Because Immediatism is one of the more difficult tenets of Abolitionist Ideology for most people to grasp in a thoroughly understood and consistently applied manner, it may be necessary to define the problem to its solution. Incrementalism, or gradualism, confesses, either by deed or by practice, that Liberty and Righteousness can be best achieved by making concessions with the tyranny of civil bondage, truncating the total and complete injunction of political redemption by compromising with manmade institutions through democracy, legislation, and installing lesser magistrates to gradually achieve liberty. It is a strategy predicating on small victories accumulating over time towards some distant end, hacking at the branches of evil, expending the energy of reactionary motion against a tyrannical political, social, and economic system. Incrementalists typically equate this strategy with righteousness, even if they refuse to accept the label of Incrementalism.

It should be expressed that the condemnation of Incrementalism is not a wholesale condemnation against the concept of compromise, but only against compromise when it is a self-defeating permission of a bad thing while attempting to combat that bad thing. Any compromise with sin is a justification for sin and a proliferation of sin. Hacking at the branches of an evil tree only prunes the evil tree, incidentally making for a stronger, more healthy evil tree. And evil trees can only ever bear evil fruit and, ultimately, no fruit at all. Any deal with the Devil is good only for the Devil. “…For no one makes promises to a dragon.” (Peter S. Beagle) Likewise, it should be noted that Immediatism is not some expectation that total and complete repentance and sanctification unto liberty happens overnight. It is not a wish granted by a genie, or the waving of a magic wand. The Kingdom of God is not sought to perfection immediately upon stepping foot on its narrow path. Immediatists recognize that the road to salvation is not an easy one, and that their willingness to “put their hand to the plow” “in hope” insists that working towards liberty means a long, persistent, toilsome journey towards a proverbial Promised Land. Rather, Immediatism is the prima facie demand for human liberty in complete (and not partial) opposition to the practices, habits, and worldly wisdom that lead men into civil bondage to begin with, without relying on those same compromises to try and get out of that bondage. Doing so is what is meant by a “works-based salvation.”

Immediatists declare that it is only God that saves men from the bondage of sin and death, and that the abolition of human archism is not compatible with the management, redirection, fine-tuning, guidance, or adjustment of human archism. Incrementalists believe (no matter what they declare) that men can save themselves from their own bondage by their own political endeavors, which invariably are defined by the same thinking and sins that made them subject citizens in the first place. “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” (Albert Einstein)

“It follows, from the abolitionist’s conception of his role in society, that the goal for which he agitated was not likely to be immediately realizable. Its realization must follow conversion of an enormous number of people, and the struggle must take place in the face of the hostility that inevitably met the agitator for an unpopular cause… The abolitionists knew as well as their later scholarly critics that immediate and unconditional emancipation could not occur for a long time. But unlike those critics they were sure it would never come unless it were agitated for during the long period in which it was impracticable….

To have dropped the demand for immediate emancipation because it was unrealizable at the time would have been to alter the nature of the change for which the abolitionists were agitating. That is, even those who would have gladly accepted gradual and conditional emancipation had to agitate for immediate and unconditional abolition of slavery because that demand was required by their goal of demonstrating to white Americans that Negroes were their brothers. Once the nation had been converted on that point, conditions and plans might have been made…” (Kraditor, A. “Means and Ends in American Abolitionism,” 1969; pp. 26-28)

Immediatists understand the purpose of maintaining a prophetic voice to demonstrate their message and call to personal action is to be in direct opposition to political pandering, which could only ever undermine their efforts and procrastinate their goals.

“As Martin Luther King and his cohorts fighting against racial segregation in the twentieth century had repeatedly to explain “Why We Can’t Wait” (the title of one of his books), so in the previous century the English Abolitionists, in their long struggle, had finally come to see that they had to say “immediately”—because anything gradual stretched out into never. If you were serious about ending slavery, history had shown, you had to cut through that endless self-deceiving delay.” (Miller, William L. Arguing About Slavery. [1996])

The philosophical conclusion of Incrementalism rests on either one of two premises. The common denominator between these excuses (whether or not they are acknowledged in word and not just in deed) is faithlessness towards the Promises of God for those who seek His Righteousness by seeking His Kingdom. But these two premises should be recognized by either the first premise: the idea that institutions of human authority, while evil, are a necessary evil, either to provide roads, or justice, or order, or benefits, and that this minarchism can be utilized so that “good may come,” or by the second premise: the idea that institutions of human authority are impossible giants to overcome, and that progress can only be tempered with conciliatory cowardice with which to supplicate to them, because Liberty is only a distant and unreachable dream, nebulous and impractical in the face of defeatism. The two pitfalls of Incrementalist behavior and ideological subterfuge that lead to these unfortunate conclusions are summed up either in the conclusion that their efforts will end up actually strengthening the dragon they endeavor to slay in an ironic judgement against their misguided and reactionary schemes, or the conclusion that the efforts that they may attempt are a form of innocuity where the endeavors of incrementalists end up making them historically irrelevant because their actions amount to nothing but catharsis.

“Our cry, from the commencement, was for the immediate deliverance of the oppressed from chains and slavery. For this we were ranked among madmen. It was said that nothing but gradual emancipation was either safe or practicable: how gradual, no man undertook to show. Well—eight years have passed away. During that period, not less than four hundred thousand slaves have been emancipated by death, and their places supplied by more than half a million of new victims. Is not this a long time for “preparation”? But who are better prepared for liberty now than they were eight years ago? None. And we seriously ask, Has not the experience of two centuries shown that gradualism in theory is perpetuity in practice? Is there an instance, in the history of the world, where slaves have been educated for freedom by their taskmasters? But if—by any management or contrivance—such an event had happened, or such scholastic treatment had been successfully given, still our cry would continue to be for immediate and unconditional emancipation; because to predicate a right to enslave men upon their ignorance, much more upon the complexion of their skin, is absurd, inhuman, monstrous. If the lapse of two hundred years be not sufficient to meet the claims of gradualism, (the rights of man out of the question), no quarter should longer be given to it by any friend of God or man.” (Wendell P Garrison and Francis J Garrison. William Lloyd Garrison: 1805-1879 ; the Story of His Life Told by His Children. II, The Century, 1885.)

