go, watch the short video from Claire Wolfe, Mike Vanderboegh, and Matt Bracken, and please, consider how important it is to educate the next generation.
With regard to all who serve the Light,
Historian
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/lies-of-omission-freedom-media#/
go, watch the short video from Claire Wolfe, Mike Vanderboegh, and Matt Bracken, and please, consider how important it is to educate the next generation. With regard to all who serve the Light, Historian I was commenting this morning over at Nicki's blog, The Liberty Zone, (link here ) on yesterday's post on the upcoming presidential election. (link here). New Class Traitor (hereinafter NCT) said, "Pity the nation that’s reduced to such a Hobson’s choice."
my response was ' “Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent.” -Ayn Rand, from “The Romantic Manifesto.” Each individual who contributed to the present situation, whether they are RINOs, avowed Socialists (aka ‘Democrats’), or simply those who closed their eyes and failed to speak out against the monstrous ongoing betrayals of principle, EARNED their guilt, and will deserve the outcome of their betrayal and failure. Every welfare moocher whose sustenance depends on taxes extorted from the productive, every faceless bureaucrat whose daily work has added to the burden now crushing the people of these presently united States, every person voting for more ‘legal’ abrogation of the rights of Man, is GUILTY. “When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, ‘Who is destroying the world?’ You are.” Ayn Rand, “Atlas Shrugged” Feel no pity for the guilty among us. Reality will enforce a harsh judgement against them, which they will have earned in full measure. Pity is not what is needed. What is needed is truth, and justice, and a return to the principles that made America’s founding possible.' I wanted to expand on that a bit, so here goes. Insofar as it is a reaction to random or unearned misfortune, pity, a regret for the suffering of innocent others, is an emotional reaction to injustice, and no sin. But that is not what was being discussed in the post above. Guilt is not collective; one man cannot be held accountable for the sins of a group with which he is associated, except as he specifically agrees with and supports the evil actions of that group. If NCT was expressing regret for the innocents among us, and the suffering that they are experiencing as a result of the evil actions of others, then I agree with his sentiment. The guilty, however, have earned their punishment, and do not deserve pity. Do not confuse or conflate the guilty and the innocent, and above all, do not grant the guilty your pity. Part of the reason that America became great is that the vast majority of the people who made up our population valued Truth, and Justice and the rights of Man as our highest ideals, in spite of the fact that the reality often fell short. If we are to once again become a great nation, we must each become great people, holding great ideas, and insist that those ideals be observed and obeyed. It can be hard for well-meaning people to watch the guilty suffer for their evil acts, but remember- “Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent.” Beware the sin of granting the guilty your unearned pity or undeserved mercy. With regard to all who serve the Light, Historian So I was wandering the Internet, monitoring the ongoing collapse of Western Civilization, and a link from Sipsey Street (link HERE) led me to this gem of an article on the destruction of American Education, HERE The author's point is spot on; the present state of American education is not a horrible mistake, it is EXACTLY what those who crafted it intended.
So I wrote an email to some friends of mine who have teenage children, in which I said the following: "If I could, as a counter to the above description of the present status of education in these presently united States, I would give every teenager in these presently united States the following summer assignment: Read Kipling's "the Gods of the Copybook Headings" (TGOTCH) (see attached below) and write a report on the poem that addresses the following: First, define a "Copybook Heading," and explain what a copybook was. Stanza by stanza, explain the meaning of the poem in your own words. When did Kipling publish the poem, and where was he living at that time? What major personal event(s) had occurred in Kipling's life within the two years prior to his having published TGOTCH? Name two major events that had occurred affecting the British Empire within the two years prior to his having published TGOTCH? What was the socio-political milieu of that time and place? (What was happening in the society around him to prompt Kipling to write TGOTCH?) The Gods of the Copybook Headings by Rudyard Kipling AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race, I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place. Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all. We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn: But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind, So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind. We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace, Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place, But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome. With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch, They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch; They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings; So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things. When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace. They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease. But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know." On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life (Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife) Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death." In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all, By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul; But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die." Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more. As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man There are only four things certain since Social Progress began. That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire, And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire; And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins, As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn, The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!" Each of you, O gentle reader, is invited to pass this summer assignment along, and undertake it yourself, should you see the need, and choose to do so. If even one in a hundred of the teens in these presently united States read and pondered Kipling's 1919 masterwork, the future might be just a bit brighter. With regard to all who serve the Light, Historian In my younger days, I spent a fair amount of spare time, back when I had such, playing computer games. My two favourites were Civilization, and Railroad Tycoon. While Railroad Tycoon taught valuable lessons in economics, Civilization, in particular, hammered home the idea that civilization had basic concepts that were prerequisites for further advances, and this was as true for types of government as it was for technological advances. While the biases of the designers, especially in later versions of Civilization, (combined with increasing demands on my time) eventually annoyed me to the point that I stopped playing the game, Civilization really brought home to me how much of what we enjoy today is founded upon intellectual and cultural developments decades, centuries or even millenia old. Technology and politics interact in many ways and are symbiotic.
