Talk:James Scott

Hill people were not undeveloped but fleeing the slavery of the nation states.

Stationary Agriculture was needed to enslave the people.

This divided the people into valley and hill people.

Departed

crops were more root types like cassava rather than rice or grain.

Swiddening An area cleared for temporary cultivation by cutting and burning the vegetation. Permaculture, food forests.

Dividable social culture. "Divide that ye be not governed" [Berber proverb].

Had writing but went to oral traditions for several reasons.

Health in city states poor, with more disease and poorer diet. Hill people without the state are healthier and more moral.

Only with the rise of the organize state was mass warfare.

Last name before tax court were rare.

The skills of living without the state should be cultivates.

Walls of civilization were made to keep people in.

After 1945 ended the escape from the nation states.

Jesus preached a kingdom. He told us to do the same. He told us to preach that it was at hand. He appointed his apostles a kingdom to serve and he told us that it was not to be like the kingdoms of the gentiles, who are called benefactors and exercise authority one over the other. If you are in a government that acts as a benefactor but exercises authority one over the other to provide benefits and welfare for the people, then you are not in a Christian government.

Within the pages of the Bible and the untold history of mankind, there is a government form that edifies the Kingdom of Heaven. It is actually the most common form of government used throughout history, but there are few students coming from our modern schools that would recognize it or could tell you about it or the essential characteristics of it. It is not a centralized government of control, but a diversified network of faith, hope, and charity. In fact, “our modern reliance on government to make law and establish order is not the historical norm”.1

From the Altars of Abraham to the Levites of Moses, from the network of ministering Essenes to the early Christian Church, and from the Tithingmen of Britain to the Kapauku of New Guinea, history is ripe with the chronicles of spontaneous customary law bringing private property, free dominion, and order to vast cultures for hundreds, even thousands of years, without a central government.

Central governments have brought an endless series of wars and invasion, dictators and holocaust, national debt, inflation, and depressions. They have produced a divided populous, with a welfare society on one end, a rich ruling elite on the other, and a laboring middle class supporting both. People receive a designed education producing an unwitting population that equates comfort and the appearance of affluence with liberty. And historically, the family suffers a corrupting influence and a moral decay, the community is divided and ignorant of concepts of justice and law, and every person covets the gratuitous benefits supplied at his neighbor’s expense. In this land of double speak, lies are called learning, servitude is called freedom, license is called liberty, and violence is called justice.

That voluntary system of spontaneous justice, which was the enemy of kings and rulers of men, had no taxes, no compulsory membership and no dominating authority to make law for the people. They depended upon a free population who chose to be involved. Their goal was protection of the rights of their neighbor, not punishment which was left in the hands of the superior authority, God. It’s success demanded mutual respect and diligent arbitration. There was no central state, for the civil power was held within each family, but guarded by all in a commonwealth of honor, love, and hope.

Through the sacrifice, attention, and virtue required to maintain such systems, people are compelled to develop and reward the superior qualities of man’s character. Those of more selfish and delinquent nature soon smart for their neglect of virtue under the cleared minds of diligent participants.

“[As] the door turneth upon his hinges, so [doth] the slothful upon his bed.” Proverbs 26:14

Few people realize that the prophets along with Jesus Christ taught men a way to be ruled without going under the authority of Kings, Benefactors, and Soters. These systems were not common purses of rights or authoritative dictators, but systems of hope and charity that cultivated strong communities, as long as virtue prevailed in the hearts of men.

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, [which is] your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed2 by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what [is] that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think [of himself] more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.” (Ro. 12:1, 3)

“And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth [his] sheep from the goats:” (Mt 25:32)

“Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean; and I will receive you,” (2Co 6:17) “Occupy till I come.” (Luke 19:13)

1Part I of The Enterprise of Law : Justice without the State by Dr. Bruce L. Benson.

2“Participation in a system of charitable uses under the Law of Charitable Uses and the Status of Wills, Among others, is voluntary. Once participation is discontinued for various reasons such as “breach of trust,” and “lack of confidence,” the non participant, so separated from use, may assert rights to be restored to his prior, original status and condition.” Williams v. Williams, (1853) 8 N.Y.-4 Selden 525. McCartee v. Orph. Asylm Soc., 9 Cowen 511, 513, 18 am. Dec. 516, quoting Blackstones Comm. 104.