To try and expound on the form of Incrementalism as characterized by institutions being a “necessary evil” in order to establish some salvific principle in society, it might be helpful to give a historical example of this in practice before describing something more contemporary. The Abolitionists against chattel slavery in 19th century America, after years of faithful immediatist preaching centered on moral suasion unto an evangelical solution to the problem of institutionalized oppression began to falter and stumble in the face of reactionary violence against their efforts. Coupled with the exhaustion following what must have seemed like so much wasted effort in preaching repentance to an audience overpopulated with spiritually dead “christians,” many abolitionists abandoned their Biblical ideology and instead sought to concentrate their efforts in overtaking the power centers of American society. Some still may have called themselves abolitionists but, while hijacking the term, their efforts began in revolve around pushing legislation to criminalize chattel slavery, or the creation of political parties to expand federal authority in order to oppose slavery and polygamy. Comfortable moderates could then justify voting for political candidates with “abolitionist sentiments” without being accused of holding radical abolitionist views like the importance of the Gospel and the obligation of seeking His Kingdom instead.

Lewis and Arthur Tappan, for instance, founded the Liberty Party in 1840 with James Birney. The Tappans were businessmen from New York, and very wealthy ones, revealing that their propensity for a more “winsome” institutional approach to addressing slavery (and rejection of the more prophetic message of the abolitionists) was compatible with their high-society caste full of delicate, potential donors whose palates leaned towards the allure of placating for political powers. To further excuse this sentiment, Birney, an anti-garrisonian, was a career politician and former slaveholder from Alabama, revealing a conflict of interest against relying on moral suasion to combat slavery (at least the kind that required repentance) which would have hindered the conversion of other slaveholders to his incrementalist cause and damage his political careerism in the public eye. Eight years after the Liberty Party was initiated, and losing traction, it merged with the Whig Party to form the Free Soil Party, demonstrating both the ineffective nature of political expediency and the need for more civil power and influence to be politically and  socially relevant. None of these parties hold much relevance to effecting posterity individually, demonstrating the self-eating nature of institutionalism, being drowned in historical obscurity. However, after a decade of political failure and ideological compromise, the Republican Party was eventually formed in 1854 by this persistent, desperate evolution and finally became an effective bastion of tyranny demonstrating just how good intentions are used to pave the way to Hell.

The continued compromise of political enthusiasts actually allowed a professing anti-slavery party to elect a pro-slavery candidate to office through Abraham Lincoln. We have written about how his sentiments and policies were persistently in favor of slavery (both corvee and chattel) elsewhere, but perhaps it is beneficial to repeat them here because they pertain to the effects of incrementalism as a nourishment for tyranny and oppression. To highlight this schizophrenia of a pro-slavery candidate in a compromised “anti-slavery” political party one needs to look no further than his inaugural address and his later letter to Horace Greeley. The former makes reference to the Corwin Amendment which can be read about here.

“I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. Holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.”

“If I could save the union without freeing any slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”

In addition to Lincoln’s consistent disregard for chattel slaves, his tyranny was no stranger to the subterfuges of economic warfare against the entire population of southern states, and when they retaliated against this tax slavery (which demanded the continued existence of chattel slavery in the agricultural colonies to offset the costs of imperialist tariffs), Lincoln committed to literal militaristic aggression. Surely the incrementalist’s desire for political power and the moral corruption that comes with it does not need to be described in detail concerning the barbaric atrocities of the Civil War. In order to get their way, however, incrementalists might profess some sort of pietistic moralism, conceptually limiting their thirst for power to minarchism, but their actions always tend more towards something like the Reign of Terror, assuaging their own consciences as they live by the sword of human institutionalism, pretending that “God wills” an excuse for their bloodlust.

On the subject on the Civil War though, there might be a worthwhile reason to demonstrate the utter hypocrisy that the anti-garrisonian “abolitionists” maintained through the Republican Party. The criminalization of chattel slavery was always and expressly meant to be a procedure to undermine Southern states and restore its tax slaves to the Union. The Emancipation Proclamation, for instance, only declared “liberty” for the slaves in the Confederacy, as in only the territories which formally rebelled against the Union. Excluded from this announcement were all the slaves in the states that never emancipated themselves from Union enrollment: Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri. Incrementalism loves compromise, even if its participators call themselves “abolitionists.” They do not call sin “sin” unless it is only against those who will not join their Towers of Babel in their endeavor to enslave all of mankind. If there is any doubt that this is their endeavor, then it is necessary to examine the 14th amendment which paved the way to replace chattel slavery of some inhabitants in the United States with corvee slavery of all inhabitants in the United States, namely through Birth Certification and Social Security Enrollment. Before the Civil War,

“No private person has a right to complain, by suit in court, on the ground of a breach of Constitution. The constitution it is true, is a compact, but he is not a party to it. The states are party to it.” (Supreme Court of Georgia, Padelford, Fay & Co. vs Mayor & Alderman, City of Savannah, 14 Ga. 438,520 [1854])

While the administrations of state governments were subject to the centralizing authority of the Constitution, individual residents were free from its bureaucratic oversight. However, after the ratification of the post-Civil War amendments,

