in life.

 "... Betsy Freeland, mother of William Freeland, came to the door with her hands full of biscuits, and divided them between Henry and John. She then delivered herself of a speech, to the following effect:-addressing herself to me, she said, "~You devil! You yellow devil!~ it was you that put it into the heads of Henry and John to run away. But for you, you long-legged mulatto devil! Henry nor John would never have thought of such a thing." I made no reply, and was immediately hurried off towards St. Michael's."

While still a slave, Douglass had a lesson in income taxation. He had learned the trade of caulking ships and was working in a shipyard making six to nine dollars a week. His master imposed a 99 percent tax on his wages.

"I was now getting, as I have said, one dollar and fifty cents per day. I contracted for it; I earned it; it was paid to me; it was rightfully my own; yet, upon each returning Saturday night, I was compelled to deliver every cent of that money to Master Hugh. And why? Not because he earned it,-not because he had any hand in earning it,-not because I owed it to him,-nor because he possessed the slightest shadow of a right to it; but solely because he had the power to compel me to give it up. The right of the grim-visaged pirate upon the high seas is exactly the same."

Later on he says that he was sometimes given six cents out of the six dollars, so he wasn't taxed at 100 percent. He might also have been reminded of all the services and conveniences and freedom that were being provided by his master. After his escape, he got a job and describes the satisfaction of how it felt to keep all his earnings, something modern slaves aren't allowed to do.

"It was the first work, the reward of which was to be entirely my own. There was no Master Hugh standing ready, the moment I earned the money, to rob me of it. I worked that day with a pleasure I had never before experienced."

There are lots of books and articles about how to flee the country, get your assets out and where to settle in relative peace and freedom, but one thing hard to overcome even if you have the means to leave, is family and friends.

"It is my opinion that thousands would escape from slavery, who now remain, but for the strong cords of affection that bind them to their friends. The thought of leaving my friends was decidedly the most painful thought with which I had to contend. The love of them was my tender point, and shook my decision more than all things else" 

A man writing in 1845 was obviously not writing for readers of today, but many of the same dilemmas are confronted by modern people who are trying to get from under the oppressor's boot.

A man like Douglass could not have imagined the degree of control imposed by modern governments. It's not too far-fetched to see the day when paychecks will be direct-deposited to the IRS, and producers sent the balance by the IRS. Or maybe all debits would be handled by the IRS and anything they didn't approve of would be disallowed. This would make it difficult for modern slaves to flee if they should contract drapetomania.

Rome Didn't Fall In A Day

Back in the '70s, I used to expect the government to suffer a financial collapse at which time it would have to quit doing most of the things it's doing because it would run out of money. That isn't what has happened. Instead of  cutting spending it has printed more money and tried to increase taxes on various things.

Like many things historical, there's a precedent for this. There's a proverbial saying that "Rome wasn't built in a day," but it didn't collapse in a day either. Probably most of the Romans who lived as the Empire was collapsing didn't realize that was what was happening, but plenty of them realized they weren't living in the good old days.

One such person was a man named Salvian, sometimes called Salvian the Presbyter. He wrote a treatise that is called in English The Governance Of God or De gubernatione Dei in Latin*. Its original title was On The Present Judgement and it is well worth reading to see how things played out then and probably always will. His purpose was to show that the then current problems were caused by moral collapse, excessive taxation and a greedy and conniving landed class, not an abandonment of the old pagan religion. Julian the Apostate who had made the opposite argument 70 or so years before, had tried to re-institute paganism and even tried to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem, presumably because it wasn't Christian and he liked practices such as animal sacrifice, but his efforts ended when he was killed in a war with the Persians after a short reign.

In making his case, Salvian left us a first-hand account of how things went to rot. One of the things he mentions over and over is how the peasant class was obliterated by oppressive taxation and how the small land owners indentured themselves to the large land owners who paid their taxes for them, but in return got their land and their labor, eventually leading to feudalism. Even after the small land owners had lost their land and become coloni - those who worked the land but did not own it - they still were liable for the tax, thus permanently indenturing them to the wealthy land owner who paid it for them.

The Romans had a system of permanent tax collectors called curiales. If you were born a curiale, you could not change jobs and were liable to pay any taxes you could not collect. Needless to say, this assured great diligence on the part of the curiales.

One of the many things Salvian mentions that is starting to be more common in the U.S., but was unheard of just a few years ago is people fleeing the Empire and renouncing their citizenship.

"Thus, far and wide, they migrate either to the Goths or to the Bagaudae, or to other barbarians everywhere in power; yet they do not repent of having migrated. They prefer to live as freemen under an outward form of captivity, than as captives under the appearance of liberty. Therefore, the name of Roman citizens, at one time not only greatly valued, but dearly bought, is now repudiated and fled from, and it is almost considered not only base, but even deserving of abhorrence."(pg.136)

Just as Washington refuses to rein in its excesses, the same was true of Rome around A.D. 450.

"Then, indeed, the authors of base pleasures feasted at will in most places, but all things were filled and stuffed to overflowing. Nobody thought of the State's expenses, nobody thought of the State's losses, because the cost was not felt. The State itself sought how it might squander what it was already scarcely able to acquire. The heaping up of wealth which had already exceeded its limit was overflowing even into trifling matters.
But what can be said of the present-day situation? That old abundances have gone from us. The resources of former times have gone. We are already poverty-stricken, yet we do not cease to be spendthrift." (167, 168)

It wasn't just in fiscal matters that modern times resemble the fall of Rome. Salvian laments the obsession people had with attending American Idol the games. Rome had degenerated so far that there were 175 holidays per year, each with its state-sponsored amusements. The Roman Army had boy camp-followers instead of, or perhaps in addition to female prostitutes. The shouts of people being killed in defense of the city could not be distinguished from those at the games.

"As I have said, the noise of battle outside the walls and of the games within, the voices of the dying outside and the voices of the reveling within, were mingled. Perhaps there scarcely could be distinguished the cries of the people who fell in battle and the yelling of the people who shouted in the circus." (174)

Things had declined so far that the public officials whom he classifies as robbers continued to rob the people even after they no longer held office. This has been refined in modern times to the revolving door system of going from elected office to lobbyist or CEO of some big company that conducts business with the government.

Salvian portrays the barbarians as virtuous people - much more so than his fellow countrymen - nothing like the people they are typically represented as being. Even back then, government knew best and imposed price controls which then as always caused black marketeers to provide for people's wants and needs. One difference between then and now is that the Romans could not print money. They could debase it, but not print it as virtually all modern states do. They also had no efficient way of spying on the populace or freezing assets which is now routine. This enables us to postpone, but not avert the day of collapse. As everybody seems to be fond of saying, it allows us to "kick the can down the road," but at some point we will find that the road is a dead end.

*The Governance Of God, translated by Jeremiah F. O'Sullivan, 1947, Fathers Of The Church