Selling Fear to Promote Liberty

In terms of provoking consumer behavior, there are probably no greater motivators than sex and fear.

Consequently, so much advertising and propaganda relies on promoting women's bodies and sensuality, xenophobic attribution for social ills, poverty avoidance, demonizing capitalist "exploiters," ecological or environmental catastrophes, potential pandemics or mass die-offs due to illness, drought, natural resource shortages, smog or radiation. Such things provide effective and lucrative results as they weigh on the human mind.

Pornography sells well, year after year, as do promoters of "conspiracy theories" on the internet, radio and television. Catastrophic events covered by news services fare well, in terms of both ratings and revenues. Nowadays, the "climate change" fear monger crowd has gotten rich from its craft, no matter how erroneous its dire predictions have been. Selling sex and fear are simply good business.

But are we not doing the same thing: selling fear? We libertarians warn people about the real and nefarious intentions of most Northern Hemisphere states. People like Alex Jones have certainly done well by stirring up fear. Jeff Rense and Michael Savage probably do too, not to mention so many others. Even Paul Craig Roberts and Chuck Baldwin, along with the Libertarian Party (and Constitution Party in the USA) have benefited. I have not profited even a small fraction of what others have, but I must admit that the main reason my listeners/readers want to "Escape America Now" and come to Chile (or some other freer, saner place) is because I have pointed out reasons for them to be fearful or concerned in the place where they currently reside. In short, my consulting, residency services and book sales depend on people being at least a little afraid or worried.

The problem is that, unlike climate change and so many other bogus fear-generating schemes or paradigms, people really do have a reason to fear the state. There are real reasons to want to avoid war, destruction, regulation, family intrusions, police brutality, central-bank-sponsored financial collapse and devastation--all of which seem more plausible with each passing week. The existence of the false and charlatan fear monger crowd, especially among radical environmentalists, and the planting of phony "right wing" money-making show hosts to eventually discredit us, does not imply or necessitate that the rest of us are wrong and specious, too.

Apart from theoretical prowess, the fact is that--unlike the doomsters--many of us have historical precedent to remind us that the state is dangerous: its agents lie, manipulate and kill. The world's states of the Twentieth Century were responsible for killing 350 million of their own, non-combatant citizens. None of the facts of state-led atrocities are mere inventions. People have really died. Lives have been disrupted. People have lost all or most of their material possessions. They have been treated like the inhabitants of Animal Farm.

Even today, you are not free. You are a serf. You slavishly work most of the year to render what is due to your state "lord" and, in return, hope to receive some benefits from that lordship. Patriotism, nationalism, sports, booze, porn/romance stories all help ease the painful reality that most people face and help them give their all to the cause of the state, which in turn makes sure to help its backers and puppet masters become ever more powerful and rich.

In the end, you should be scared by what the state can do to you or has already done to you. Public policy often manifests its sinister, if not brutal, side. Nevertheless, you need not live in fear forever. Your timorousness should merely motivate you to act in your own best interest and remove yourself (as much as possible) from harm's way. Your money, friends, job and networking mean nothing once you are dead. Securing a safe operating environment makes sense, no? Even if we have to escape to our Plan B settings more often than we would like, doing so is simply the price we pay to keep ourselves freer than others, and less likely to die before our time at the hand of the wily, Draconian state.

So, I will admit that I am trying to scare you into action. You should fear your greatest enemy, the state. Even if it has not killed you yet, it has certainly pillaged and regulated you. And you can expect no better treatment in the future. The difference between the typical fear monger and me, is that I have no public policy agenda, I aspire to no rent seeking ploy; nor do I don millionaire aspirations from being an information provider or professor.

Moreover, I practice what I preach. I have left. I have renounced my U.S. citizenship. I have pulled assets out of the lion's mouth and placed them offshore. I have integrated into a new culture and learned a new language. I have been one of "leave" movement's voices or leaders for over two decades. I have done what you have often dreamed of doing but have simply lacked the guts or resources to accomplish.

The best part is that I have succeeded. As I look over the beautiful bay at Viña del Mar, I fear no false flag actions. I fear no "terrorist" bombings. I do not face atrocious taxation and regulation. While I hardly live in paradise, other than the climate and view, I am out of harm's way and likely a whole lot better off than you are in terms of my political and natural environment. For that reason, I think I have earned much more credibility than the Gores, Joneses, Ehrlichs, Renses and myriad all-talk-no-action fear mongers of the world.

Are you ready to talk and take action, too? I would be delighted to hear your comments and thoughts. Just please do not send (always banal and boring) excuses for lethargy, laziness, inaction and so forth. Do not be just another whining parasite or disgruntled slave that refuses to choose freedom.

John Cobin, Ph.D.
Escape America Now

Policy of Liberty on Facebook
Policy of Liberty on Twitter