“The Fourteenth Amendment uses the word “citizens” as a word denoting membership, as opposed to the former use of the word, which denoted merely an inhabitant. This is not to say that there was not citizenship of the United States prior to the amendment, for there surely was. The Fourteenth Amendment was an across-the-board offer of citizenship as a member of the United States Federal Government.” (The Covenant of the Gods, Citizen vs. Citizen)

“Birth Registration Document: The Social Security Administration (SSA) may enter into an agreement with officials of a State… to establish, as part of the official birth registration process, a procedure to assist SSA in assigning social security numbers to newborn children. Where an agreement is in effect, a parent, as part of the official birth registration process, need not complete a Form SS-5 and may request that SSA assign a social security number to the newborn child.” (20 C.F.R., section 422.103)

This process, a direct result of Incrementalism through the Republican party, grants Employee Identification numbers to every person born and naturalized to the United States, under the authority of its central Union government. Corvee bondage (slavery characterized by income tax and tribute on one’s labor) is the most common form of slavery condemned in the Bible. However, it is compromising “christians” that made civil bondage a necessary civil staple of the American Dream in their satanic theonomy. This is because, while Incrementalism hacks at the branches of evil, instead of striking at its roots, it is actually pruning the wicked tree, enabling it to bear stronger wicked fruit. When engaging in human civil government as a “necessary evil,” it can only ever produce more evil, just as every other deal with the devil can only ever give the devil the lion’s share of the benefits of the deal.

After working out the false gospel of human civil government as it related to nourishing itself on the false promises of Incrementalism in history, it is necessary to express a few examples of this hollow worldview in contemporary warnings. For instance, many libertarians and fans of freedom value political power to work out their salvation from political power. Anyone with common sense automatically sees this as a foolish, self-defeating tautology where strongholds are pulling themselves down by their own bootstraps. However, most people who convince themselves that they love freedom, including many professing christians, have already been given over to a reprobate mind to frequently commit to that which is inconvenient in their search for convenience. They are endeavoring to traverse, without a guide, the mire of their own judgment, and untangle, by their own understanding, the Gordian Knot that binds themselves and their neighbor.

The idea of invading manmade institutions, to be “a cog in the machine,” comes from the sentiment that “cogs sometimes make machines run better,” and is nothing short of “friendship evangelism” with tyranny. But introducing “better cogs” into tyrannical machines fails to recognize that these always just “turn in circles, wear out, and get replaced.” Of course, the sentiment even fails to acknowledge the ontological purpose of these machines is to be a tyrannical steamroller, constantly being resurrected by incrementalists throughout human history to oppress mankind (as if manmade authority could even exist without tribute, taxation, or inflation) that makes men cry out to God for liberation from this human meat grinder (of, by and for the people) in repentance towards executing the weightier matters of the Law in the Immediatism of personal responsibility and networked adhocracy. These machines are a judgment on those who raise up these machines, those who benefit from their operation at the expense of their neighbor, and those who look to them for salvation from starvation, violence, or any other consequence for sin by some form or combination of either sloth or covetousness.

To elect a man into authoritative office, no matter how “righteous,” libertarian or minarchist his gospel, is to confess that some slavery is necessary to effect much liberty. His salary does not exist without the corvee bondage of taxation. Say, for a non-existent and purely theoretical exception to this reality that you could elect a man into authoritative office whose salary is funded entirely by donation or by some trust fund or by some peripheral employment: Those who count your vote, the manufacturing of the ballot, the voting booths themselves, the property taxes of the building in which you voted, the payment of its utility bills, and every facet of the entire industry of democratic elections are maintained by the corvee bondage of taxation; not to mention the legislative, executive, and judicial death machines that carry out the “righteous,” libertarian, and minarchist policies of this exceptional person who could even (very doubtfully) get into authoritative office. Attempting to start with “a little institutionalism” sows the seed that produces a wicked tree of outright oppression and tyranny. The tree cannot bear any other kind of fruit. Its nature cannot be changed. The only favorable possibility is to let it whither and die and prevent yourself from planting the seed to begin with. Even if you plant it in “self-defense,” the blows with which you defend yourself are never concentrated onto those who have offended you, rather they make collateral damage out of every single person who pays taxes to fund your “self-defense.”

“But when a new generation arises and the democracy falls into the hands of the grandchildren of its founders, they have become so accustomed to freedom and equality that they no longer value them, and begin to aim at pre-eminence; and it is chiefly those of ample fortune who fall into this error. So when they begin to lust for power and cannot attain it through themselves or their own good qualities, they ruin their estates, tempting and corrupting the people in every possible way. And hence when by their foolish thirst for reputation they have created among the masses an appetite for gifts and the habit of receiving them, democracy in its turn is abolished and changes into a rule of force and violence. For the people, having grown accustomed to feed at the expense of others and to depend for their livelihood on the property of others, as soon as they find a leader who is enterprising but is excluded from the houses of office by his penury, institute the rule of violence; and now uniting their forces massacre, banish, and plunder, until they degenerate again into perfect savages and find once more a master and monarch.” (Polybius: The Histories [composed at Rome around 130 BC] Fragments of Book VI, p289 See also Loeb Classical Library edition, 1922 thru 1927)

In light of these facts, it should be concluded explicitly that an endeavor like the Libertarian Party, or other theonomist and reconstructionist schemes, are evil. Their proponents know they are evil, and this fact is not absent from their tickets. Anybody who supports, donates to, pledges to vote for members of these parties, or involve themselves in peripheral political action committees, all invariably agree that they belong to the “lesser evil,” and so cannot deny being evil. They say they sincerely value the compromise of praying to tyranny to tyrannize themselves less and their neighbor more in order to make it happen. Their endeavors may legitimize bondage over their fellow man, but somehow those endeavors can possibly lead to more liberty as if their actions exist in a vacuum without direct, indirect, political, social, or economic consequences. However, the fact remains that giving human civil government permission to exercise authority over your neighbor, whether in the pursuit of liberty, justice, or provision, gives your neighbor the reciprocal right and entitlement to look to human civil government to provide for them anything it is willing, and at your expense. Tyranny sets the same hooks for all men, and baits them with the very flesh of those who get caught by them. The allure of democracy is mob rule, and the ontological nature of mob rule is incompatible with individual liberty and prosperity. The more you struggle against your bondage by using your bondage to be less bondage, the more you legitimize and justify and welcome your bondage. This is the act of kicking against the goads. The more you fight against it, the worse it will get, and your fate as a society of compromise, covetousness, and tyranny will only be ushered in sooner. You will experience the weeping and gnashing of teeth inherent to the moral and fiscal bankruptcy of a collapsing society.

