INTRODUCTION

What could I do? Years ago, I was in Mann's Chinese Theater in Hollywood. The feature had just begun when some kid, or an adult acting like one, began shining a red laser onto the screen from somewhere in the audience. I was instantly furious. I had not spent my time and money on a movie ticket so some jerk could ruin my enjoyment of the picture. I immediately raised my voice with a solemn promise to shove that laser pointer up his ass if he didn’t cut it out.

But so did everyone else. My words, quickly composed to frighten the cretin into good behavior, were utterly lost in the sound of nearly all the audience trying to say similar things. I could not even hear my own shouted voice. The red dot continued to dance all over the screen for half a minute while the audience roared like some aggravated but inarticulate animal. I listened in silence, choosing not to waste any more of my own effort in that human braying.

At length, the laser suddenly went out to the sound of a scuffle. Several fist-on-flesh impacts were heard and someone was carried out of the theater by several others. The audience roared again, this time with approval, which I gladly joined. We were able to enjoy the third film in the Indiana Jones series in relative peace but whenever I recall that moment, I’m always struck by the way my best personal effort simply disappeared into vocal static.

Years later, here I find myself in an oddly similar situation. Instead of a movie, I’m watching serious events in my country unfold. Rather than a single creep in the audience, over half the voting population is shining a red light onto our nation’s government and the very culture itself. The color of the light is at least appropriate. Red is the color of socialism- and human blood.

At the time of this writing, a man named Barrack Obama has won the 2008 United States Presidential election. While concerns have been raised in some circles as to whether Obama is truly native-born American or whether the election was stolen via electronic vote tampering, I’m reluctant to address them here. Instead, I’ll simply note that Obama’s campaign promises and his past associations point clearly in one direction- socialism. I believe it is about time America had a black President, or a woman President. Given the history, such an achievement is long overdue. However, one thing the country does not need and never will is a socialist in power.

Some would point to nature for examples of perfect socialism that actually works. Ants, bees, wasps, and termites are indeed perfect socialist societies where everyone works themselves to death providing an easy life for one or a few queens and a large number of mostly useless drones. However, despite some evidence to the contrary, human beings are not insects and we can’t be forced to live like them.

Some people draw fine distinctions between the concepts of socialism and communism, or between fascism and Marxism. In these writings, I'll mostly use the word socialism to include all of the above as their distinctions are functionally irrelevant in contrast to individualism. When I use the word liberalism it will simply mean "socialism light".

Stalin, Mao and Hitler are certainly the top three mass murderers in the twentieth century yet only Hitler is commonly reviled in popular history and media. I think this is due to his outspoken "hatred" of communism. The fact that his social writings were very similar to contemporary communism is widely lost behind his inclusion of an extreme racist component. Stalin and Mao are each reputed to have body-counts in the forty to seventy million range, depending on which estimates one accepts. Hitler's holocaust count (not including combat losses) is just under twelve million. Further, the Holocaust encompassed all of Europe whereas Stalin and Mao kept their depredations in their own countries, although Lithuanian or Ukrainian victims not being Stalin's own countrymen is a distinction I'll accept.

The point is that popular history is selective in its condemnation of evil. Yes, we have been taught that racism is wrong, or at least white racism is. But the focus on race is part of a general trend on the part of establishment media and government to socialize our thinking. The six million Jews killed in the Holocaust are justly lamented and the ideal of Never Again is something to be cheered and emulated but the many more millions killed to establish socialism are seldom acknowledged. The murdered masses were individuals killed in an attempt to kill human individuality and popular media and educational institutions are complicit in the attempt.

Barrack Obama’s election victory illustrates the degree to which the voting public has been dumbed down. A Zogby poll taken the day of the election questioned a sampling of Obama voters who volunteered to answer the poll questions. Most knew nothing of Obama’s association with William Ayers or of Obama’s policy statements. They knew little of Joseph Biden, Obama’s running mate. Further they, as a group, knew little of Sarah Palin, the Republican Vice Presidential nominee’s history but they did know- again, as a group- the cost of Palin’s campaign wardrobe and the fact of her teenage daughter’s pregnancy. They even “knew” of Palin’s saying she could see Russia from her house. Of course Palin never said anything so stupid but the producers of Saturday Night Live convinced these voters otherwise. America’s establishment media have successfully reached into the mind of the average voter and switched it off.

