No Treason

Several years ago I read Lysander Spooner's No Treason: The Constitution Of No Authority for the first time. I did so on a Ryanair flight that was flying me to Sardegna. It's a fantastic book (or panflet, since it's quite think) that can be read in less than two hours. I liked the message and I liked how it was written. It such a hidden jewel. Read by very few people, it should be a MUST READ by anyone who thinks him or helself a person of intelligence and morals.

Several weeks later I lended the book to a friend of mine for him to read it. I think it's one of those few books that really help you understand an important part of our reality and places you within the free people, instantly. I doubt there's people who have read it and remained statitst. Or is there such people?

In my debut album "The Tax Collector" there is one song titled "No Treason". I tried to create a song that would replicate the book's message, but somehow compressed in order to be able to become a song. You know, I couldn't make a two hours long song and, frankly, I don't enjoy audiobooks.

I had one person complaining that the song had no rhymes. It has, but not many. There are some songs with no rhymes or with few rhymes. This one needed to be written like this, and I think it works, which is the important thing, afterall. It is said that rhymes help people memorize the lyrics, and that it's true, but at the same time I think my song is easy to remember. I'm one of those persons who has trouble remembering lyrics, and it even happens with my own songs, and this is one of the songs I can sing without making any mistake.

I decided to use a shortfilm I directed and edited a long time ago. It has powerful visuals and it was originally intended to be a story depicting the "prisoner's dilemma", and I thought it would be a good match with the song. In fact, the main issue regarding the present incapability for mankind to get rid of the state is precisely that masses ignore this dilemma. In the dilemma, the two prisoners only win if they both collaborate and stand their ground without selling each other out to the enemy. The same would apply to nowadays population in order to get rid of the slavery that the State implies.