Out of the Archives: Independence Day in the abyss
Published on July 4th, 2020, and viewed thousands of times amid that civilizational crisis:
Everything that we have lived through over past four months, everything that we’ve allowed our government to do to us, is stark, blinding proof that there is nothing undergirding our liberty in this nation. The principles of liberty are taught nowhere, rarely passed on, and rarely discussed in any meaningful sense. The ease with which the public, all of us, swallowed the COVID propaganda, even after two decades of ridiculous War on Terror lies, should make us feel ashamed. There is nothing at all shielding our freedom from total annihilation. Look at how easily it was taken, all in one bite, by various petty tyrants, bureaucrats, and medical officials. We all jumped in line, put on our masks, and behaved as if we had been preparing for this moment all our lives.
In many ways, we have. Tyranny is the default state of the human race. It takes a real education to understand the principles that provide the foundation for civilization. But those principles, no longer taught, are no longer there. Nothing has been passed on. Our history has been reduced to simple, easily digestible, caricatures. Mindlessness has in fact been encouraged. Through public schooling, our primitive, tribal nature has been cultivated, ready to spring forth and unleash a prehistoric destruction upon the world.
We, as a species, are running on fumes. To be perfectly honest, liberty is dead in this nation. It’s been dead for awhile, but it took a phony pandemic for us to see the extent of the rot. What is there to do? Nothing more right now than to acknowledge our failure. Then to walk out into the field, put hand to plow, and actually go to work, knowing full well that it will be a less-than-thankless task. There will be no reward for us. And we do not deserve one. We will work to rebuild the tradition of liberty so that our children and grandchildren won’t have to. So they won’t have to face the nightmare of totalitarianism that is rapidly rising before our eyes. As we cower.
The Libertarian Party has been so spineless that it might as well not exist. The hundreds of millions of dollars poured into various “libertarian” foundations and think tanks have been a complete waste. Worse than that, the money has done more to discredit the philosophy of liberty rather than advance it. It’s funded unprincipled, yet clever, boneheads without the character necessary to advance this philosophy in the face of adversity.
The most effective communicators are the ones with the inner passion to defend this philosophy. They put their necks on the line, engage in debates, and refuse to give ground in the face of the resurgence of the primitive total state. And for the most part their paycheck isn’t tied up with their liberty activism. Money has destroyed the liberty movement. In a sense, it too is running on fumes. We can’t look to PhD’s, or white collar dilettantes to save us. There is no hero, no Messiah coming up the road.
Endless books on the topic of liberty are printed and sold every year. What good has it done? A flood of articles too are published each year. Again, what good?
It is shameful to think of what has been allowed to occur. 40 million people thrown out of work by decree. Trillions in debt saddled onto our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. It is painful to think on. We are kicking more than just debt down the road. Do we want our kids and grandkids fighting the ideological war for liberty, the one that we should be fighting right now? To have young children during this historic epoch where the social world degenerates rapidly into a primitive totalitarianism, multiplies the shame. We’re allowing a prison to be built that will pull them in, along with their future, their happiness, their very lives. The evil is allowed to bloom because we stand by and do nothing, hoping someone else will. No one is coming to save us. But if you’re breathing, you have a voice. You can add it to others. The rise of the State is not inevitable, even though it wishes you to believe as such.
We have nothing to celebrate today. It should be a day of mourning, a day of shame. But also a day of hope. Liberty can return, but it will take an army of thinkers, writers, activists, planners, and everyday renegades to bring it back. This will not be easy. We have been taken deep into Hell, and there is no easy way out.
“Everyone carries a part of society on his shoulders; no one is relieved of his share of responsibility by others. And no one can find a safe way for himself if society is sweeping towards destruction. Therefore everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. No one can stand aside with unconcern: the interests of everyone hang on the result. Whether he chooses or not, every man is drawn into the great historical struggle, the decisive battle into which our epoch has plunged us.“
-Ludwig Von Mises
