Monday, I posted about Freedom Outlaws and was overwhelmed with intriguing responses. (I swear, this blog has the best comments section.)

One surprise: Very few people objected when I added “Cockapoo” to the list of Outlaw types. True, long-time reader Jim B. accused me of insulting the adorable dogs. He may have a point there. And a couple of folks made cogent arguments against the Cockapoo strategy. But to my surprise, most seemed even to consider it an issue — and one person even chimed in to proclaim his own Cockapoo identity.

When RagnarDanneskjold asked whether the Mental Militia Forums should add Cockapoo to its activist topics, early responses came from people who “got” the concept of bleeding the state dry by taking everything it has to offer. (I won’t be surprised if more people chime in on the negative side eventually, if they’re moved to chime in at all.)

Still, I think I should speak a few more words in explanation and defense of the Cockapoo as a type of Freedom Outlaw.

First thing to know: I’m not advocating that anybody adopt the Cockapoo strategy — certainly not ever as a first choice. (I don’t advocate any particular strategy; the best strategy against a centralized, top-down tyrannical structure is to do your own thing and be impossible to predict. It drives ‘em crazy.)

As a Freedom Outlaw, the Cockapooo is a person who takes every “entitlement” he can get his hands on and contributes as little as possible to the mainstream economy. He (or she, of course; I just hate the tortured clunkiness of some “inclusive” language) becomes the government’s papered pet — but with a sense of purpose.

The classic objection (and I really can’t argue with it, morally) is that anybody who does that is simply stealing from his harder-working, more productive peers. Another objection, from the strictly freedomista viewpoint, is that it would be very, very easy for somebody to fool himself into believing he’s a Freedom Outlaw when he’s really just a plain old garden variety moocher.

Goethe said, “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” Well, none are more hopelessly deluded than those who think they’re Freedom Outlaws when they’re actually doing nothing useful.

Becoming a Cockapoo can be morally dubious and carries distinct risks of self-delusion.

That said, however, there’s another side to the story.

• The Cockapoo strategy is and should be a last-resort. This is a strategy and a lifestyle for people who’ve been beaten down to where they feel there’s little else they can do. If the IRS has taken your life’s savings or regulators have destroyed your business, you might become a Cockapoo. If you’ve been locked up for a victimless crime, and nothing is left of your income, your job skills, or your family life when you return to society, you may be ripe for becoming a Cockapoo. You might also become a Cockapoo if you suffer disabilities that make daily life and work a struggle. If you’re getting old. If you’re simply exhausted by life. If you feel your only alternative is to sink into utter despair and poverty, then the Cockapoo life might not only save you from starvation or suicide; it might give you the break you need to put yourself together again. And at the same time, it might give you encouragement that you can still fight back.
• The difference between a Cockapoo Freedom Outlaw and a plain old “welfare bum” is purposefulness. Consciousness about what you’re doing and why and how. Okay, I’m sure somebody out there is about to say that with consciousness and a buck seventy-five you can get a cup of coffee. But awareness and purposefulness do matter. They mean that in addition to simply sucking up benefits, the Cockapoo is open to opportunities — opportunities to influence, to monkeywrench, to understand and magnify the impact of his own choices, among other things.
• The Cockapoo is also a striker in the Atlas Shrugged mold (though I can hear Ms. Rand spinning loudly in her grave at the very thought). He doesn’t merely take. He refuses to give. he places his abilities and his time out of the grasp of those who would exploit him.
• Ah, but isn’t he, himself, an exploiter of his tax-exhausted peers? Yes and no. I said earlier that I couldn’t argue that point morally. In fact, I’ve made that moral argument myself a hundred times. But as a plain old matter of fact, as things stand now, with our government spending like a drunken kid with Mom’s credit card … nobody is actually paying the bill. With government debt as it is, do you really expect your taxes to go up to support a few, or a few thousand, Cockapoos? Not likely. Oh, we’ll pay. For sure we’ll pay. With inflation. Or deflation. Or both. Or default. Or who knows what lovelies the near future will bring? But when that day comes, the Cockapoo might pay more heavily than anybody by being cut off from benefits. Or by seeing benefits disappear down a hyperinflationary rat hole. Cockapoos might once have raised everybody else’s taxes. But I don’t that’ll happen now. I think we’re all going down together. Meanwhile, the Cockapoo is just one drop of water in a very big bucket.
• Canadian at The Mental Militia made another point very well: “In war, taking resources from the enemy and using them for your own purposes is a perfectly valid tactic. If the enemy foolishly chooses to give those resources to you, so much the better. Take everything, leave nothing.”
• Also, I’ve never heard a single person object to The Mole as a type of Freedom Outlaw. Perhaps that’s because so many people with a passion for freedom but an everyday life of complacency fancy themselves as Moles. I don’t know. But the thing is, a Mole who holds a government job or works in some government-enabling function is, most of the time, even more of a drag on the poor, battered taxpayer than a Cockapoo. The government-enabling Mole takes in more money. Maybe gets a big, fat, tax-paid pension. The Mole, until he commits his acts of Moledom, may do active harm to freedom (compared with the Cockapoo’s passive non-contribution and few-hundred-a-month tit sucking). Yet Moles, real ones, are admirable.
• And while a common mooch may fool himself into believing he’s an Outlaw Cockapoo, the world is full of people who do nothing useful for freedom while fantasizing a Molish — and illusory — secret Freedom Outlaw life for themselves. Which is worse? And who can judge what another person may, or may not, do when the time is right?

We’ll all chose our own strategy or strategies. Whatever we do, though, we should do it with the greatest degree of honesty and self-awareness that we can muster. We’ve got to avoid kidding ourselves. Somebody who takes government benefits with the comforting assurance that, “I’m just getting my own back,” is perpetrating a delusion. (“Your own” was taken from you long ago and given to away. It’s beyond your recovery.) So is the do-nothing drone who imagines he’ll be Zorro or Robin Hood — someday. So is the activist who keeps doing the same thing over and over long after it’s clearly not working.

That’s the main thing: Strip away self-delusion and do whatever you do with clear eyes and clear purpose. Change strategies when you need to. But don’t kid yourself, ever.

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