“But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken. Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem. Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves: Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste. Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place. And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it. From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report.” (Isaiah 28:13-19)

The only solution is to reject political authority altogether, to quit idolatry cold turkey, and to turn around and Seek first the Kingdom of God (which allows no authoritarian institutionalism) and His Righteousness (which forbids the legalism of man-made bureaucracy, replacing it with the natural Law of personal responsibility.) Theonomists, Reconstructionists, and Dominionists will attempt to promise that their idolatry in authoritarianism is somehow their version of seeking the Kingdom of God, but scripture condemns this excuse as the Doctrine of Balaam, Korah, and the Nicolaitans, citing a warning about the leaven of the Pharisees: “And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.” (Matthew 11:12)

“The dogma that all governments of the world are approvingly ordained of God, and that the powers that be in the United States, Russia, in Turkey, are in accordance with His will, is not less absurd than impious. It makes the impartial Author of human freedom and quality unequal and tyrannical. It cannot be affirmed that the powers that be, in any nation, are actuated by the spirit or guided by the example of Christ, in the treatment of enemies: therefore, they cannot be agreeable to the will of God: and, therefore, their overthrow, by a spiritual regeneration of their subjects, is inevitable…

As every human government is upheld by physical strength, and its laws are enforced virtually at the point of the bayonet, we cannot hold any office which imposes upon its incumbent the obligation to do right, on pain of imprisonment or death. We therefore voluntarily exclude ourselves from every legislative and judicial body, and repudiate all human politics, worldly honours, and stations of authority. If we cannot occupy a seat in the legislature, or on the bench, neither can we elect others to act as our substitutes in any such capacity.” (William Lloyd Garrison. Declaration of Sentiments Adopted by the Peace Convention, Held in Boston in 1838)

One very popular example of conciliatory and innocuous form of Incrementalism in the face of chattel slavery in 19th Century America was the concept of Colonization. Similar to the Trail of Tears endeavor to emigrate native populations from polite society and segregating them into Oklahoma territory, Colonization also sought to placate institutionalized oppression by inventing a peripheral solution: the colonization of Liberia by removing black populations from the United States and sending them “back to Africa.” This gradual emancipation was an imitation of an 18th century British endeavor to deport London’s “black poor” to the Sierra Leone which had been supported by the British government. In both cases, the endeavor was attractive to those who had no desire to actually oppose slavery in any meaningful way and give lip service to its amelioration while actually perpetuating its existence. Socialist institutions of Empire could invest in this practice of carting off “undesirable members of society” to a “backwoods” continent in the effort to “civilize Africa” and bring it under the imperialist jurisdiction of those who are willing to “free” some members of their society in order to enslave the whole world through that imperialism. It was the Immediatism of the abolitionists that harshly opposed the concept of Incrementalist colonization, and demonized it as a slaveholder’s scheme. Eventually, the incrementalists focused, not on emigration, but educational efforts for blacks in Liberia and in the United States, but never actually putting forth efforts into ending the practice of chattel slavery. The colonizationists eventually faded into historical irrelevance and are usually seen as an example of caution against adopting gradualist Incrementalism in light of the more efficacious abolitionist Immediatism.

“It was the custom in that day to inveigh against immediatism as ‘impracticable.’ ‘You cannot,’ said our opponents, ’emancipate all the slaves at once; why, then, do you propose so impossible a scheme?’ Our reply was, that slaveholding being a sin, instant emancipation was the right of every slave and the duty of every master. The fact that the slaveholders were not ready at once to obey the demands of justice and the requirements of the Divine Law militated not against the soundness of the doctrine of immediatism or against its power as a PRACTICAL WORKING PRINCIPLE. The minister of the Gospel does not cease to proclaim the duty of immediate repentance for sin because he knows that his message will not be immediately heeded. It is his duty to contend for sound principles, whether his auditors ‘will hear or forbear.’ He dares not advise or encourage them to delay repentance for a single hour, though he knows that in all probability many of them will do so until their dying day.” (Johnson, O. “William Lloyd Garrison And His Times.” Boston: Houghton, Mifflin And Company, 1881.)

A more contemporary example of this gradualist spirit that comes from a place of compromise and placating shame is the political shift towards the emancipation of State governments from the Federal government, as if fifty bastions of civil bondage and institutional oppression are better than one, more central one, or as if it is a blessing for the Lernaean Hydra to have more mouths by which to consume mankind. In theory, the idea that advocating for State Sovereignty as a dissolution of federal bondage is actually germinating the heirloom seeds harvested from the fruit of the wicked tree of federal bondage. In other words, the nature of the problem remains in the premise of its solution, only on a smaller scale. The principle is the same, only the degree is different. The purpose of advocating for “state’s rights” is essentially to figuratively take civil bondage back in time to when it was less oppressive or insoluble without eliminating it altogether. It is to make corvee slavery more palatable and comfortable and manageable without ever taking it off the exact same course of destruction that those enslaved complain about today. In a few generations, “this theory of liberty” will progress toward the exact same level of tyranny as is now demonstrated, owed to the inevitable inertia of the worldview behind it. Only now there will be 50 bastions of tyranny. However, these are the problems behind just the theory itself. It is still beneficial to look at the implications of its practice.

