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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Loss of freedom |
| 2005-07-05 |
| I have been thinking along these lines, but this chap put it better than I could. There is, without a doubt, a sense throughout the width and breadth of this country that whatever argument may be made about freedom being on the march internationally, it certainly apprears to be on the retreat domestically. Worse yet, our slide into bureaucrarchy (yes, i did just make that up) and statism seems to be clicking along without any real resistance. So far, the most vigorous response on behalf of our other branches of government have been the proposition of laws to correct problems which would be nonexistent had our government merely restrained itself to the abilities we have granted it under the constitution. We never gave anyone the right to seize our property for the purpose of enriching themselves or their political cronies. The government was specifically charged with protecting us from that very occurance, and was in fact given authority we withold from private citizens to carry out it's responsibilities to us. Private citizens are not allowed to form armed groups and seize land. The government can and will do that in the form of the police. But I digress. The end result is still that we are losing our freedoms with alarming regularity at an accelerating pace. The constitution has, in many ways, become an often cited but largely ignored relic by those with power and influence. Do you really think that Judge Souter is going to lose his home? I assure you, he will not. Some sort of alchemy will be used to render the law inapplicable to him, and we once again are stuck with a law "meant for me and not for thee." How often do we see freedom of speach cited as a defense for treasonous and seditious actions? How often is the freedom of religion used to restrict the expression of another? When we are forbidden from openly displaying religious symbols, how is that not enforcing a display of atheism? How can the right to a speedy trial be thought applicable to foreign enemies, but the right to keep and bear arms be denied by the same advocates to law-abiding citizens? So, here we sit on the fourth of July in what feels like a hollow holiday. It is easy to think that the great experiment has failed. Perhaps it, in fact, has. Perhaps mankind really is supposed to be a slave, and that is how we are meant to live. Surely, if we cannot hold onto liberty once attained, then we it is merely the occasional backwards impulse only that obliges men to sometimes take up arms and struggle for freedom, only to have their children once again surrender it without a fight. Yes, maybe we are natural slaves, and it is high time for us to give up this charade of being made for freedom. But I shall not. If indeed, the natural state of mankind is that of a slave to the State, then color me a perverse man full of lascivious feelings for a highly unnatural state wherein the State is slave to the man. If my position is untenable, then let me be destroyed with it, in it's intoxicating embrace, for I shall not tolerate any other condition. I shall fight. I fight only with words and ideas now, for that is what is most needed now. As long as I can sow the seed of doubt in a man's mind that the State is naturally his better, his superior, and his master, there is hope. Should ever there be a time for action, then the mind must already be prepared. Despite the many vows to "...give up my gun when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers" the real power, the real weapon is the mind. It is our minds which are our most potent weapons, and it is our willingness to resist Statism which is far more feared than our guns. It is the unwillingness to accept the superiority of rule by bureaucracy which is most alarming to the bureaucrats. So, while words and ideas are most needed, I shall use them. I will not be disarmed, I will not be enslaved, and I wil not fall silent. If this means my ultimate destruction, then so fucking be it. I want no part in a world where freedom cannot exist. So, while the darkness encroaches, I say carry on. Should this gathering darkness drown us, then so be it. There are worse fates than to be relegated to the history books as a lost follower of a debunked myth where every man is his own master, and there is no other. |
| Posted by:mmurray821 |