The following editorial appears in the Tuesday, May 6 issue of the (Portland) Oregonian newspaper, on the editorial page. Fishing Expedition Swims Against Tide According to the maxim, if you invent a better mouse-trap the world will beat a path to your door. Maybe the truth is that, instead, you'll get assaulted by angry cats who are afraid of losing their jobs. Suppose the government discovered a method to make itself obsolete. Or suppose the military learned how to make us all even more secure, for a thousandth as much defense spending. We'd never hear about it because they'd be out of a job, and job security, not national security, is their highest priority. Two years ago I had a revolutionary idea. I was tired of hearing the usual stories about how much harder society's problems have gotten in the last few decades. It's not that the problems are harder, it's just that large constituencies have been built which depend on these "problems" for their income. For example, when the Cold War ended, there was no military reason we couldn't have reduced our military budget by a factor of two or three. "But no!," said the politicians, let's continue buying those expensive Stealth bombers, submarines, tilt-wing airplanes, and other toys. We weren't afraid of getting attacked, the spending continued because of the threat of unemployment on the part of the defense-industry workers. Legalize drugs and turn a vast legal problem into a far cheaper and more manageable health problem? No, because with 70% or more of the prison population there due to drug laws, you'd have to fire most of the jailers, the prosecutors, the police, the judges, and the lawyers, all of whom have come to depend on the involuntary "generosity" of the taxpayer. Two years ago I realized that the whole corrupt system could be stopped. It would be necessary to not only halt pork-barrel politics at all levels, but also to provide a very few necessary services for people, such as defense and justice, although financed inexpensively and voluntarily. You'd have to shut down all militaries and governments, simultaneously, all around the world, while at the same time protecting our security. Impossible? In the summer of 1995 I began to write an essay, half-jokingly titled "Assassination Politics". It occurred to me that if people could defend themselves by anonymously donating money to anonymous people who act to protect us, you wouldn't need militaries or governments anymore. Nuclear bombs would be obsolete, and in fact they will be hopelessly dangerous to anyone who owns them, because the rest of us will be able to donate money to ensure their owners have no choice but to dismantle them. Conventional militaries will be useless, because threats to people's security will be dealt with far more cheaply by large numbers of tiny individual contributions buying the part-time services of a few semi-professional trouble-shooters. Murderous dictators of the past and present, such as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Khadafi, Idi Amin, and so many others simply couldn't operate in such a world, because they (and their replacements, if anyone dared follow them) could be removed for the collective pocket change of a few million angry citizens. There'd be no conventional wars, because anyone who would make war would be a threat not only to his enemy, but also to anyone on "his" side who would be forced to help pay for that war, or even third parties who wouldn't want to see aggression win, for fear they'd be the next target. There would be no draft, because forcing someone else to fight for you makes YOU his enemy, as well: On the other hand, if your cause is just, he will contribute voluntarily, just as you do, to see the bad guy stopped. There would be little crime, because crime will be treated as an attack, and people will be able to donate money to find and stop the criminals. But unlike today, there will be no large constituency (police, jailers, judges, prosecutors, lawyers) who have a vested interest in keeping the crime rate high, thus terrorizing the public into supporting "anti-crime spending" which really just lines their pockets. I've been openly debating the idea on the Internet since then with anyone who will listen. My essay surprises many and shocks more than a few, but I am pleased that such a truly revolutionary concept has been so well received. Even the Columbian newspaper (www.columbian.com) has decided to add a pointer to the essay. The only "threat" in the essay is to the jobs of the people who have been parasites on the rest of us for decades, as well as to the future of tyrannies around the world. But that's why, on April 1, twenty Federal agents burst in and took my computer, told the news media I was "armed and dangerous," and began engaging in a fishing expedition including harassing people simply for knowing me. (No arrest or charges so far.) They may claim that they were looking for something else, but what they are really, desperately hoping to find is...job security. If I'm right, they have none. Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com