Topic: Liberty
Why I Write or: How I Learned to Start Worrying and Write My Column I have traditionally been a bad student. It was a rare occasion that I would write a paper in high school, but now, 3 months from my separation from the Air Force I find myself writing almost every night. Our nation is approaching a crossroads and I hope to help sway our direction towards Liberty Lane.by John L. Jones
(libertarian)
Saturday, December 6, 2008
As I approach the day I separate from the Air Force I find myself looking back on the last four years. During this time I've gone from New England hippie (albeit a conservative one) to rank-and-file airman; I've gone from failing Spanish in high to school to being an Air Force Pashto linguist; my philosophy has evolved from neo-conservative to libertarian; I used to watch cable news to learn about the wars overseas, I now read Top Secret intelligence reports; I went from voting for Bush in '04 to voting Nader in '08. As you can see, the last 4 years have slightly broadened my perspectives.
Over the past year it has become abundantly clear that the government I serve now is not the one I thought I signed up for. Before I enlisted, the ideas that our government would torture people, spy on law-abiding citizens, and was running an empire were blasphemous. Now I see that our federal government is a titanic beast that has broken free of the chains that were meant to bind it: the Constitution of the United States and its Bill of Rights. The last century is rife with examples of our government grabbing up more and more power, under Democratic and Republican regimes alike. Some people like to say that this fact is evidence that the Constitution is outdated and hasn't worked. To those people I say: It is not the Constitution that has failed, but rather the citizens that were meant to uphold it (us).
Our generation has grown up knowing nothing but an apparently free society. "It's a free country ain't it?", we would say as children. For this reason liberty is something we have taken for granted. Our founders saw things quite differently. It was not liberty that was eternal, it was tyranny. It is no coincidence that more governments, throughout history, have been tyrannical than have been free and open, and It is no coincidence that free societies have, time and time again, given way to tyrannical regimes. We need to wake up and tie down the beast, whose tendrils are wrapped around the globe; We need to bring our troops home, after all they do work for the Department of Defense. We must abolish the Federal Reserve, a private bank that is destroying the value of our currency and savings, and funding our illegal wars. America became the great country she is by setting a certain example for the rest of the world, not by policing it. There are three things we must demand from our elected representatives: constitutional government, sound money, and civil liberties. These three demands would ensure peace, freedom, and equal opportunity for all Americans, and promote the same worldwide.
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Posted By: Jake, the champion of the constitution
Date: 2008-12-06 15:24:37
nice summary, since I happen to agree with it wholeheartedly! I would myself replace "constitutional govt" with "constitutional republic form of govt" but thats just picky wordsmithing. a lot of people seem to get confused by the "democracy" moniker.... and "writing every night" is something we might share in common :)
my two bits of advice are to not worry about what you cannot control, but that sure as hell does NOT mean to not act out your convictions and principles and continue to search for the truth. No need to get stressed out, dude :)
Posted By: Jahfre Fire Eater
Date: 2008-12-10 18:02:56
Hi John,
Nice article. It made me think about how writing has become more common in the past few years. I think the trend is wonderful and will be a subtle but undeniable force for the enhancement of mankind's ability to surmount drastic social/economic/climate changes in the future.
Only ten short years ago I was lamenting the fact that so few people were reading. I knew a lot of people who had not touched a book since high school. Then came the proliferation of the internet and lifestyles changed on a grand scale. For the first time in history a great swath of society prioritized time for reading because to surf the net, you have to read.
As we all know, on the internet, one thing leads to another and another and before bedtime we've traversed a spectrum of information available to be read online. This trend is still evolving. The rise of the blog was an amazing thing to watch. The free market of ideas exploded from a few street-side sign wavers and big money promoters into a grass roots wild fire.
Now, just about everyone I know writes...and reads. They read my articles, I read theirs, we read others, we read referenced articles and books...but then something magical happens...we ACT based on what we've read or written. We find ways to put that new information or perspective toward productive use in securing our liberty.
Finally, the marketplace of ideas is beginning to show signs of tossing off the multi-millennium-old restrictions imposed by religions, governments, despots, languages and geography. The word "change" occupies a great place in political folklore but we are living in times that foster change. Our leaders and the political systems they rely on will not recognize the true nature of this change soon enough for them to stop it. We have the tools to purge oppressive political paradigms from the future. Goodbye Socialism, Goodbye faith-based governments, everywhere. This will take a few generations but the amazing speed with which this phenomena is self-organizing and self-perpetuating I believe we'll see proof positive in 20 years.
Funny thing but I think the leaders of Muslim countries know this is coming. It isn't going to be a great holy war of biblical proportions. No. The free marketplace of ideas is going to disintegrate them. Poof. Peace.
Bad thinking, oppressive social paradigms and unsound economic theories should be consumed in the heat of intellectual friction in the free marketplace of ideas. We've only just lit the first match. That's why I write...that, and the fact that I can't seem to keep from writing if I wanted to.
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