Perhaps it is a vice...

"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice!" according to the late Barry Goldwater. I'm sure Russell Kanning agrees with that sentiment, and because of that belief, he is sitting in a jail cell. He's likely on a hunger strike by now, and protests calling for his release are already in the planning stages. I won't be at any of those protests though, because as much as I like Russell as a person and fellow liberty activist, he's in the wrong, this time, in my opinion.

Russell is a participant in the Free State Project, a libertarian-minded movement and so am I, so we are comrades in arms, in the effort to 'create a society in which the maximum role of civil government is the protection of life, liberty, and property' here in New Hampshire. But Russell isn't a libertarian by his own admission, he's an anarchist, in the model of Leo Tolstoy's Christian Anarchism, and perhaps that's the reason he's in jail today.

According to Wikipedia, Christian Anarchism is the belief that the only source of authority to which Christians are ultimately answerable is God, embodied in the teachings of Jesus. Christian Anarchists feel that government does not, and should not, have power over them.

Those who believe that "God is on their side" are usually zealots in some fashion or other. If you believe that God wants you to own a particular piece of land, or 'spread democracy', or otherwise 'do his will,' then it's no great surprise if and when you are discovered breaking or just plain ignoring the "laws of man," since a higher purpose is clearly driving you. According to some observers, perhaps President George W. Bush is this sort of man.

Last week, Russell was arrested while attempting to pass out flyers to IRS agents, which compared Bush to Hitler and asking them if they wanted to be a part of that evil, or if, instead, they would quit their jobs. Released right away, he went back, this time without his flyers, and attempted again to enter the IRS office. Arrested yet again, he then publicly announced that he would not attend a court hearing the next day. On Monday, federal agents came to his home, where Russell was seized and taken forcibly to a Federal Court in Concord, to answer to an arraignment hearing. Russell made clear he would refuse to cooperate with the proceedings, he didn't want a lawyer, and if allowed to leave, he would not voluntarily return to the court. As a result, the trial was held right then and there, and after being found guilty on 4 of 5 charges (essentially disobedience of the officers and disruptive conduct) he's now being held in jail until his sentencing, in early September. The sentence could be as high as 4 months in jail and twenty thousand dollars.

Russell has a history of doing non-violent civil disobedience activism. He's taken to dressing in overalls and bearing a pitchfork, evoking some archetypal farmer, yet formerly, he was an accountant, and among other things, now publishes a small newspaper. He holds protests and events without permits. He burns flags and hold up picket signs along the roadside. He refuses to argue before a judge or post bail, and pleads guilty when charged with a crime, rather than fight it, because he refuses to acknowledge the court's right to try him in the first place. When he attempted to board an airplane, without any identification and without submitting to a secondary search by security, while carrying his Bible, Constitution and an airline ticket, he was arrested and pled guilty to trespassing. No one was hurt, and if he'd been allowed to pass, his flight would have been uneventful. When he and his wife were holding signs protesting eminent domain and President Bush, in Manchester on a public street corner, they refused to move to a 'free speech zone' and were arrested. Those charges were later dropped.

Russell wrote before going to the IRS offices: "I don't plan on hurting people, but I am resisting them and might mess up the office. I don't think it is infantile, but maybe I am wrong. I do call it tilting at windmills. I have chosen to begin with the IRS. Jesus Christ overturned the moneychangers tables. I will try to turn over the tax collectors desks. I might even use a big magnet (a weapon of mass destruction). I am trying to break laws and certainly disturb the peace." This potential threat of violence is why the officers were waiting for him in the first place last week, and at the first sign of his intent to commit that act, they stepped in and arrested him.

It pains me to say it, but his actions, at least this time, were not in tune with the "creation" intent that the Free State Project is trying to foster. It was a destructive idea, plain and simple, "the ending of government", that drove Russell toward his actions. The difference might be subtle, too subtle perhaps, but it's important to make the distinction. Creation is about bringing something new into the world, causing more to exist. Destruction is about having less existing when you are done.

The Declaration of Independence says, in part, "to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men". I believe that Government itself is a valid institution, despite how big or screwed up our current one might be. James Madison said "If men were angels, no government would be necessary." Perhaps Christian Anarchists believe that men can be angels. Sadly, the rest of us aren't there yet, so we continue to need to have some form of government to hold the balance. A smaller government, most definately, but the continued existence of one, never the less.

Russell likes to quote Frederick Douglass: "Those who profess to favor freedom, yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." The belief that a struggle is needed, that two sides must be in opposition, is pervasive. Even the Communist Manifesto, a book that all freestaters (including Russell) disagree with, talks about class struggle as the core cause of history. I believe that struggle is not the only way to make change happen, that it's possible to find peaceful ways to allow people to live their lives without conflict. I think that Russell actively sought out conflict in his actions, even if the sole end goal has been to martyr himself in the name of his holy quest, because he embraced the idea that the conflict was a blessed one and that God was on his side.

I believe in political means, in running for office, and creating solutions which best help people to solve the problems in their lives. Often, I believe, that means reducing government intervention into their lives, allowing them more choices and more freedom to make their own decisions, and creating new opportunities and options for everyone.

Russell has, in the past, openly chided me (and others) for having political aims and methods. Run for school board? The government shouldn't be in the education business, he felt, and I'd be supporting it. Testify on behalf of bills in Legislature? They had no business telling people what to do or not, so again, I was merely supporting the powers that be. We agreed to disagree, but parted friends, and remained so. We'd still sit and break bread together, secure in the knowledge that we were on the same side of the fight, using different methods, his anti-political, mine political.

It was with dismay I learned of his most recent plans, and I watched sadly as others attempted to talk him out of it without success. Sunday night after the event, I'd written to one email list, pointing out how Russell's previous civil-disobedience events had been somewhat successful in terms of their end results and the resulting positive press, despite the odds, but that his 'Russell Roulette' luck couldn't hold out for much longer. Otto Bismarck said "God watches out for fools, drunkards and the United States," but how long would God watch out for Russell? Russell isn't a fool, he doesn't drink, and he's certainly against the federal government. When I got a call from a friend on Monday, while I was out of town on vacation, and he described agents tackling Russell to the floor, I knew that the luck had finally run out. Russell's status was in the back of my mind for the rest of my vacation, hoping that he was comfortable, and wishing he'd listened to reason first.

In the long run, the Free State Project will continue to have an growing influence here in New Hampshire. As more individuals move here over the years, with a variety of views and beliefs, both political and anti-political, I'm sure this is not the last time someone will be arrested and the term 'freestater' will be mentioned. It's very important to me that all of our neighbors understand that within the FSP, we're not all of the same mindset, and we don't even agree on what the issues are, and we certainly don't all agree on methods. Ideally, I'd like to see more people focus on long term strategies and solutions to increase liberty, and less of these hyped-up media events that make little real difference yet begin and end in conflict.

Russell wrote "Politics is acceptable to the government, because it will not destroy it." Like the fictional Anakin Skywalker, I fear that Russell's anger and hatred of 'the powers that be' has taken him to the dark side, to a place where rather than focusing on creation, he's focusing on the destruction. And if that has truly become his intent, then perhaps we are no longer comrades in arms after all. I hope I'm wrong, and I hope, unlike Anakin, that he realizes that in time, before any harm comes to him or his loved ones. Russell's smile and his laugh, not to mention his many talents, are too valuable for them to be wasted behind bars, or worse, twisted by destructive ideas he sincerely believes are righteous and good ones.