by banned » Tue Oct 11, 2005 6:44 pm
...but as I said last night, MY point anyway is that we can't change the past, we can only go from here. I don't think you can fight a completely negative battle--you can't keep saying we're against the PNAC, against the NWO, etc. You have to give people something to be FOR, something to fight FOR. And while I certainly agree that the US as the historic entity it was did NOT live up to the ideals of liberty and equality there is no reason not to NOW take those up as standards and fight to make them a reality for all. The totalitarian pricks believe that the people, which means mostly everyone, cannot govern themselves, so they must be governed. What I believe is that people CAN govern themselves, if they are willing to take the responsibility. If sufficient numbers of them are not, if they always want to have someone else take care of them, then the totalitarians will win. 35 years ago, at the age of 18, I wrote "The obverse side of benevolent paternalism is tyranny." I didn't have a lot of worldly experience under my belt--but I had overprotective parents. And I had learned that if I took 50 bucks from them to pay a parking ticket, I would never hear the end of it, and they would tell me what to do with my car and my money. In short, they'd run my life. If I went to work and earned the 50 bucks and paid the ticket and never told them about it, I'd run my life. It wasn't worth it to me to take 'gifts' from them because they always had strings. Hell, they had steel cables.<br><br>We can pick it up with both hands and actually get for ourselves what we were promised--the opportunity for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in a country where we rule (demo = the people, kratia = rule) and the gubmint consists of modestly compensated hired hands who serve at our discretion and if they don't do their jobs well or overstep their job description, they're down at Cheesyburger asking "Want curly fries with that?" <br><br>In the end it doesn't really matter whether the US leads this movement because it isn't just an American matter. The Basques, the Zulus, the Kazakhs, the Inuit--they all are entitled to govern themselves as they see fit. As Theoden said to Saruman in "Lord of the Rings", no one has the right to rule over me and mine for their own profit and to my disadvantage. Government is a social contract resting on consent of the governed, not a divine right.<br><br>Again, Eric, if you can think of a better POSITIVE cause to rally under, please tell me what it is. The US is a big ship and it isn't going to turn on a dime, but it's never going to turn if all we do is recount the failures of the past. That's failing in the present. Not that we shouldn't KNOW the past but what we've done up until this moment does not doom us to do it from this moment.<br><br>Maybe I'm wrong about this. Maybe the determinists/fatalists are right. I don't see any way to find out, however, without acting as if they are wrong.<br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>