Hammurabi's Public Relations: As Ancient As Sin

[Jace: Johanson]

I personally started off in studying legal land through Robert Menard and similar Freeman-on-the-Land gurus and theorists. As I was still, for the most part, a statist thinker, this appealed to me, because it plays into the idea that governments are still needed.

However, as I mulled it over, I found it lacking in a way similar to every other parqadigm before it, and I branched out to other theories, such as Randy Kelton's, Bill Thornton's, Winston Shrout's, and so on. I didn't spend near as much time on any of these, because I sensed the same void present in all of them, though I didn't yet know what the shape of that void described.

When I came to http://www.atgpress.com (now, apparently, defunct or moved) and started reading essays by The Informers and his colleagues there, I was still not personally ready to accept the idea that The United States wasn't, somehow or in some fashion, a good institution. A paper on the site (I no longer remember which) upset me some when it went through the history of the "country" and presented the idea that the USA wasn't real. It used different (and I believe less solid) reasoning than Marc's work and I was emotionally not ready to let the idea go, so I dismissed it and continued on with Bll and Randy and Winston.

I was working my way down a list of "gurus" posted on the Word Freeman Society forum, where our dear Marc happened to be last. After the exhaustive research in these other highly theoretical and legalistic approaches I was getting tired. I was, at the same time, also studying the other related topics of economics, philosophy, 9/11, the Fed, etc... ad nauseum. The whole process was taking a toll and the underlying splinter wasn't being removed.

One day, I remembered about learning of the code of Hamurrabi. All other such legal works I'd studied did not usually reach farther back Catholic Cannons, yet Hammurabi's Code is approximately 3783 years old, and was the oldest written code fo which I was aware.

I found a PDF and started reading, around the same time as I had reached Marc's name on my list and listened to a few shows. As far as Marc's show went, it was the clearest, simplest, and most rationally and emotionally pallatable material I'd yet seen. As I looked at Hammurabi's Code, I first noticed one thing:

The preamble to Hammurabi's code, in the PDF file, took up three and a quarter pages, and comprised of nothing more than a list of the gods/goddessess and their individual achievements or powers, to which Hammurabi claimed divine support for his rule. I remembered what I had only just recently started hearing:

"Is it possible that everything you think is real is just a PR scheme?"

I read on, and I noticed that, in far simpler terms than today, the code cantained every sub-form of modern law I'd ever heard of, from probate to welfare, criminal to civil, and anything else freedom activists of any creed voice today. There was not a facet of modern societal control structures I'd researched into that was not covered in this nearly 4-millenia-old legal decree.

But, what sealed the paradigm shift for me away from statism, was having to re-read the entire preamble text again, but this time at the end of the code. The entire code was surrounded by one thing, above all else:

A justification of "legitimacy" through seemingly endless appeals to divine authority.

Then came for me Spooner, Stefan Molyneux, Larken Rose and "Adventures," and by the end of '09, I was entirely sold.

I've recently looked back into the ancient codes and found that, not surprisingly, all the ones even older than Hammurabi's code were largely the same; be it the other oldest-known written codes of Lipit-Ishtar (1870BC), Eshunna (1930BC), Ur-Nammu (Circa 2100BC-2050BC); or one of the earliest known attempts at government reform in the still-more acient code of Urukagina (Circa 2380BC-2360BC).

The historically demonstrable fallacy of the idea of government is hard to support when you see that everything that exists now, existed then and all the time in between, exactly the same in substance, if less in refinement.

All sources can be checked at Wikipedia or any number of other places. What we concern ourselves with is that the Public Relations scheme of government is as old as sin and equally beneficial.

Peace.

[Dionysus]

Wow-- Hammurabi's Code. That takes me back. Haven't seen mention of that since Western Civ. class in college. I think what it boils down to is, ever since humans settled down and started living together in large numbers. there has always been a subset of parasites that seeks to run scams on their fellow man to steal from their productivity instead of being productive themselves. "Government" is the big rock candy mountain of such scams. It's been so effective in fact that, now with modern technology at its disposal, it threatens to annihilate the species. Interesting post, Jace.

[Jace: Johanson]

Thanks, Dio. It was a really funky journey for me, very much paraphrased herein. I wasn't necessarily studying purely linearly, like it sounds when you read it. I was bouncing back and forth and growing grey hair (no joke, and I was onl 20/21 during this period), and having at least a small paradigm shift three or four times a day. I'm still recoverying somewhat from those couple of years. Hammurabi just gave me that looooooooong perspective compared against everything else, and that shook a lot of the chaff out.

[LivingHuman]

Thank you for sharing that Jace. I've been meaning to post these links for some time:

12 old interviews with i-man - the most recent being from December
2008 - can be downloaded from the following links:
327-The Informer Pt 1 http://www.mediafire.com/?zt5lt3wtwky
328-The Informer Pt 2 http://www.mediafire.com/?ia3wdkhzxng
329-The Informer Pt 3 http://www.mediafire.com/?lzynigwtkiw
350-The Informer Pt 4 http://www.mediafire.com/?vjdimmejmzy
351-The Informer Pt 5 http://www.mediafire.com/?ktqmtoudgyh
368-The Informer Pt 6 http://www.mediafire.com/?0zmtjymtomc
538-The Informer on the War Powers Act-Pt1 http://www.mediafire.com/?vziwuyfxoan
540-The Informer on the War Powers Act-Pt2 http://www.mediafire.com/?t3zhnjgmjtk
668-The Informer on Dependence Day http://www.mediafire.com/?hlgmdtjoyhj
791-How the Informer opted out of the IRS system http://www.mediafire.com/?a4hdexz2ngu
04-imanknoll http://www.mediafire.com/?btfeqcz2jty
The Informer Conference - December 20, 2008 http://www.mediafire.com/?aiztddjm2mn

My introduction to this field of enquiry was through Dean Clifford. I remember how unthrilled I was to learn about the legal person and that 'my' documents of identification actually pertain to it and not to me. It's such a pathetic, smarmy, underhanded trick... Anyways, while Dean has had less to say of recent months I've found Marc's perspective even more to my liking.

[Jace: Johanson]

Thanks. I wish I could say I'd listen to them soon, but I'm backed up with things I acquired four years ago that I still haven't got to.

[NonEntity]

(07-23-2012 09:37 PM)Jace: Johanson Wrote:  Thanks. I wish I could say I'd listen to them soon, but I'm backed up with things I acquired four years ago that I still haven't got to.

Don't worry, Jace. In ten years your backlog will only be 7 years worth.

- the Very Good NonE