When contrasted against a cursory understanding of civics, the orthodoxy of “freeing the States” is impossible to implement in a practical orthopraxy. Rather it is an absurdly illogical idea owed to the fact that the people are not even citizens of the State governments, but rather the Federal government. The covenants they have made have not been with the State gods, but the federal gods. As mentioned above, the incrementalist approach to chattel slavery in the United States in the 19th century ushered in a universal application of corvee slavery onto every individual in every state, removing their political jurisdiction from State governments, making them property and merchandise of a Federal civil system.

“So, by declaration of the 14th Amendment, all persons born from that point forward, and all naturalized people, had just become citizens (i.e. subjects) of the United States Government, obviously without their knowledge (babies) or understanding (the Negroes). The Federal Government had just reached past the jurisdictional boundaries of the state and county lines and claimed all its babies and all Negroes.

In Section 2, it then states that only males 21 years of age who are citizens of the United States may be allowed to vote in Federal and State elections. That means that only those men who willingly claimed U.S. citizenship on voter’s registration cards (though they didn’t realize the implications) were also brought in as subjects of the Federal Government.” (Lyon, L.C., 2021. The Day Our Country Was Stolen. [online] Outpost-of-freedom.com)

Prior to the Civil War, it was not uncommon for American inhabitants to be citizens of State governments rather than slaves under a federal jurisdiction. Freeing the States from Federal oppression was (while still ideologically incrementalist) a popular idea that had teeth, and the States had no legal or political issue with abandoning the Union. It was only when those governments absconded with Federal property in their exit that they experienced pushback from the United States corporation through military retaliation The Union already desired to go to war with Southern States, but it was the attack on Union property that served as the legitimate catalyst for the Civil War. The imperialist aggression of the government of South Carolina against Fort Sumter is just one example of this principle of the Federal government having property in the states looking to free themselves from the Federal government.

“Fort Sumter was covered by a separate cession of land to the United States by the state of South Carolina, and covered in this resolution, passed by the South Carolina legislature in December of 1836:

‘The Committee on Federal relations, to which was referred the Governor’s message, relating to the site of Fort Sumter, in the harbour of Charleston, and the report of the Committee on Federal Relations from the Senate on the same subject, beg leave to Report by Resolution:

‘Resolved, That this state do cede to the United States, all the right, title and claim of South Carolina to the site of Fort Sumter and the requisite quantity of adjacent territory, Provided, That all processes, civil and criminal issued under the authority of this State, or any officer thereof, shall and may be served and executed upon the same, and any person there being who may be implicated by law; and that the said land, site and structures enumerated, shall be forever exempt from liability to pay any tax to this state.

Also resolved: That the State shall extinguish the claim, if any valid claim there be, of any individuals under the authority of this State, to the land hereby ceded.'” (Mackey, Al. “Who Owned Fort Sumter?” Student of the American Civil War, 14 Apr. 2013.)

In a more contemporary setting, the Federal government has since increased its interests in State boundaries, to an insurmountable extent, to include national parks and forests, institutions and edifices, highways and seaboards and, most importantly, sovereignty over every single individual with a birth certification and social security number (including those belonging even to the legislators, executives, and judges of state governments), and every single piece of property that is characterized by a legal title. To attempt to free the states unto their own sovereignty at this point is attempt something cartoonish: to give those governments control over nothing at all while their governors, legislators, and judges all belong as corvee slaves to the Federal government along with each and every inhabitant of each and every state. The freedom of the people would be just as impossible to obtain after the completion of this action as before it was undertaken. It would amount to nothing other than hitting rubber with a hammer or running on a treadmill. It would amount to an illusion of progress, mistaking motion for action and committing to a sense of catharsis without ever doing anything productive. This highlights the absurdity of Incrementalism, valuing conciliation and supplication to authoritarianism while pretending to combat it, paying lip service to an imagined just cause but only ever professing a moral opinion to cover up the absence of moral action.

“Should the numerous petitions to Parliament be ultimately successful; should the prayer for gradual emancipation be granted; still, how vague and indefinite would be the benefit resulting from such success. Should some specific time be appointed by government, for the final extinction of colonial slavery, that period, we have been informed from high authority, will not be an early one. And who can calculate the tears and groans, the anguish and despair; the tortures and outrages which may be added, during the term of that protracted interval, to the enormous mass of injuries already sustained by the victims of West Indian bondage? Who can calculate the aggravated accumulation of guilt which may be incurred by its active agents, its interested abettors and supporters? Why, then, in the name of humanity, of common sense, and common honesty, do we petition Parliament, year after year, for a gradual abolition of this horrid system?—this complication of crime and misery? Why petition Parliament at all, to do that for us, which, were they ever so well disposed, we can do more speedily and more effectually for ourselves?” (Heyrick, Elizabeth. Immediate, Not Gradual Abolition: Or, an Inquiry into the Shortest, Safest, and Most Effectual Means of Getting Rid of West Indian Slavery. Knapp, 1838.)

It is the predictable argument of the Incrementalist to justify these compromises by saying, “Well, we are forced to pay our taxes regardless, we might as well endeavor to further the idea that they are used to make sure we pay fewer taxes and to work towards Liberty (make Hell less hot.) Also, the taxes that would pay for these things are ones we’ve paid already, so no new taxes are being extracted from our neighbor to pay for them.”

