The Slave Mentality

Do you say "I owe the IRS (government) this amount of my income" instead of "A gang of thieves has taken some of my hard-earned money by force"?

Do you say "I have to go to the DMV to get my driver license renewed" instead of "I'm visiting the local office of the driving extortion racket to pay my protection money so I can have the 'privilege' of driving my own car"?

Do you say "I have to pay my property tax, it's coming due next month" instead of "My rent is due to the government landlord next month, and if I don't pay it I'll be evicted"?

If you do typically view things in the way presented by the first statement in each example above, then you have not thought through the reality of the situation. To break free of the slave mentality, you must first recognize that you do currently have a slave master, that is, the governing class in whose self-interest it is to keep you in your chains. It is better for them if you don't even realise that you are a slave, and that's why so much indoctrination takes place by means of the state-loving media, the government run and controlled school system, etc. To be free, first free your mind, and then eventually freedom will become reality.

Many Americans are under the illusion that the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery. Its words certainly sound as if it did: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." The language sounds quite clear. Neither "slavery" (defined by one dictionary as "submission to a dominating influence") nor "involuntary" ("compulsory") "servitude" ("a condition in which one lacks liberty esp. to determine one’s course of action or way of life") shall exist within the United States.

But words are abstractions, and must always be interpreted. As Orwell made clear to us, unless we pay attention to what is being said, scheming men and women with ambitions over the lives and property of others, will interpret words in such ways as to convey the opposite meaning most of us attach to those words. This is true with the American state – particularly through its definers and obfuscators in the judicial system – in telling us the "true meaning" of the 13th Amendment. This provision was only intended to prohibit private forms of slavery; the state was not intended to be bound by its otherwise clear language. Thus, the 13th Amendment did not end slavery, but only nationalized it. The state is to have a monopoly on trafficking in slaves!

Compulsory systems of military conscription, jury-duty, school attendance, and road-building duty, have long been upheld by the courts as not being barred by the 13th Amendment. So, too, has that most far-reaching form of involuntary servitude, taxation. When the state desires your nonconsented services, the courts – consistent with their record of expanding state power while giving very restrictive interpretations to individual liberty – are quick with the "newspeak."

The Slave Mentality by Butler Shaffer