RE: I could be in jail in 60 minutes. I've been using myself as "stingbait" for 8 years, gathering evidence of corruption at Court. On Friday, I got what I needed, but at the cost of exposing myself to being jailed on contempt.
We, like automobile engines, are designed to operate under load. The frontier life that you romanticize placed a heavy load on those settlers, as well as on the native populations that they competed with and destroyed.
Tyranny is coming, and indeed is already upon us, since we have lost the character and integrity and community spirit that you speak of. We can, perhaps, resuscitate our humanity, but we cannot return to the frontier, for what works with one person per square mile does not work when there are a 10,000 people per square mile, when a lone disgruntled individual can go to a supermarket and purchase all of the ingredients needed to construct a lethal chemical weapon, and with only slightly more difficulty, can obtain all of the components needed to construct a bomb.
Yep, tolerating rule by force will be our downfall.
My contrary opinion is that the path to empowerment is not to eliminate force, which is impossible, but instead to distribute it widely by destroying all concentrations of power, thus empowering individuals generally.
IOW, anarchy is not a stable equilibrium. True "government by the people" should be our goal, our vision. There are two kinds of power, the power to control your own life, and the power to control the lives of others. Conversations about anarchy are basically masturbation. Time so spent is wasted. In California, people are, on paper, totally empowered; the Constitution of the State of California is a stunningly beautiful expression of individual sovereignty and autonomy, not at the level that an anarchist hopes for, but at a level that is realistically achievable with a dense, diverse, and numerous urban population such as we have here. The disempowerment in California is not the fault of oppressive law. It is the fault of renegade officials who disobey the law, and of a clueless, ignorant, selfish electorate who votes these assholes into office and not only tolerates their unlawfulness but demands it of them.
That's is the real world battlefield for individual empowerment and sovereignty. I stand on that battlefield alone. An army approaches, but I have single handedly managed to keep them at bay.
I am your opportunity to show that you are not just beautiful talk. (Not you personally; I am using you to express my challenge generally.)