To this, Immediatism warns that to justify the utilization of taxes is to justify the covetousness that enables them. It is to express entitlement to the socialist system, and further the ouroboros cycle of greed and punishment and greed and punishment that describe the cause and effect of covetousness and taxation. Not to mention, the currency involved in taxation is not characterized by wealth, but debt notes. The whole financial-political system is in debt. The taxes (unpaid labor) you sacrifice to the system go to pay the interest of the boons, benefits, politicians’ salaries, and policy changes borrowed against you and enjoyed by your parents and grandparents who made you collateral for them. Likewise, the boons, benefits, politicians’ salaries, and policy changes that you enjoy are borrowed against the taxes (unpaid labor) of your children and grandchildren whom you sell into the civil bondage of subject citizenship through birth certification, social security enrollment, marriage licensing, and any other covenant you make with the false gods of human civil government. So, what is the Immediatist’s alternative to these solutions?

“But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:44)

Immediatism says “be perfect.” This is impossible for a people who look to oppressors for a better world, and their cold, calculating, impersonal, bureaucratic system to achieve it. For those that curse, hate, despitefully use, and persecute you by the institutional power of human civil government, your injunction is to return to them love, blessings, good doings, and prayer by the more effective power of direct, personal responsibility. This is the only way to break the cycle of institutional civil war crimes inherent to socialist societies. This character of forgiveness and repaying evil with good is the only way to end this social feud lasting from generation to generation. It does not allow for “less” of a sense of entitlement from the self-defeating system of ouroboros, it disallows entitlement altogether. The same goes for institutionalized retaliation against evil, which is often euphemized by Theonomists, Reconstructionists, and Dominionists as “resisting the evildoer,” and “safeguarding our culture from evil people.” Twisted scripture aside, these excuses only confess that their proponents have no discipline to receive a proverbial blow on the cheek while confronting a culture strictly through the efforts of adhocratic, freewill association, to be in the world, but not of its “apt, harmonious arrangement, constitution, order, and government.” It is simply impossible to confront evil with evil, to resist evil by being evil, and use worldly wisdom to stymie worldly people. These who seek office are publicans (tax collectors) and only love those who agree with them and their purpose for the power centers. They cannot forgive those who exercise authority over them to some purpose with which they disagree. This necessarily continues the feud and social war whose carnal weapons consist of institutional power.

“After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew 6:9-15)

“And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.” (Matthew 18:34-35)

“And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.” (Mark 11:25-26)

The Lord’s Prayer, often truncated to decorate coffee mugs, interior design, bookmarks, and throw pillows, is actually a succinct condemnation on Incrementalism and a salient prescription of Immediatism. To describe the civil Father of the Christian as being in Heaven is to supplant the legitimacy of the civil fathers of the earth. To hallow His name is to undermine the authority of elected officials. To seek his Kingdom is to be ex-patriated from any other kingdom. To anticipate His will is to confess to not needing the wills of political candidates. To pray for the providence of a heavenly Father for daily bread is to refuse the socialist “free bread” of Benefactors who exercise authority (And if God is faithful to be the sole provider of daily bread, then we have no right to ask from any other god protection, law and order, and justice—the Heavenly Father is just as efficacious to deliver those for true believers in His Kingdom as well). To ask from that Father forgiveness for squandering the birthright of your Dominion Mandate in subjecting your capital, equity, allodium, and liberty to the coffers of subject citizenship, you admit that you must forgive those who have taken advantage of these deposits to receive benefits at your expense by also no longer receiving entitlements from their socialist provision. To ask God to lead you away from the temptation of eating at the tables of rulers is to ask Him to redeem you from the evil of their socialist societies. But Christ warns multiple times, that if you do not forgive your debtors, God will not grant you salvation.

This is the reciprocal nature of civil bondage. If you take the socialist benefit, you will incur the authoritarian wrath. If you collect social security, fatten your heart by food stamps, send your children to public school, continue to elect ruling men into authoritarian office for whatever tax-funded boon or privilege you can get, or eat any other “food sacrificed to idols,” then you have not forgiven your debtors for doing these very things at your own expense. Rather, you are living by the double-edged sword of institutionalism and eventually dying by it too. Only by repenting of your covetous appetite, and putting a “knife to your throat” in refusal to eat of the socialist benefits can you say that you do not “live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4) Only then will God forgive you, and redeem you to follow the Perfect Law of Liberty which governs a Kingdom of freemen who provide for each other out of faith, hope and charity rather than contracts, entitlements, and taxation.

If the picture has yet to be made clear, then it must be explicitly said that Immediatism says that repentance must be an urgent and immediate rejection of sin while Incrementalism says that repentance can happen in stages or increments, as though it were possible to continue to commit a sin, but only partially, diminishing it over time until it is theoretically not practiced at all. This idea is a rejection of Jesus‘ injunction to “Go, and sin no more.” For instance, Immediatism says that drug abuse is a sin issue and that its repentance means quitting cold turkey. Incrementalism says not to call it drug abuse, but rather drug addiction, and that it is a disease, and therefore a healthcare issue that must be treated over time, firstly by replacing controlled substances with legalized alternatives provided by a lucrative industry, then incrementally lowering the dosage as time progresses. Incrementalism, therefore, does not treat sin as severely as it should be treated if it is to recognize it as sin at all. Immediatism says “And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.” (Matthew 5:29) Incrementalism says “If your eye causes you to sin, squint. Or wink. Or wear an eyepatch. Because it is better to covet your neighbor’s house a little bit than it is to lose your entire eye.” Immediatism says “And if thy right hand offend thee, cut if off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.” (Matthew 5:30) Incrementalism says “If your right hand is offensive, trim your nails. Then try cutting off one finger at a time, but don’t cut it off entirely. It’s better to steal some of your neighbor’s livelihood than it is to not have a whole hand.”

