undertheice
Well-Known Member
i have been accused in various threads of using complex and flowery language to express very simplistic and obvious points and that accusation is not without its merits. i do, after all, enjoy a well turned phrase and revel in creating artfully constructed posts. everything i post here is checked and double checked. every sentence echos in my head before i strike a single key. yes, i'm prone to a bit of purple prose. why not enjoy whatever you do? the matter of the simplistic nature of my posts is something else altogether. as much as we may try to complicate our lives and our political ideologies, it all remains very simple. technology and socialization may give our lives the appearance of complexity, but life is still just a matter of survival first and the struggle to better ourselves second. our political ideologies are an even simpler matter than that. one either believes that the intrusion of the violent force of the state in order to impel social change is justified beyond the defense of our most basic rights or one doesn't. there is no grey area here, no middle ground.
i know y'all will say something silly like our rights must be defined by the state or that there is sometimes a need for government to step in and specifically defend some people, but this still places you firmly on one side of the debate or the other. if the state defines our rights, it may limit those we all see as self-evident. if we allow the state to defend these "government defined rights", we allow it to abridge the rights of some to the benefit of others. to say that we will allow our government to interfere only so far and no further is the naivete born of the lie of democracy. this lie, that it is the people who are in control of their government, has allowed the creation of our over-sized, inefficient and self-perpetuating bureaucracy. it is this bureaucracy, far beyond the control of the ballot box, that threatens all those self-evident rights it was sworn to preserve and protect.
the most difficult aspect of liberty is the necessity of allowing others their own liberty. if we wish to be allowed the freedom to speak as we please, we must be willing to allow that same freedom for all others. if we wish to be allowed the ownership of ourselves and that which we possess, we must see that it is the right of every man to own himself and all that he possesses, to act as he pleases and do with his property whatever he wishes. insisting that success support waste and failure runs contrary to that concept and it inhibits the growth of the individual that is required to sustain a healthy society. we can't demand that some be forced to hand over a portion of themselves or their possessions without allowing that same force to be used against ourselves. that grey area, where the rights of some may be abridged for the greater good, simply does not exist. we are either all subject to that force or none of us are. we can surrender ourselves to that force, embracing some form of socialism and either the mob rule of runaway democracy or the elitist rule of tyrants, or we can attempt to keep some semblance of an individualist philosophy.
man is not such a complex animal as we would like to believe. there is really very little difference between the antics at the monkey house and your neighborhood wal-mart on a saturday afternoon. the actions of the lowing herd are mirrored in our occasional rush to the ballot box, deciding which bull will lead us over the cliff. the senate floor is merely our version of the crash of tusk and horn, courage and brute strength replaced by ego and rhetoric. man's greatest asset is that he is capable of seeing all this and noting its futility, though we seldom do. man's advantage over the beasts is that our future doesn't end at the horizon. we have the capacity to see beyond today and tomorrow, to see where our chosen paths may lead us. why do we insist on choosing those dead ends that only benefit us today, avoiding the sorts of pains that can gain us greater comforts and freedoms in the future? are we merely cowards or are we such great fools.
i know y'all will say something silly like our rights must be defined by the state or that there is sometimes a need for government to step in and specifically defend some people, but this still places you firmly on one side of the debate or the other. if the state defines our rights, it may limit those we all see as self-evident. if we allow the state to defend these "government defined rights", we allow it to abridge the rights of some to the benefit of others. to say that we will allow our government to interfere only so far and no further is the naivete born of the lie of democracy. this lie, that it is the people who are in control of their government, has allowed the creation of our over-sized, inefficient and self-perpetuating bureaucracy. it is this bureaucracy, far beyond the control of the ballot box, that threatens all those self-evident rights it was sworn to preserve and protect.
the most difficult aspect of liberty is the necessity of allowing others their own liberty. if we wish to be allowed the freedom to speak as we please, we must be willing to allow that same freedom for all others. if we wish to be allowed the ownership of ourselves and that which we possess, we must see that it is the right of every man to own himself and all that he possesses, to act as he pleases and do with his property whatever he wishes. insisting that success support waste and failure runs contrary to that concept and it inhibits the growth of the individual that is required to sustain a healthy society. we can't demand that some be forced to hand over a portion of themselves or their possessions without allowing that same force to be used against ourselves. that grey area, where the rights of some may be abridged for the greater good, simply does not exist. we are either all subject to that force or none of us are. we can surrender ourselves to that force, embracing some form of socialism and either the mob rule of runaway democracy or the elitist rule of tyrants, or we can attempt to keep some semblance of an individualist philosophy.
man is not such a complex animal as we would like to believe. there is really very little difference between the antics at the monkey house and your neighborhood wal-mart on a saturday afternoon. the actions of the lowing herd are mirrored in our occasional rush to the ballot box, deciding which bull will lead us over the cliff. the senate floor is merely our version of the crash of tusk and horn, courage and brute strength replaced by ego and rhetoric. man's greatest asset is that he is capable of seeing all this and noting its futility, though we seldom do. man's advantage over the beasts is that our future doesn't end at the horizon. we have the capacity to see beyond today and tomorrow, to see where our chosen paths may lead us. why do we insist on choosing those dead ends that only benefit us today, avoiding the sorts of pains that can gain us greater comforts and freedoms in the future? are we merely cowards or are we such great fools.
iAs for I, I feel much the same way as you. This was an excellent write-up.