Hello from glorious Acapulco,
It is especially glorious for me after shivering most of the week in Vancouver at the World Resource Investment Conference. Although, my driver picking me up at the airport in Acapulco told me they had just been hit by a hurricane which I hadn't even heard about… my wife on our daily Skype chats hadn't even mentioned it. It's amazing what a different fear level things induce when there are no CNN reporters there to act like the wind is knocking them over and tell you how scary it is.
"Is everything okay?" I asked my driver.
"Ya, just lots of rain," he responded.
I was a bit sad to have missed it… I like hurricanes. Everything except Cat 5, of course.
But the skies were clear and sunny again and I was just happy to be back. It was nearly June in Vancouver and the entire time I was there it was cold and rainy. To make matters worse, the slave-on-slave action which runs deep in these parts kept having people from security guards to waitresses practically taking out a tape measure and prodding me that I must move a few more feet away from whatever building I was standing near trying to smoke as I tried to shelter myself from the arctic winds.
I had one person tell me as I stood on a sidewalk that I had to move "one foot" further away. Then, I had someone later coerce me to move 24 feet (or as they say there, 8 meters) away from their edifice to smoke. The worst was when I stepped outside of a restaurant situated on a large open air plaza and was told by some woman, "there is no smoking on this plaza."
"The entire plaza?" I said, exasperated.
"Yes, it's the 'law'", she responded.
I had been standing underneath an awning 24 feet away from the restaurant, as demanded in prior altercations, defending myself as best I could from the ice-cold driving rain and wind, but she demanded I must walk about a block away to smoke.
I can do better than that, I thought, and hopped on a flight back to North America's version of the land of the free: Mexico.
The cognitative dissonance in a place like Vancouver is almost unbelievable. Almost everyone I spoke to asked me where I lived, and I would respond that I don't live anywhere but spend a lot of time in Mexico. Their preprogrammed response from the communist government news channel, CBC, was always, "I hear it is dangerous there."
This, while "Gang Squad Unit" police wandered through almost every upscale establishment I visited ID'ing people and fights broke out. I even asked one of the gang squad police, "What are you doing here?"
He was quite nice to respond and said, "There have been a lot of gang shootings lately so we go in to see if we can identify violence before it happens."
I responded, "Well, the great majority of all the violence here is caused by the prohibition of plants and flowers called 'The War on Drugs'".
He said, "I think if we really wanted to, we could shut it down completely."
What he was saying is that the "higher ups" just have no interest in shutting it down completely. And, he is right. The police have no interest in stopping the things that police are supposedly needed for or they'd be out of a job.
Of course, also, he doesn't or perhaps does realize that a world in which people are so policed in such a fashion that they couldn't possibly trade for things they want would be heinous. In his 12+ years of government indoctrination and late night CBC viewing, government, police, violence, force and theft are a good thing.
I took a deep breath, to relax myself in the face of idiocy, and said, "Well, they have been trying for forty years now and it hasn't worked. The exact same thing happens every time that violence is used to stop the free trade of items," I said.
He squinted at me and said, "Can I see your ID please?"
He's been told to be on the lookout for people like me. People who logically, rationally challenge the status quo of the violence and theft of the state.
Rather than try to state that under their rules they can't just be going around asking people for identification and their papers, I rummaged through my wallet filled with numerous foreign government ID documents and passed him one of my Caribbean residency cards.
He took a look and asked, "You are from the Caribbean? You're not from Canada?"
I responded, "I am just a human being. I was born near here, but I've since defected."
He seemed puzzled, wrote down something in his notepad and we went our separate ways.
Perhaps the largest level of cognitive dissonance in Kanada is in respect to "global warming". Many Canadians still believe global warming is a major problem. This in a place that is almost always freezing cold. It'd be like telling someone from the Atacama Desert in Chile, a place where there hasn't been rainfall in 400 years, that there is a terrible thing happening that may mean global rainfall would increase and having them write their congressman to do something to stop it!
Anyway, I am so unbelievably happy to be out Canada and back in a freer, more civilized and safe place that I can barely put it into words.
EXHAUSTED
I'm actually incredibly exhausted after my most recent trip. Often, upon returning from places like Chile, Panama or Thailand I'll be tired and need some sleep… but not exhausted.