Just as a sample, consider how you would conduct a secret ballot while ensuring that only those who are eligible actually voted. What is required? Here is my starter list (Note that there are peripheral technologies I am not listing):
So, with the above example in mind, what developments are required to support individual liberty? While many of the prerequisites are intellectual, some are also technological. Well, first off, there has to be recognition of the existence of individuals. Ayn Rand examined this in detail in her novella "Anthem." There needs to be a concept of what liberty is, and what individual rights are. Property rights especially, the right to personal property is the foundation of civilization, in many respects. There is a technological piece to this, too; the individual needs to have weapons that allow him to defend those rights. The Welsh longbow was one of the seminal technologies that promoted the growth of liberty in England, for the longbow, relatively inexpensive, could defeat medieval armor and skewer an abusive aristocrat from a long distance. The modern equivalent is the magazine fed self-loading rifle, which allows a trained individual to deliver a lethal blow up to 500 yards or more away. But without the will to fight, possessing the means is useless. The first battle in the American revolution was won by Thomas Paine, when he published "Common Sense" in January of 1776. Until that point, despite the battles in Massachusetts in 1775, most colonists considered themselves Englishmen, who were being abused by a corrupt Parliament. Paine's pamphlet, which printed over 100,000 copies in the first year (some estimates go as high as 500,000 copies over 25 editions) in a total population of about 2.4 million, of whom about 400-500 thousand were slaves. Before "Common Sense," the vast majority of Americans were aggrieved English colonials, interested mainly in getting the English government to treat them as Englishmen ought to be treated. Afterwards, about a third of the colonial population favored separation from England. Without Thomas Paine helping to win the war of ideas, the subsequent military victories would not have happened. The population would not have supported these actions. QED, universal literacy and developing the ability to acquire knowledge outside of one's immediate environment is, if not essential to Liberty, very highly desireable. Communication technologies are critical as well, to develop and promote individual rights and freedoms, and to engage in intellectual discourse and debate nationwide. It is no accident that the invention of the printing press toward the tail end of the Renaissance preceded the Enlightenment. Increased literacy resulting from the Renaissance created a demand for improved bookmaking technology. Once printing made books affordable, then literacy increased further, leading among other things, to postal services. Having common people able to read, understand complex issues and correspond with others outside of their city or village fertilized the development of the Enlightenment, which in turn fostered more and better means to write and record ideas, witness the computer I am using this moment to write this post. So what else is essential to liberty? I would argue that a culture that promotes individual self-reliance and hardihood is critical. Entitlement culture breeds slaves, not free men. American independence did not spring newborn from the soil of the New World; American independence was the child of English freedom, which in turn had its roots in Viking tradition, among other origins. Planted in the New World, the rights of Englishmen, under the rule of a far-distant king, flowered into something new and different, something altogether American. While Tom Paine's "Common Sense" sparked the Revolution, that spark would in turn not have burst into flame if it had not landed in tinder created by 200 years of English law and tradition transported to a remote land that required colonial people to develop their own traditions of self-rule. Part of creating such a culture is allowing people the freedom to fail; probably the most devastating blow struck by the forces of tyranny against American culture is the creation of the Entitlement culture, and placing the yoke of supporting it over the shoulders of the productive minority. Reality can teach valuable lessons, if it is allowed to do so; the longer these lessons are avoided, the more painful they will be when they can no longer be dodged. But that is another article for another day; this has gone on longer than I originally contemplated, but I wanted to record my thoughts and see what comments you, O gentle reader, might come up with in response. To be continued- With regard to all who seek the Light. Historian June 6th 1944. 72 years ago today, the united States, Canada, Australia, England and assorted contingents from other Allied nations invaded German-occupied France. It was the most colossal amphibious invasion in human history, and was the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany. 160,000 ground troops transported and supported by 5,000 naval vessels of all sorts landed in Normandy, France.