To further the notion that the Bible consistently teaches the Immediatist position, perhaps it is beneficial to look at one of its most famous recorded events. When the Israelites were in their civil bondage in Egypt after generations of making Pharaoh their provider, protector, lawgiver, judge, father, god, and savior, they eventually learned to recognize the oppression and tyranny chosen by themselves when they followed the broad path generations prior. They had to learn the importance of Immediatism when they no longer could receive the free bread provided by Pharaoh. Instead, they had to glean the fields of straw themselves and provide bread for each other out of charity and mutual sustenance. They still had corvee obligations to Pharaoh however, but endeavoring to form a free society independent of Egyptian bureaucracy enabled them to cry out to God for liberation. And because of their repentance, God heard them:

“And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians keep in bondage; and I have remembered my covenant. Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments: And I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God: and ye shall know that I am the LORD your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. And I will bring you in unto the land, concerning the which I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; and I will give it you for an heritage: I am the LORD.” (Exodus 6:5-8)

God then gave to Moses the most quintessential Immediatist demand to preach to Pharaoh: “Let my people go.” This message was repeated by Moses consistently, without compromise or modification, despite Pharaoh’s repeat refusal of an Immediatist solution, and his attempts at Incrementalist counter-offers. He tried to compromise with Moses, suggesting that the Israelites could “Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land” (Exodus 8:25), as if the Israelites could serve two masters, or as modern Incrementalists suggest, “Obey the laws of the land only so far as they don’t contradict God’s Law.” Moses‘ Immediatist message remained: “Let my people go.” Pharaoh’s next compromise was “Only ye shall not go very far away” (Exodus 8:28), as if he could grant the Israelites an illusion of liberty, but not too far out of reach in case he changed his mind later. But Moses’ Immediatism did not wane: “Let my people go.” Pharaoh eventually attempted another Incrementalist compromise: “Go now ye that are men” [but not] “your little ones” (Exodus 10:8-11), as he was comfortable letting his adult tax-slaves go, but required a new generation to work his fields and provide his economy. Moses’ Immediatist message did not acknowledge this compromise: “Let my people go.” Pharaoh’s last proposal, after nine arduous plagues, still reflected his tenacity for incrementalism: “Go ye, serve the LORD; only let your flocks and your herds be stayed: let your little ones also go with you.” (Exodus 10:24), as if it were reasonable to free his civil citizens without their personal property, creating a necessity to return to him for provision in the face of starvation and poverty. But Moses’ response still rejected this desire for compromise: “Our cattle also shall go with us; there shall not an hoof be left behind; for thereof must we take to serve the LORD our God; and we know not with what we must serve the LORD, until we come thither.” (Exodus 10:26)

“[Garrison] seems to have understood—this boy without experience—he seems to have understood by instinct that righteousness is the only thing which will finally compel submission; He seems to have known it at the very outset, taught of God, the herald and champion, God-endowed and God-sent to arouse a nation, that only by the most absolute assertion of the uttermost truth, without qualification or compromise, can a nation be waked to conscience or strengthened for duty. No man ever understood so thoroughly—not O’Connell, nor Cobden—the nature and needs of that agitation which alone, in our day, reforms states. In the darkest hour he never doubted the omnipotence of conscience and the moral sentiment.” (Phillips, Wendell. “Eulogy of Garrison. Remarks of Wendell Phillips at the funeral of William Lloyd Garrison.” 1884. Boston, Lee and Shepard.)

If the faithless Fanarchists, Theonomists, Reconstructionists, Dominionists, Libertarians, Minarchists, and Fauxbolitionists of contemporaneity were to recognize that their social, financial, and political circumstances emulate those of the Israelites in Bondage to Egypt, they would be forced to declare that Moses‘ obstinate “all or nothing” strategy was nothing short of foolishness and pride, if not inaction. Their own habits and worldly wisdom advise that Moses should have taken what he could get and betrayed his ideal of liberty for the baby steps of compromise, placating for the tide of tyranny and believing on Pharaoh’s deceptive and empty promises. But the reliable character of Moses could not be one to make concessions in self-deceiving blindness. “There are honest people in the world, but only because the devil considers their asking prices ridiculous.” (Peter S. Beagle) Rather, Moses trusted on the promises of an immutable God and placed his faith in the fact that righteousness will be rewarded, even miraculously, by the Author of Liberty and any action that sacrifices that faith on the altar of compromise would forfeit his right to any liberty obtained through that compromise. If “duty is ours, and the results belong to God,” then “the time for justice is always now.” It is unsatisfactory to demand for “some justice now and some justice later, and even more justice in some distant future,” but rather that the God of freemen demands “Let my people go before your man-made institutions are ruined by a supernatural force of judgment and righteousness laying waste to your entire civil society of debt, oppression, and idolatry.” Only right action, undiluted, bears good fruit. The injunction of Immediatism is intrinsic to the Abolitionist worldview, not just in the creation of a free society, but also in its preservation. “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing… If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love.” (John 15:5-10)

