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A New Wave of Radicals from the Right:
Free State Project, Taking America Back, eXileMM
In the aftermath of the presidential election of 2000, Christians and Libertarians who believed in the Constitution had some hard thinking to do.
Many Christians were ecstatic that the Clintonian demons of American politics had been exorcised (at least from the Executive Branch). But others were still seeking cures for the chronic illnesses of the body politic.
Christians, and to a lesser extent Libertarians, had chosen the Republican Party as their political vehicle to achieve a Constitutional and limited federal government. Yet during the campaign, Bush and Gore a/k/a Gush and Bore, seemed to agree that a bigger and more powerful federal government was the solution to all problems. The so-called debates appeared not merely staged but unreal: the robotic Gore working off memorized cue cards, the more animated but limited Bush trying so hard to remember what to say.
The commission hosting the debates excluded "third-party" (second party) candidates critical of the "two-party" (one party) consensus on issues like trade, military intervention and bribery. Media conglomerates denied equal coverage to the candidates who challenged that consensus: Patrick Buchanan of the Reform Party, Ralph Nader of the Green Party and Harry Browne of the Libertarian Party. By a process of circular reasoning, the commission used the candidates' lesser standings in public opinion polls, caused by lesser media coverage, to justify excluding them from the debates and further media coverage.
The thin gruel served up by the Republicrats and the media evoked a nostalgic yearning for tastier fare. Was it only twelve years ago that Ronald Reagan was in the White House? Yes, he was different from Bush, Dole, Gingrich and the others, and seemed to be from a different time, too. Was his time over before it started? Domestically, what had Reagan actually accomplished? What if anything had changed since the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994? The troubling questions called for unpleasant answers.
But it was the naked sham of this election, Bush v. Gore, that forced many to finally look and see through the lie that is the "two-party system."
For this election's giving lie to that system, we should be thankful. Because that transparency also revealed truth, and that truth freed onlookers to search for hope in new and different places.
In the judicial arena, crass partisans and their media minions viciously contested for the spoils of what was for others a meaningless election. Paying no attention were certain Christians and Libertarians. They were busy rethinking and reformulating their strategies for the future, a future where the enemy would not be Democratic or Liberal but the District of Columbia itself.
As three visions were taking shape, some print-based commentators were staking out some fairly radical views of their own.
Even before the election, on March 7,1999, longtime Christian activist Paul Weyrich published an article in the Washington Post entitled "Separate and Free." In it, he conceded that "our strategy to win the cultural war has failed." He proposed that cultural conservatives build for themselves "a complete, separate and parallel structure", remaining engaged with larger society only as to politics.
In September of 2000, economics professor and syndicated columnist Walter Williams said that only secession would provide relief from the irreconcilable differences among the American people.
In early 2002, Patrick Buchanan published The Death of the West. The book described how demographic trends had imperiled the European Christian peoples and their civilization. Regarding possible solutions, Buchanan proposed cultural secession.
All of a sudden, some of the most respected and credentialed voices in conservative circles were speaking of secession or separatism.
By 2003, at least three alternative strategies have been put forward. They are The Free State Project (FSP), Taking America Back (TAB) and eXileMM -Christians in Exile 2000 (eXileMM). All three trace their beginnings to the internet. Taking America Back is a book from an internet-based publisher. EXileMM went online for Christmas, 2000. FSP went online in 2002. TAB was published in 2003.
What these new strategies have in common is the belief that Washington, D.C. can no longer be changed by ordinary political means. For decades, tens of millions of American citizens who choose not to vote have been saying the same thing. But for those committed to a renewal of Constitutional government, that conclusion carried with it a serious consequence: that reform, if even possible, could be achieved only by extraordinary methods fraught with higher risk and greater sacrifice.
These strategies, FSP, TAB and eXileMM, chose separatist and/or revolutionary methods.
The Free State Project wants libertarians to colonize an existing State and transform its government along libertarian lines. To this extent, FSP advocates political separatism but not yet political secession. By libertarian, FSP means that the "sole purpose of civil government is the protection of life, liberty and property." FSP admits that its members already disagree to some extent on what this means. For example, most of its membership, which includes self-described "feminists", supports the right to abortion, with a "vocal minority" opposed. FSP hopes that its libertarian State will set an example that other States would emulate.
