Thursday, September 15, 2011

The Seemingly Paradoxical Nature of Human Freedom

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A paradox of human life is that in order to have peaceful and free living, one must be prepared for war; not just with arms but with attitude, knowledge, and the will to become a frightful enemy in the face of trespass.  This keeps people polite, hands to selves.  It is as things must be, for the passive and timid tend to become the slaves of the tyrant, or fertilizer for his next year's crop.  The twentieth century alone demonstrated this in the most stark and non-equivocating fashion.

Despite the butchery of hundreds of millions of innocents within but the handful of years we call the "twentieth century" and despite the enslavement of nearly everyone else, a great proportion of humanity (particularly in the United States where people are supposed to know better - shame on them) remains insistent upon denying the characteristics and qualities that constitute the necessary attitudes and preparations for becoming and remaining free of tyrants and all other oppressions.

Consider the massively bloodthirsty collectivists for the "greater good" under the tyrannies of the Soviet Union and China; the unapologetic and rapaciously murderous parties of the various blood feuds of Africa and even parts of Europe (!!);  the endlessly bloody and numerous "revolutions" of the countless banana republics of the tropical Americas and the Caribbean; the leaden and hopelessly grey and oppressive tyrannies of the now-openly socialistic Europe and especially Great Britain; or the far more subtle and candy-coated tyrannies of the USA and Canada.  That so large a proportion of the world's people still refuse to accept the truth of what is required to achieve and maintain their freedom begs the question of just how deep must a psychosis be to support such bald-faced denial of that which stares one unflinchingly in the eyes?  How willfully and defiantly ignorant must one choose to be in order to maintain such slavish devotion to remaining passive in the face of so-called "states", (AKA "governments") raiding, raping, and murdering their ways across their lives with apparent impunity?

While being peaceful in one's habits, endeavors, and desires, one must be prepared for, and willing to become as warlike as any power-mad dictator in order to defend what is rightfully his when the trespass of others threatens.  To reject the absolute need of proper preparedness in defense of self, family and community against the predations of others while at the same time espousing one's desire to remain free constitutes an irreconcilably irrational and self-contradicting position.  It is to flirt, dance, and ultimately invite destruction and suicide to one's door.  This is not indicative of sound intellectual processes or, more likely, of intellect at all, particularly in the face of human history, which serves up a nauseating and practically endless litany of examples of tyrants running roughshod over peaceable people, taking what they want and killing those their fancy and whim may capriciously dictate.

Why is this acceptable?  Ask yourself why is it that people do not strike down the tyrants as they rise? Why is it that in the very few cases where they do, the victors almost universally become the new tyrants?  It has happened even in the United States, with its apparently ever growing police-state aspirations.

When one steps back from the current circumstances and widens their gaze across a far broader expanse of human existence, it becomes ever more difficult to hold an opinion that the race is destined for nothing better than sheer and unvarnished doom.

What, then, is the solution?  Is there one? I am not sure, but if even one exists I suspect that it revolves around much smaller population centers where like-minded, freedom loving individuals come together in proper preparation for liberty such that the prospect for third parties of interfering with them becomes highly unattractive.  At this point I can think of no better ways to address this plague of one man presuming to master another and under which the human race has suffered at ever increasing rates for thousands of years.

I pity the children.

2 comments:

  1. What about GOOOH.COM ?
    Third party does not work a New Party does not work!

    www.statesman.com/news/.../liberty-hill-man-recruits-congressional- ...
    Today, Cox's group will hold several meetings in most of the congressional districts ... Many say their party is not as bad as the alternative," Cox wrote in a letter on his website. ... with the nation's party system, Cox said GOOOH is seeking candidates to run in both major political parties, rather than trying to run in a new party. ..."It's time we take control of our government," Cox says in a video on the group's website as orchestral music plays in the background.

    Cox's organization — or "revolution," as he sometimes calls it — is a way of selecting and funding candidates, he said.

    Cox said he and his wife have been paying the bills for GOOOH since 2007, but now the group is self-funded. Cox said the group has collected about $400,000 from members since 2007.

    According to the Federal Election Commission, GOOOH had about $88,000 on hand as of Sept. 30.

    Although GOOOH is not affiliated with any other group, it does have the backing of at least one tea party group, the Tax Day Tea Party.

    Torin Archbold, an activist and member of Austin Tea Party Patriots, said he hadn't heard about GOOOH until a reporter asked about it Friday.

    But after taking time to review GOOOH.com, Archbold said he appreciated the group's drive to elect qualified people outside of the party system.

    "I can totally respect that," he said. "I think the movement has a lot of merit to it."

    For a list of today's meeting places, visit http://goooh.com/TXLocations.pdf.

    teaton@statesman.com; 445-3631

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  2. GOOOH looks like a pretty good fundamental idea, but I take some issue with the specific construction of the commitment letter. I think it needs work, to be frank. The questionnaire is also something of problematic. In many cases it presents what I view as two evils, in which case I would not vote for either. Without a sufficient understanding of the principles underlying the design of these sorts of "tests" it is impossible to really know what the basic intentions are - what is the questionnaire attempting to reveal in the most specific terms. I would also point out that many of the choices are posed with insufficient context at best. While I realize they are attempting to box potential candidates in, an admirable pursuit, the method seems a bit ham-fisted to me.

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