It seems to me that the most common and difficult obstacle a free individual will encounter in conversations with members of the mob is the collectivist mass hallucination called nationalism. There are boundaries – in this case ideological boundaries – one must not cross in respectable society. Not if one wants to be considered a respectable human being. In respectable society, one is expected to be a “patriot“, to be a member of good standing of the nation you belong to, or that belongs to you.
It is impossible for the collectivist
mind to comprehend that the idea that you can draw imaginary lines on
maps and call the land within those imaginary boundaries “countries”
is as absurd as the belief in unicorns or leprechauns, and a
compassionate mind can certainly understand why and how this has
happened. Having gone through the same meatgrinder as everyone else –
state indoctrination, i.e. public school, raised by parents who
bought into the illusion, addicted, for a good portion of my life, to
establishment media and entertainment – I do not consider myself
superior for having figured it all out. It hasn't been an easy
journey and there is still much to unlearn.
For those of us who hate the State, I
feel it is important for this distinction to be made: there is only
one State. Failing to recognize this, typically when we criticize the
American – as one for instance and the one I am most familiar with
– brand of the State, we are often told to pack our bags. “If you
don't like it here, leave!” The “here“ which they speak of
simply does not exist. The tyranny we wish to escape from is not an
entity or a thing; it has no concrete reality. It is but a mental
abstraction, an idea – a bad idea: that nations can be created and that the people who happen to live there, usually by “virtue” of simply having been born there, must live according to its rules.
