Send a message: you have the right to work

So this is inspired in part from other non-violent resistance. For example, in India, somebody started printing large-amount rupee notes, but with Gandhi's head on it, to shame the bribe-demander, and apparently it was working on the scum authoritarians well.

As a libertarian, I (and all of us) believe that most of the world's economic woes come from the fact that governments everywhere are empowered to get in the way of economic activity and frequently do so fervently. In the first world, you ostensibly have a basic right to start a business or industry, but the regulatory hurdles are so huge as to make it impossible, if it isn't actually outright banned. This is why we see the current stagnation. Zoning laws, employment laws, taxes, insane liability policy. Try to build one house, manufacture one can of food, even start growing vegetables, build one pipeline, etc. and you have to fight an entire army of bureaucrats

The problem with the third world is that this power is way worse. The second you try to do ANYTHING, even stupid cottage industries without modern technology, one of the local cops (or whatever they call them) comes and demands huge bribes.

I always hear about Christians going on missions and the peace corps and stuff. They claim they go to these poor places and help people, but somehow I doubt it. For the missionaries especially I envision the South Park episode where all missionaries did is read the bible to starving Ethiopians. Unless you're growing vegetables or livestock, building a road, digging a trench to bury pipeline, laying rail, drilling a well, etc. you're not helping anyone. Poor countries especially have as one of their biggest problems a lack of infrastructure.

So I figured if I went on a mission, that's what I'd do. I'd start building a road or something. I'd literally stand there, gets me three sticks to make a surveyors tripod, and get the curve right, and start cutting a bit to the that slope- curve. If I were Bill Gates rich, I'd come in with loads of machinery and start doing all this big time.

Of course, as mentioned, the problem is somebody with government power comes in and demands payment.

So what do you do? Or you and your crew? Denude, and get right back to work. Yell at them about the fact that you're BUILDING something, that their country needs badly, and tell them, if you want to come and stop me, come and stop me. It could send a powerful message, it's like "I'm a man, and I'm here, and all I'm doing is building. I have nothing to hide, you can see, and I am doing nothing wrong." It's like, subtle, and it sends a message.

I dunno how well it would work. The problem with all non- violent resistance is that it only works on civilized people with morals; you'd better believe even Gandhi's tactics would not have worked in the days of the Assyrians. Anybody who did this might just get their ass shot.

But anyway, there it is