The exhaustion comes, I think, from just having to deal with things like I described above. Not to mention, the entire time I was in Vancouver it was the usual constant drizzle and no sight of the sun… and people standing on empty streets with no cars waiting for a little "white man" to tell them they are allowed to walk. Or, walking through the streets of downtown Vancouver at 6pm on a Wednesday afternoon wondering if it is some sort of holiday or something. Most shops already closed and the streets empty except for the considerable population of homeless people and beggars. Scenes from Robert Kirkman's "The Walking Dead" rolling through my mind as the rare people I do see in that empty wasteland are, for all intents and purposes, zombies. Government-created zombies thanks to Vancouver being the welfare capital of Canada.
And then, on the very rare occasion when anyone makes eye contact with you or talks with you they usually go on to tell you how depressed they are. No wonder! I'd only been here a few days and if there had been a loaded pistol sitting right beside me, I would have given serious thought to putting the business end in my mouth. And I was just visiting and not being extorted for half my income, going into a million dollars worth of debt to own a house nor paying rent to live in that house (property tax) like the people who actually live there full time.
Luckily my next three journeys to this region are in somewhat better places. I'll be at Porcfest in the "freer" state, New Hampshire, from June 17-23. At least there I'll be mostly walled off from the rest of the USSA, as I'll be surrounded by thousands of open-carry anarchists and freedom-minded people. Then I'll be at the Liberty Mastermind Symposium on June 28-29th. That's in Dallas in one of the freer states in the Empire and a short flight from Mexico… plus there will be lots of very interesting people there like Martin Armstrong, David Morgan, Bill Murphy and my anarcho-side-kick, Gary Gibson.
And then I'll be in one of the only places in the US where you can drink alcohol outdoors and even at any hour you'd like – crazy isn't it! Plus the strippers actually take off their clothes! At FreedomFest in Las Vegas from July 10-13th.
If you'd like to hook up with me in Canada or the US, take the chance now because I don't know how much longer I can keep going back to either place. Especially since they've begun daylight black-bagging freedom advocates like Adam Kokesh.
Adam's stance has been to stay in the USSA and fight. My stance has been to leave and fight. It's not so much because I am scared of things getting overtly-violent as the West collapses… but mostly because I can't stand even being there for more than a week at a time. I'm not even sure it is even worth fighting for freedom in the US and Canada anymore… that war has already been lost. Almost every single one of the slaves happily accept their chains. But I do wish him well and will help however I can.
I'd rather just go somewhere where the majority of the population hasn't already turned into slaves and zombies. Like, Galt's Gulch Chile!
While in Vancouver I had the chance to film a number of interviews, however, and I think the one with Vanessa Collette of Goldseek was the best. Vanessa is beautiful and she grew up in Beijing and the Philippines. For that reason she must have a much more free-market perspective and it was one of the best interviews I've had the pleasure of being part of. This is the first time she has interviewed anyone and perhaps, also because of that, she knew how to ask some really great questions. Like, "I'm going to say a few names and you tell me your immediate response to them… Ben Bernanke, Barack Obama…"
You can see my responses here although if you are a TDV reader my responses probably won't surprise you.
UNTIL NEXT WEEK
I just got tapped on my shoulder at my evening office, Mangos, in Acapulco, by a TDV subscriber in town. And there are a few others and we are going to have a few drinks, smoke, and even have the waitresses light our cigars or cigarettes for us and enjoy semi-freedom!
I'm always happy to meet up with TDV'ers anywhere in the world. One TDV subscriber drove up from Colorado to Vancouver just to meet last week! If you'd like to meet in Acapulco, contact James Guzman and if you'd like to meet in Chile at or near Galt's Gulch just outside of Santiago, you can email tdv@dollarvigilante.com. And, to keep track of me anywhere else, just like the CIA does, add TDV on Facebook where I often detail my travels. Or, just add me as a friend. I regularly state which city or country I am in at any given moment in time… and it shouldn't surprise you that that often changes by the day.
Until next week, have fun, be open, protect yourself from The End Of The Monetary System As We Know It (TEOTMSAWKI) and even profit from it as we try to do at The Dollar Vigilante (our best actionable ideas are for paid subscribers).