The traditional press was chartered by the Constitution to be free of government censorship. This is to insure that they could watchdog the government and inform the public to prevent the kind of excesses governments are historically known for such as, well, mass murder, slavery, torture and false arrest- of a country’s own citizens. But the media have become so corrupt as to watchdog only one political party while serving as a willing mouthpiece for another and the party they serve has become extremely socialist in its leadership. What was once called the Fourth Estate has become a Fifth Column in the attempt to destroy individual liberty in America.

The establishment media are not to blame alone, however. Within the last generation new forms of media have emerged and reached enough prominence that the public at large is well aware of their presence, if not their content. One can access radio stations by telephone and the Internet and cable television is subscribed to by millions. A person wishing to be genuinely informed can obtain widely varied coverage before developing an opinion.

The voters in the Zogby poll have no excuse for their profound ignorance. Yet ignorant, lazy, philosophically socialist people are making the effort to vote in increasing numbers to the clear peril of our republic.

So here I am just as I was in that theater so long ago, wondering what the hell can I do. I could do the equivalent of shouting again. I could join the NRA, volunteer for the Republican or Libertarian parties, or try to call talk radio. I could e-mail my so-called representatives in government. I could write a book that describes what is going on and hope someone will read let alone publish it. But I’ve already done most of those things and so have a lot of other people to little or at least insufficient effect. Fox News Network is widely viewed but much more widely impugned. Many best selling books have already been written by journalists and scholars more eloquent than I. Getting through on talk radio is very difficult because of the sheer volume of callers and factors like the format and the host’s ego on most shows usually prevents much true dialogue. And writing representatives? The recent economic bailout vote shows what that has become worth.

Something more must be done. But again, what can I do? I have neither the fame nor fortune necessary to raise my voice above the crowd and why should I? I’m not so special or unique from so many others. It isn’t about me as an individual, it’s about us as individuals. But my conscience will not allow me to just sit and let the coming dark age envelope and destroy my children’s and my nation’s liberty. My wife and I have not raised our children to be self-sufficient, hard working and ethical simply so they can spend their lives in ever increasing service to vicious and power-hungry parasites. So I have resolved to do something other than just raise my voice.

Before I began these writings I did a Google search of the phrase ‘Individualist Manifesto’ and found no less than sixty-five thousand entries. The idea is not new. Most entries that I scanned were statements of philosophy or reviews of such statements. These writings of mine will contain a manifesto, but much more. I am going to address certain groups of people in an informal and hopefully readable style. I will then present individualist philosophy in the Individualist Manifesto and propose an instrument of ethical governance, which for now I’ll simply call the Instrument, in a more formal manner. Lastly, I’m going to conclude it all with a Declaration of Resolve in which I will tell you, the nation and the U.S. Government, in no uncertain terms, just what I intend to actually do.

I’m not going to footnote the short essays in these papers because I want to make them quick and enjoyable to read. Before I end the writings, there’ll be a list of recommended reading, viewing and listening for those who want a deeper view of what I’m doing and why.

Before I begin though, one final thing; I must acknowledge the obvious fact that I’m not the first individualist by far. My small but close circle of friends are individualists and so are quite a number of people I work with. Socrates paid for his individuality with his life. Our nation’s Founders and other Enlightenment writers faced very real danger from official displeasure for their ideas. More modern writers such as Mark Twain, H. L. Mencken, Robert Heinlein, P. J. O’Rourke and of course Ayn Rand, have not molded or changed my opinion but they have vindicated it. Through these principled and courageous people I have found footprints in the sand and, like Robinson Crusoe, I am not alone.

John J. LaValley, November, 2008