Somalia: Not What You’d Think!

April 7, 2014

By: Kelly Diamond, Publisher

I’m sure by now, if you’ve so much as questioned the righteousness of the American government, foreign or domestic, you are immediately chastised and told any combination of the following:

If you don’t like it, leave!

No one is making you stay here!

Why don’t you just go to Somalia!

SIGH…

My very first installment for GWP was “If You Don’t Like It, Leave”.  In it, I addressed one snag in the “logic” of those who tell me, and people like me, to just go: they are also telling my wealth to leave.  So, while these large corporations or rich people aren’t “paying their fair share”, they were at some point paying something.  Now, they won’t pay anything.  Whereas, my whiny ass was paying taxes, if I’m gone, I don’t pay anything. 

But here’s what else is happening, by entreating people like me to leave, they lose a peaceful constituent.  Bitchy as I can be, I have never violated anyone’s rights.  Never advocated to steal from anyone for the sakes of others.  Never fought a war.  Never wore a uniform for the government.  So, in that statement and that sentiment, what is actually being said is, “We don’t need your wealth or your peace! Go away!”  If you send away enough wealth and peace, what will you be left with?

I think I’ve been told to go to Somalia enough to where it warrants a little attention.  With that said, I’d like to offer up a different take on this Libertarian Paradise.

• No functioning central government for over 20 years, still has more economic prosperity than the US who’s supposedly been the title holder for the liberty experiment for over 230 years.Do they have everything we do here in the US?  No.  But they have a hell of a lot more than what their counterparts throughout the rest of the continent have, despite their lack of central governments!Their telcom industry took off almost three years after the collapse of their government, now they have the best mobile and internet service on the entire continent.Their shilling has gotten stronger, their exports are growing, and even their herding industry has advanced.  Look at what else has taken a positive turn in their lives:

• They have no protection… unless you count the voluntary guards and the private security services.Sadly this is proving to be insufficient against the likes of the United States and the Eurozone.  You would think that of all the regions, the West would be the one to lead the charge in keeping the environment clean and respecting the environments of all sovereign nations.  Not even a little bit.The moment the Somali government collapsed, Western ships suddenly started to show up within the sovereign territory of Somalia.  (Anything within 12 nautical miles of a coastline is considered sovereign territory of the respective country’s coast line.)This brings up the rather serious subject of piracy.  It might be of interest to you to know that most recorded acts of Somali piracy has taken place within their sovereign water space.  That’s right.  The US and EU merchant ships that were supposedly attacked by Somali pirates were also unauthorized to be in the sovereign water space of Somalia.Added to this, which I found particularly astounding, these “pirates” were in fact nothing more than volunteer coast guards whose real trade is fishing!  That’s right.  These pirates were just fishermen who are protecting their own sovereign territory.Protecting them from what?  Remember the mysterious showings of EU and US ships?  They came for two major reasons: dumping toxic waste and taking the seafood from their waters… whereby poisoning the Somali population AND stealing a large portion of their livelihood.  This probably explains the higher death rate and the lower access to clean water in the index chart above.  I might be a little irritated too if someone did that to me…

  Fast forward a bit to today, and you have an economy that was once largely funded off its natural resources being funded off acts of aggression.  20 years ago, we had fishermen fending off intruders.  Now that they lost their industry to these thieves, what else is left?

  Ironically, since the argument for dumping into and pillaging Somali waters was that they had no centrally recognized government, then we cannot even rightly attribute the piracy to Somalia Proper.  We have no choice but to blame private individuals acting as independent contractors.

  Is all this attributable to the lack of central government?  Not if you consider what the rest of the world looks like in terms of piracy hot spots.  Somalia is comparatively light… and what’s more, it would be improper to consider attacks within their sovereign space as “piracy” considering other countries have no business being that close to the Somali shore.

  Still, once we arrive on the shore of Somalia, we don’t find the chaos portrayed by the media when they cover the acts of piracy.  Nor do we find turmoil and economic stagnation.  We find prosperity.  We find order.  We find a general society of unregulated people and businesses who tend to do alright for themselves.  Certainly it is safe to say that they are no worse for wear without a government.

If a society like Somalia can, on their worst day, fair just as well as they did with a government, and on their best day exceed the production levels of their neighbors who have central governments, what does that mean for the US or any of the other more developed countries?  In all honesty, could we do WORSE for ourselves without government than with it?  What exactly is our government protecting us from?  What could we possibly do that the government hasn’t already done, swept under the rug, and mortgaged future generations for one-hundred fold?

The reality is, every terrible thing that is happening there and has been happening there for the past 20 years is attributable not to private citizens going nuts, but with governments and would-be governments.  Warlords playing tug-of-war with that country; the UN interfering; the US and EU dumping toxins and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars in seafood from their shores… none of that is a normal attribute of being government free… it’s a result of how governments inherently have NO regard and NO respect for sovereignty, property right, or liberty!

You probably won’t see much publicity on how to expatriate to Somalia here, but it’s time to think about branching out to places that have been pegged as “inferior” to the United States.  When people start suggesting that you don’t know how good you have it, and how terrible it is everywhere else, the response you give might very well be: Thou dost protest too much.

GET OUT!  LIVE FREE!