The Constitution of the Kingdom of Heaven, as given to Moses after the liberation of the Israelites from Egyptian civil citizenship, is a framework for Immediatism to strengthen and nourish their freedom and the freewill bonds of their association. It is immediatist to say “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” It is incrementalist to say “Give us a king to judge us.” It is immediatist to say “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image… or bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.” It is incrementalist to say “allow us to make a golden calf out of our collective wealth, forming a central bank to prop up socialist institutions that compel our service to them.” It is immediatist to say “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain.” It is incrementalist to say “surely we can call ourselves God’s chosen people while going under the power of false gods we’ve elected to rule over us.” It is immediatist to say “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.” It is incrementalist to say “it is okay to borrow against the future today, to go into debt and take our rest now while we work twice as hard to pay the interest of this loan tomorrow.” It is immediatist to say “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.” It is incrementalist to say “allow us to outsource our parents’ care to the socialist security institutions of Corban and their retirement centers.” It is immediatist to say “Thou shalt not kill.” It is incrementalist to say “let us take a man’s life by living at the expense of his livelihood through institutional force and violence.” It is immediatist to say “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” It is incrementalist to say “perhaps we can still practice political infidelity by making other rulers our providers and protectors, to accept the socialist baubles of civil lovers.” It is immediatist to say “Thou shalt not steal.” It is incrementalist to say “but taxation is necessary for a civilized society.” It is immediatist to say “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.” It is incrementalist to say “money does not have reflect just weights and measures, it can be anything so long that it is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in our socio-economic context.” It is immediatist to say “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house…” It is incrementalist to say “but he doesn’t have an inherent right over his family and property, he should be regulated and taxed to pay for that regulation.” In each instance where God’s Law is challenged by incrementalist excuses, the people have endeavored to codify their compromises into institutional barbarism and cannibalistic poverty. But God’s immediatist injunctions against human civil government and its necessary systems of taxation and inflation are a warning against the self-destruction of such morally compromised societies.

“Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed; To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless! And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory? Without me they shall bow down under the prisoners, and they shall fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.” (Isaiah 10:1-4)

To summarize: Incrementalism self-germinates its seed of self-destruction and irrelevance to posterity. It says that “it is the ability to compromise that makes a man noble.” But this is a rejection of common sense and a bastion of personal hypocrisy. It necessarily pays lip service to moral opinions while consistently practicing immoral action. Philosophically, it justifies the existence of immorality by degrees, proposing to offer a “half-life” solution to injustice and sin. If you can do a half the sin tomorrow that you’ve done today, and half of that half the following day, and half of the third day’s sin on the fourth day, and so on and so forth, you’re still always left with sin on your itinerary. No amount of sin, tyranny, or bondage halved will ever amount to none. Incrementalism is perpetuity, and a worldview only justifiable by careerists who “convert a public problem into a personal career and rescues himself from obscurity, penury, or desperation. These men work with a dedication that may appear to be selfless so long as the problem is insoluble.” Incrementalism makes problems insoluble as an exercise of pretense. If the problem went away, so would their sense of heroism and “humanitarian” self-aggrandizement. The problem mocks them in response: “This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You truly are incorruptible, aren’t you, huh? You won’t kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness, and I won’t kill you because you’re just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever.”

Immediatism, on the other hand, takes no prisoners, and parleys with no tyranny or the self-defeating behaviors that beg for its existence. It refuses to compromise with falsehood, pragmatic excuses, conciliatory whingeing, and accommodating mewling. These attitudes inherently confess that power rightfully belongs to politicians and false gods in human civil government: “Pretty please, do for us what we are too morally weak and lacking in integrity to do for ourselves.” But uncompromising men are easy to admire for a reason. Men of direct action have always been the engine on which human history relies, to propel it from bondage to liberty. It says that the Ship of State should be sunk by a wave of good intentions, moral suasion, and righteous action in a prophetic display of repentance, because that which can be destroyed by the truth demands to be destroyed by the truth. It says that those who live by the power of taxation are slaveholders over those subjected to taxation, and that it is better to lose this livelihood than it is to perpetuate this dominion of man for one more day, or even one more hour. Immediatism says that the only way to see this occur is to seek first the Kingdom of God, rather than any kingdom of men, and to seek God’s righteousness which has the power to nullify human institutions, rather than any self-righteousness of self-defeating salvation.

If sanity is not statistical, then the truth cannot be discerned by the “conventional wisdom” of the multitude who value Incrementalism to justify their cowardice with worldly philosophy. “Let God be true, but every man a liar.” (Romans 3:4) God says to be perfect, to cease from sin, and to not serve two masters. This is the way of Immediatism.

“The conception of abolition as a sacred vocation helps illuminate the immediatists’ intemperate style and their radical stance toward existing ministerial and evangelical institutions. Abolition in a very precise way was a form of evangelicalism and they were its evangelists. Their mode of persuasion was identical in tone, structure, and epistemology to the address that any evangelical preacher worth his salt would use to break down a sinner’s resistance to Truth. Slavery was sin and as sin had to be relinquished and fought against, just as in a revival a sinner had to repent immediately and turn his energies against sin. Indeed, for the abolitionist activist to insist on anything else was unthinkable. Gerrit Smith put it very explicitly when he challenged Lyman Beecher‘s refusal to adopt immediatism while still avowing that slavery was evil. “Now if I were standing by,” Smith wrote, “whilst you were laboring to bring a fellow sinner to repentance, and, instead, of countenancing your solemn and urgent exhortation, you should relieve his pressed conscience by telling him, not yet, you would not likely to number me amongst the advocates of the doctrines of Biblical Repentance.” The immediatists similarly refused to compromise their stance when opponents insisted that their denunciation of Christian slaveholders as vile sinners and their charge that Christians who did not accept immediatism had leagues themselves with the devil underminded Christian progress retarding revivals, dividing churches, and destroying benevolent enterprises. The abolitionist stance was essentially an ante- (rather than anti-) institutional one. The doctrine that slavery was sin and hence had to be condemned and renounced was the antecedent principle against which they judged any idea, action, or institution. This they could not mute their rhetoric or agitation out of loyalty to existing ministerial or evangelical institutions. In effect, they now inhabited a different ministry, one which might be ideological and abstract but which was nonetheless as clear in its imperatives as the most carefully prescribed ministerial routine.” (Fellman, M. (1981). Antislavery reconsidered: New perspectives on the Abolitionists. Louisiana State University Press.)