Category: tyranny

They know not

Listen to this post:

They’re having a partisan primary election here in Wisconsin today. There’s lots of conversation and the usual nasty political ads on TV.

I try to avoid the partisan wrangling as much as I can. The two major parties have mostly abandoned the issues that interest me — an end to warfare and freedom from government intervention in our lives — so I almost feel as if I have no dog in this fight anyway.

I do have to admit I’m a little alarmed at the Democratic Party’s shift towards embracing democratic socialism. I sense more socialism and less democracy in the kinds of things they’re saying.

The growth of the movement baffled me until I remembered that the Tiananmen Square Massacre was in June 1989, the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, and the Soviet Union collapsed in late 1991, so people now in their twenties and thirties have never witnessed what a powerful socialist or communist nation looks like. 

I was born more than 11 years after Pearl Harbor, so that terrible incident and the war that followed are history to me. I need to remember that to the people who have been born in the last 25 years, the events of 9/11 are as in the same category as World War II is to me.

And so when they advocate for socialism, they have no personal knowledge of the horror they are wishing upon themselves and the rest of us. Since freedom from government intervention in our lives is one of my two big issues, I have no use for this brand of Democrat. 

Meanwhile, I did not vote for him, but the president was starting to grow on me when he boasted about ending eight or nine wars in the first year of his term. However, then the Washington war mongers got to him. So, as I said, I have no real dog in this fight because no one is taking seriously the issues that I take seriously. But the lesser of two evils is the side that does not embrace candidates who would remake America into a socialist utopia.

However, as I wrote a year and a half ago for Wisconsin’s spring election, which covers public posts that are supposed to be nonpartisan, my bottom line is the knowledge of two things.

1. My peace of mind is not dependent on anything the government does, nor is my freedom a gift from the government.

2. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, kindness, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

I stay sane by reminding myself of those two facts as often as I can.

Happy Independence Day

A postscript to my thoughts about H.L. Mencken yesterday, in which he accurately described contemporary politics: Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is still an ideal 108 years after he wrote that. The republic may be hanging on by a thread, but it’s still here.

I am not entirely enamored with the state of the republic, but the loyal opposition has spent the last 10 years presenting naysaying or a Soviet-style state (like the one we lived from 2021 to 2024) rather than legitimate alternatives, and so here we are.

But this is July 4, and so I come to celebrate. The Declaration Of Independence is a sacred document, containing as profound a statement as humans have ever declared — “that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain, unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” We hold these truths to be self-evident, that is to say obvious and undisputed, and yet from the beginning every word has been disputed, every phrase has been challenged.

Who is this Creator? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord of hosts, the King of glory.

That Creator has endowed us with “certain” rights, that is to say “clearly defined”; “unalienable,” that is to say, to take a phrase from another sacred document, “shall not be abridged.”

Gosh, is it really 25 years ago that I sent reporters onto the streets of Green Bay to reproduce an experiment — show people the Bill of Rights, describe it as a petition, and see if people were willing to sign it? “I don’t know if I could support this,” one law officer said in response to some of the limits on law officers. Others expressed skepticism about limits on free speech, the ownership of arms, the right to an attorney, and just about every other tenet.

I think all pretenders to the throne or other public office ought to be pressed regarding how serious they are about defending the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Judging from their performance, I dare say nearly all of them would fail.

The words are a little more complicated than “live and let live,” but that’s the essence. Don’t tread on your neighbors, lest there be consequences. And that phrase “all men” is meant literally: “All” means all, and of course the word “men” also includes all women in this context.

It is literally a revolutionary concept, and it has been constantly challenged for a quarter of a millennium, battered but never beaten. May the beacon shine ever brightly against the darkness.

Same as the old boss after all

“How can you write about Neil Sedaka and being silly when there’s a war going on?” I heard the voice from a little corner of my consciousness, but the death of Neil Sedaka was on my mind Saturday, so I wrote about him for Sunday, and Mary and I were silly on Sunday, and I preferred to write about that for Monday.

I have little to add regarding the latest war against Iran anyway. The great battle in this world is not left versus right, but the state versus the individual. The left favors one version of an all-powerful state, and the right favors another version, but neither side is particularly interested in protecting individual rights.

And war is the state’s favorite tool. The left is criticizing the right-handed president’s war actions, but it had no problem when a left-handed president took similar actions. This president has said a lot of pretty things about ending wars, but in the end it’s another case of “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

As a result I have little to say about the war against Iran. War is a function of the state, and I have no interest in the state except to find ways to reduce its size and power. Peace, on the other hand, takes concerted efforts by individuals, one individual at a time.

And so I offer, once again, my Declaration of Peace, from this individual to each individual I meet.

A Declaration of Peace

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to step back and ask, “What in the world are we doing?” and consider a different approach, it behooves us to explain what in the world we are doing, and why.

These truths ought to be self-evident — that all humans are created equal, endowed by our Creator with rights that are certain and unalienable, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — but then governments are created to tinker with those rights, to abridge those rights, and eventually to trample those rights.

Ostensibly governments are created to do those things that individuals cannot do, but there are many acts that individuals will not do and should not do, and they are no less heinous when committed in the name of government, and among these are theft, extortion, blackmail, and murder.

As a free and independent human, therefore, I declare that I am at peace with my fellow humans and that I will not initiate violence against them. This I pledge by my life, my fortune (such as it is) and my sacred honor, so help me God.