Taking America Back does not advocate separatism or secession, although its author, Joseph Farah, says it may be time to "reconsider" the issue. What Farah does advocate is cultural revolution, in which Christians and Jews would take back America using the "long march through the institutions" approach conceived by Marxist Antonio Gramsci. This means reclaiming State and local governments, schools, media and the arts from the atheist left.
eXileMM asserts that it is too late to save the federal government and society at large from complete corruption. eXileMM proposes Christian separatism: initially cultural and eventually geographic. eXileMM employs a theological strategy in which the separation of good from evil is designed to preserve good and facilitate evil's self-destruction. eXileMM also advocates a European Christian demographic counterrevolution.
Another common element to all three visions is that they ask their adherents or members to change their lives in tangible and fundamental ways. They want to replace the old set of civic duties, e.g., being an informed voter, with new ones. The new wave of thinking requires a still small but militant group of Christians or Libertarians to commit to anti-federal activism at the State or local levels of government. It asks them to change the way they work, recreate and school their children. In some cases, they are asked to physically relocate themselves and their families to new States or regions of the country.
Christians and Libertarians committed to the Constitution should welcome these new strategies for the future. They offer a way out of answering the old questions we don't want to answer. Bush or Clinton? Dole or Clinton? Bush or Gore? Democrat or Republican? Which is the lesser of two evils? Which "third party" candidate has the best chance? For Christians who believe in the Constitution, the answers to these questions have been "Neither" or "None."
These three strategies ask new questions. Those who pursue them may find new answers. A comparison chart follows:
Free State Taking eXileMM Date started 2002 2003 Christmas,
2000 Diagnosis "Pro-limited
government activism at national level does not work" "Crisis
cannot be resolved through political system" "Ordinary
political means have failed; Process of corruption is irreversible" Philosophy/ Libertarian Judeo-Christian Christian Method Political
Separatism Cultural Christian
Separatism; If separatist, political unit used State N.A. County; Strategic Goal " "Revive
Freedom, "Preserve
the good; Facilitate evil's self-destruction" Tactics: Participation
Guidelines and Statement of Intent 12 Step
Action Program 4 Steps on the Way to eXile; 10 ·
State and/or local political activism Yes. 20,000
Libertarians in one State: "What can activists for liberty do in a
single State? A great deal" Yes. Step 8:
"Use local power to resist federal intrusion and mandates" Yes, Fourth
Step, "Christian Community" Use migration
and separatism to form political majorities at county level ·
Minimize taxes Yes. Repeal state taxes. Yes. Step 9: "Say no to taxes by minimizing
every legal means what they pay in tribute to Yes. Ninth
Principle: "Pay low taxes and interest" Use every
legal means to pay low taxes and interest ·
Prayer No Yes. Step 1 Yes. First Principle. ·
Voting No
requirement to vote. Goal of 20,000 voters or activists in single State Yes. Step 2, but "Don't vote for evil.
Don't dignify a corrupt system" Yes. Tenth
Principle "Politics is Local": Vote and organize on County level. ·
Proselytize No No Yes, Fourth
Principle, citing Matthew 28:19 ·
Pro-Gun Yes.
Participants may "Roll back gun control" Yes. Step 6
""Go out and buy guns,... buy ammo, lots of it" citing Luke Yes. Fifth
Principle: "Prepare to Fight and Survive" Be armed with military grade weapons, citing Luke 22:36 ·
Refuse to serve in US/UN Armed Forces No No Yes. Third
Step: "Withdrawing Support" ·
Serve in Militia No No "I do
not mean it's time to organize armed militia:" Yes. Fourth Step: "Christian
Community"; Fifth Principle: "Prepare to Fight and Survive", ·
No public schooling of children No Yes. Step 3 Yes. Second Step: "Freeing the Mind" ·
No SSNs for
children N.A. Yes calling
for "an end to numbering fascism" Yes. 8th
principle "Practice frugality and anonymity" ·
Unplug TV No ? "You can take away their (your kids)
television sets, but, ..." Yes. Second
Step: "Freeing the Mind",
Matthew ·
Propagate Membership
includes self-described "feminists" Strengthen
the nuclear family; Silent on demographic strategy Yes. Third
Principle and First Step: "Relationship
with God, Family and Neighbor": European Christian demographic
counter-revolution; ·
Exclusion/ Condemns
racism but no ban on private discrimination Discrimination
on the basis of race "is wrong, period"; but can be OK against
homosexuals, others Condemns racism; excludes non-Christians; promotes European culture ·
Nullification Yes.
Participants may "end collaboration between state and federal law
enforcement officials" Yes.
Advocates local government resistance to federal authority Yes. Third
Step: "Withdrawing Support" advocates jury nullification, Fourth
Step: "Christian community" advocates local nullification of
federal agenda by
X - In Hoc Signo Vinces
Project
Discrimination
July 25, 2003
Luke Exilarch - luke@exilemm.com