As government systems and government-influenced systems increasingly break down and reveal their predatory, special-favor, immoral and inefficient gangland nature, creative people are starting to do the jobs themselves, and they’re getting things done without – shock! – forcing other people to pay for the things they want.
Case in point, the increasing number of reports about Oakland, California’s self-titled “Pothole Vigilantes,” who have begun handling so many road repairs, they’ve started their own website.
As Matt Agorist reports for TheFreeThoughtProject:
“Because the state is notoriously horrible at doing the jobs they claim to do, an anonymous group in Oakland, California has taken it upon themselves to fix the problem. Because fixing potholes without the approval of the state is illegal, these self-proclaimed ‘pothole vigilantes’ strike under the cover of darkness in the dead of the night.”
By “state,” Matt means the political sphere, in general, not just a single “state” as in the parlance of “United States of America.” We’re talking the generic, normative polis, and Oakland is a notoriously inefficient and messed-up polis, that’s for sure.
“What started as a mission between two friends quickly grew into a much larger movement that gained national attention and dozens of volunteers. In a short film posted this month to Facebook, residents of Oakland expressed their praise for the group in the comments below it.”
Indeed, Agorist offers numerous positive comments, including this:
“This is great! I’m thrilled that people take it upon themselves and just make it happen… I’m disheartened that our tax dollars and government neglect these issues. It costs so much less to prevent and patch these problems than it does to deal with lawsuits and harm caused by their existence in the first place.”
And he recalls something Caleb Tolin observed at MRCTV in 2018, and Matt Agorist reported in the same period:
“As TFTP reported in 2018, Domino’s Pizza took to solving pothole problems by encouraging customers to nominate their towns for pothole repairs at pavingforpizza.com. So far, they have gone to all 50 states and repaired roads in dozens of cities.”
Similarly, I reported in March about the neighborly efforts of rock star Rod Stewart, who joined his friends to fix the roads in his area.
And I also noted that this was how colonial America and ancient Brits handled their travel routes – not through the assumption of government/political control, the taking of land via eminent domain, and wasted tax money for “upkeep” that doesn’t match consumer interests, but through private property, neighborly recognition of travel needs, and respect.
As I wrote at the time:
“Local British farmers and peasants -- who had established privately-run, centuries-old access paths and roads permitting neighborly travel for sale of livestock and goods -- engaged in some of the first tax protests in that nation’s history as the Norman-sparked “enclosure movement” saw royal peers take over the lanes and mandate “maintenance fees” on the roads. That criminal takeover, by the way, was committed even as the royals grabbed private crop-acreage and shifted it to pastureland – a multi-generational offense that led to The Peasant’s Revolt of 1381, Jake Cade’s Rebellion of 1450, and even saw Thomas More criticize it in “Utopia,” published in 1516.”
The Oakland-based “vigilantes” might not know they’re engaging in activity that has deep historical routes, but the results are being heralded by locals, just the same.
Related: Rocky Road: Gov't Bureaucrats Berate Rod Stewart For FIXING ROADS | MRCTV
In fact, Oakland is not the only U.S. locale seeing fed-up civilians take to the streets to fix, rather than destroy (the opposite of BLM “protests”). Notes Agorist:
“Another perfect example of this very situation was in the news a few years ago on Hawaii’s Kauai Island, when private citizens performed a $4 million road repair job for free—in just 8 days. When a need arises in a community, people naturally come together and take care of what needs to be done; they don’t need someone forcing them to do it.”
One wonders how the politicians and bureaucrats view these private acts of initiative and goodness. After all, the vigilantes expose the inefficient bureaucratic system.
On the other, ceaselessly-failing government systems typically don’t die. They get more money, under the pretext that the added cash will help them “improve” – which they never do.
If you’re a fan of writer-director, Monty Python member Terry Gilliam’s groundbreaking take on “1984” entitled “Brazil,” you likely might be thinking of an early scene, in which we discover that the centralized, bureaucratic government is so pervasive and so sluggish, it controls the central heat and air-conditioning of every home and apartment, leaving our protagonist sweltering on a terrible night.
But Harry Tuttle, a vigilante air-conditioning-heating repairman (played by Robert DeNiro) swings in to do the job, acknowledging that he’s a privateer, and that the government turns a blind eye to his work as long as he keeps it hush-hush, himself.
“Wouldn’t it be simpler to work with Central Services?” asks the main character Sam Lowry (Jonathan Price).
“Ahh! I couldn’t stand the paperwork,” replies Tuttle, peaking through his balaclava as he works…
If we showed our neighbors more examples of this contemporary private initiative that better handles what are typically claimed to be “government jobs,” we might better break away from the inefficient and immoral government in the first place.
Better roads, lower taxes, and better neighbor-to-neighbor ties would result.
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