July 22, 2011

by Fred Reed

(Editor’s note: Fred means “bail out”…as in leaving, not the money to get out of jail. Fred’s article is talking about expatriation, but is dangerously close to advocating secession.)

When a country works reasonably well—when the schools teach algebra and not government-mandated Appropriate Values, when the police are scarce and courteous, when government is remote and minds its business and works more for the benefit of the country than for looters and special interests, then pledging to it a degree of allegiance isn’t foolish. Decades back America was such a country, imperfect as all countries are, but good enough to cherish.




Disengagement from the system of universities is also advisable. This is true, first, because if you seek cultivation, to gain a grasp of such matters as history, literature, the arts and the sciences, you can do it better on your own. Professors serve little purpose other than to ensure that the student does his homework. If the student wants to study, he can do it by himself, and if he doesn’t want to study, he has no business in a university.



It makes more sense to become, say, a commercial diver, or a master auto mechanic. The training costs less than piratical fifth-rate USOs (university-shaped objects). Both are interesting, challenging, and well-remunerated, which cannot be said of law for most who do not go into Wall Street. Crucially important, cars can be found everywhere, and such as oil companies the world over need divers. You are not tied to the United States, where the death rattle begins to be heard over the thump of the storm troopers’ boots.

Disengagement from the consumerist zeitgeist is essential. Yes, I know. Distaste for a life dedicated to buying the unnecessary can seem a pose: “I, I, am of such lofty character that I do not dirty my philosophical hands with mere…things.”

No. It is not a pose. In a time of economic retrogression, rejection of consumerism is utterly practical. And almost treasonous.


I once lived briefly in an old one-bedroom trailer set in a patch of pine woods near Farmville, Virginia. A brick barbecue came with it, and a large floppy pooch, apparently a mixture of Irish setter and whatever was around. The place was blessedly quiet. Birds and bugs aren’t noise. When it rained I delighted in being almost in the storm, but dry. I think the whole shebang cost the owner five thousand dollars, including a well and septic system.

If you are thinking, “Why…no…I couldn’t possibly live that way,” you are probably right. But if I were doing it now, I would have staggering amounts of pirated music on today’s monstrous memory sticks, a set of very decent speakers for a few hundred doomed green ones, a Kindle or the free computer version for reading books from Amazon if I had the money or Project Gutenberg if I didn’t, and a fairly large flat screen for watching movies donated by uTorrent. Net cost: Under a grand.

Circumstances differ, yes. But you get the idea: Comfort, quiet, music, books, barbecue, undefined dog, storms, friends, for practically nothing. Mutatis mutandis, the principle applies almost everywhere.

It also fits well with Fred’s Bifurcate Law of Economic Independence: If you can’t pay for it, don’t buy it; and if you don’t need it, don’t buy it. Therein lie the seeds of the utter destruction of America, but I’m not Wall Street’s mother.

To labor the point a tad, where I live, near Guadalajara in Mexico, at least two friends are living quite comfortably on a thousand a month, to include beer, internet, and in one case substances crucial to the bloated salaries of DEA. Each has a tired truck, but no granite counter-tops or riding mower.

Another step toward independence is to disengage to the extent possible from the maintenance cycle. You are much better off in bad times if you can do the kind of plumbing, wiring, and auto maintenance that used to be commonly understood. This is easy to say, I know. Yet, if done, it gets you farther off the grid.


©Fred Reed