Imagining what life will be like after government has imploded is one of my great pleasures, and the book A Vision of Liberty (link to your right) is one of its fruits. But occasionally, I ask myself a question about the Zero Government Society that's hard to answer.

This one arises because when government vanishes, so will its military; so what happens if some foreign State should invade and try to take control? How will we defend ourselves? The best answer is that we shall use the "Porcupine defense" method; named after the spiny creature that is harmless except when attacked - at which time it gets very prickly.

Self defense is a fundamental right, so everyone will have his and her armory, usually a few firearms including a sniper rifle, ready to discourage any who pose a deadly threat; and that defense will be good for invading soldiers as well as any private thugs without a uniform. Pepper spray works well, but a Glock is surer. Well and good.

The question that occurred to me recently is: if we're ready to kill in defense against an invading government, why aren't we ready to kill employees of the government we now have? Or to reverse that: since Patriots, Libertarians and Anarchists do not shoot IRS agents and other archist scum right now, how can I presume that we will do so then?

Your answer to that is welcome, but here's the one I've come up with so far.

It's a matter of tactics. Right now, to kill an aggressing agent of government is extremely hazardous. We number perhaps half a million tops, they number twenty million plus; so we are out-numbered 40 to 1 and some of them are expert at concentrating force, for example in SWAT groups. To use planned violence is just counter-effective - and indeed immoral, since a fully peaceful way to end the government era is freely available.

Unplanned violence has happened (see this ZGBlog and The Ballad of Carl Drega by Vin Suprynowicz) and will happen again; that's when government harassment becomes unbearable and the victim "snaps" and there are numerous fictional but credible examples in the excellent book Unintended Consequences. But don't count on surviving such an encounter.

However, when the ZGS is in place, the numbers will be very much in our favor. Virtually 100% of society will have learned from such schools as TOLFA that self-defense is appropriate even (and especially!) against government, so we shall number close to 300 million adults, facing a hypothetical invading army of maybe half a million at most. We shall outnumber them by 600 to 1.

That's one reason why it's extremely improbable that any hostile foreign government will invade anyway; its planners will know all that and will go hunt a much softer target. It will know in advance that no natives (that's us) will work for it, and so will have to import all its bureaucrats; and that makes the whole idea of war and plunder far less attractive. Hey, in 500 years none of them have even invaded Switzerland, which has long practiced a watered-down version of the Porcupine Defense.

There's a second big reason why no invasion is likely; once a ZGS is established here, the resulting freedom and rapidly growing prosperity will excite the wish of everyone everywhere to do the same in their own countries. Therefore, every foreign government will enter panic mode, and try to dampen that enthusiasm in its own population; to initiate foreign wars will be a very low priority.

So will freedom rapidly spread.