Much has been written about D-Day, and much deserves to be. Various films have been made about it; I am told by those familiar with infantry combat that the most realistic of these is "Saving Private Ryan;" one grizzled combat veteran once told me that the only thing missing from that movie was the smell, a mixture of blood, smokeless powder, high explosives, piss and shit. I was too young to remember D-Day, but I do remember the veterans who assembled every year at the small New England drop zone I used to jump at. They were 82nd and 101st Airborne, some of the 24,000 men who had been dropped, by parachute and glider, into the German rear areas to disrupt the inevitable German counter-attack. They knew that this was likely to get them killed, but this was their job, and they went ahead and did it despite a colossally FUBARed drop which scattered them all over Normandy. They were fighting men, and once on the ground they moved to the sound of the guns and fought, cutting roads, telephone and telegraph lines, and German throats. I never had the temerity to ask them what it was like, to be dropped behind enemy lines, in pitch darkness with flak guns and radar equipped night fighters shooting at you before the light turned green. I vaguely sensed that I had no right to ask that question, to ask these men, all in their late 50s and 60s when I saw them, to relive the terrors of their D-Day experience, although I was desperately curious about where they had been and what they had done and seen. Even then, I knew something of history, and my curiosity almost exceeded my good manners. Almost, but not quite. I was honored to pack their chutes for them, though, forgoing the 5 bucks ( the equivalent of 20 today) I usually got for packing a main. It was little enough, but it was a tiny token of respect for men who had, perhaps terrified to the point of pissing or shitting their pants, gone ahead and done what had to be done, who had honored their oath and their comrades, and who came out, once a year, to remember those who would remain forever young in their memories, those who did not come back. They remembered too those comrades who had survived the drop but who could now no longer join them, and they gathered to reassert, for just a few minutes, the spirit that animated the All-Americans and Screaming Eagles in 1944. They are all likely gone now, and few people remember them or what they were, and did. But I have never forgotten them, or forgotten that these men, who were younger when they jumped into the chaos that was Normandy in 1944 than I was at the time, had put on their gear and done what needed to be done despite all of their fear, their confusion, their unit cohesion having been totally broken down, and the chaos that is combat. They fought, many of them beside total strangers, many of them to the death, for various reasons, for freedom, to honor their oaths, to end the totalitarian police state that was Nazi Germany, for their buddies. But the key is that when it was needed, and no matter how screwed up things became, they fought. They fought and they killed people, people who needed killing, not because those who they killed were necessarily bad individuals, but because they served an evil cause. So, too, did the men who landed on Utah, Sword, Omaha, Gold and Juno beaches; they killed men that needed killing, because those who they killed served an evil cause, because those who they killed, many of them decent, religious men, (some of whom knew that they served evil) would not move out of the way and let them pass. So when I think about D-Day, I think about men, lonely and isolated in the darkness, some literally scared shitless, who dug deep inside themselves and found the courage to seek out well-trained, armed men who needed to be killed. And sought them out. And killed them. It is not those who died that I think of most, although they deserve our respect, but rather those infantry soldiers and others who killed and lived to kill again, killers that made the difference and won the battle at Normandy, and many other places afterwards. It is solely because of those men and many others like them that the horror of collectivist totalitarianism was defeated, for a time. Now we face it again and you, gentle reader, who may also be scared, alone, and not sure who or where your buddies are, must decide what you will do with those who serve an evil cause. Will you honor the memory of those who fought, on D-Day and many other days in many other places, for liberty and against evil? So, today, and other days, consider the lessons of D-Day. And hope that those presently exercising authority do so as well. To all who serve the Light, Historian Holding the ideals of Liberty without standing to defend them, using violence if needs be, is the death of freedom.
The use of violence without adherence to the ideals of Liberty is tyrannical, and likewise the death of freedom. If you, gentle reader, aspire to the defence of Liberty, then you must know and understand the ideals of Liberty, possess the skills and means to defend those ideals, and own the willingness to employ such, violently, if needs be. For further reflection, please see my post from February of 2013, link HERE. With regard to all who serve the Light, Historian |
HistorianA grouchy middle aged engineer and amateur historian, blessed with a love of freedom and a plethora of opinions. Permission to excerpt or repost is granted, provided that the excerpt or repost includes a link to the original post, with attribution.
Email to Historian at MG58MG (at symbol) Yahoo (dot) com Liberty Hollow's suggested reading list:
Philosophy- "Philosophy, who needs it?" "Anthem" "Looking out for #1" Politics- "The True Believer" "Common Sense" "the Rights of Man" "The Ominous Parallels" Finance and Economics- "Economics in one lesson" "Whatever happened to Penny Candy?" "the Wealth of Nations" "The Clipper Ship Strategy" Liberty oriented Fiction- "Time Enough for Love" "Freehold" "Starship Troopers" "Atlas Shrugged" "Anthem" "A Planet for Texans" "The Ecologic Envoy" "Adiamante" The Constitution- "the Framing of the Constitution of the United States" "Hologram of Liberty" Banking- "The Creature from Jekyll Island" Archives
November 2017
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