Topic: Politics
Which Kind of Liberty Do You Defend? Convincing the masses that their liberty is an ideological debate ensures they remain futile in their behavior.by Jahfre Fire Eater
(libertarian)
Thursday, January 21, 2010
The typical left-right stereotypes and debates are insidious distractions, lies. You might ask, "Distraction from what?" I've heard this question answered in many ways, such as: The ultimate battle is between liberty and tyranny, or between Christian and Muslim doctrine, or between Federalist and anti-Federalist ideology, or between some ism and some other ism, etc. I view these as convenient slogans offered by the enemies of liberty to entice even the most jaded into joining the us-versus-them mentality.
Tyranny is a means, a tactic, while liberty in this context is a vague, un-actionable ideal. Until one understands the difference they remain vulnerable to the lure of comfortable herd behavior despite its obvious futility. The Tyranny-versus-Liberty perspective is the same us-versus-them, good-versus-bad, Christian-versus-Heathen template that the left-right paradigm defines incessantly in our culture. This is a faith-based control template.
For many people, their faith justifies the use of force to impose the tenets of their faith on others of different faith. The faith-based control template demands those using it dismiss their opponent's faith and the logic by which they rationalize that faith. This ensures that much of the interchange between those on the side of "good" and those on the side of "bad" is pointless, one-way jibbing just as is taught in school by convincing one small town that kids in the neighboring town are the enemy. Any objective observer can readily see that both sides believe theirs to be the side of "good." That fundamental misconception is at the heart of the whole contrived right-left stereotype.
A war against tyranny is no more focused or appropriate than a war against terror, or poverty. Wars against tactics are rallying cries for . . . well, nothing specific. It gets some folks all worked up but doesn't inform their behavior...it's just a good way to create a useless temporary mob.
Rather, the struggle is eternal and it is between two kinds of individuals: those who struggle to attain "freedom from" things they don't like (Limit Choices) and those who struggle to defend their "freedom to" exercise a diversity of individual choices (Unlimited Choices). Liberty demands tolerance and is only available through its eternal defense by individuals who act in constructive endeavors.
The notion of an "ultimate battle" is another bit of manipulation intended to convince the current generation that "freedom from" the struggle lies in this battle's victory. In both religion and politics the "ultimate climax" must be constantly perpetuated as an eventuality to keep new generations willing to suffer. The truth, that the struggle is eternal, doesn't wield sufficient influence over large numbers of voters or faithful followers of any chosen religion.
This right-left paradigm deliberately creates a "fog-of-war" intended to mask two strategies shared by both the left and the right.
The political battle is for the centrist voters. The only thing that matters is control of the margins in the central density of voters, this is what fuels the traditional left-right stereotypes; control of those central margins. Those at the fringes in any direction can be counted on to do exactly what is expected of them without any manipulation from the herd masters.
The divide and conquer mechanism eliminates the need for the political power-masters to care a bit what happens at the outer fringes. Even the far-right and the far-left political factions focus their energy on the center of the herd, not on their own kind. Those on the fringes are self-marginalized; the divide and conquer strategy ensures they remain so as wave after wave of new members are adopted after leaving the indoctrination system our youth experience as public schooling. The LP is living proof of this in the real-world. Convincing the masses that their liberty is an ideological debate ensures they remain futile in their behavior.
These two primary strategies are effective at causing masses of people to be unable to grasp that Liberty is the consequence of Action, not talk, not debate, not chanting or mooing in unison with a comfortable herd. Liberty is expressed by performing constructive actions in its defense. Relationships between action and consequence, cause and effect or goal and means, these are the things those who pursue "freedom from" hope to obfuscate. When these actions are adopted by supposed defenders of liberty I consider them to be working to aid the forces of oppression by carrying out their ingrained doctrines.
Keeping these relationships blurry or eliminating them all together makes easier to entice masses of people to expend their energy doing absolutely useless things...like screaming oneself hoarse at a high school pep rally or a Tea Party. Our society ingrains these useless behaviors into citizens starting when they are very young. By the time they can vote most of them actually think that screaming themselves hoarse in a large crowd is an effective, constructive behavior capable of ensuring they meet their intended goals. What a load of hooey; yet most Americans behave in this manner...reinforced at every opportunity by professional sports, the media and politicians.
The vast majority of folks I've met from the so-called liberty movement, whatever that is, are seekers of "freedom from" the eternal defense of liberty. They are not willing to follow their dogma to the logical conclusion that only overwhelming force can guarantee "freedom from." The only liberty worth defending is the one defined by "Freedom to". Very few individuals know the difference even after nearly continuous exposure to Dr. Ron Paul's archetypical behavior in the constructive promotion and defense of "freedom to."
Finally, the companion to this faith-based control template is the evangelical cry for (everyone else) to WAKE UP! OK, let's assume that last night while we were sleeping everyone who is going to "wake up", woke up. There is no one left in the world to wake up today...anyone who is not awake at dawn is a waste of your breath to talk to. Now what? If you can just get right to the answer of "Now what?" you'll find you can skip the whole "waking up" part. I think it is better to assume everyone is awake and they are wondering "What now?" Mostly what I've seen over the past 3 years is a lot of people reaching the "awake" state then not doing anything constructive once they wake up. I don't know if I'm awake but I do know the difference between futility and constructive actions even in my sleep.
As far as I know, the defense of liberty isn't dependent on waiting for someone else to do anything...including waking up.
-Jahfre Fire Eater
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The views expressed in this
article are those of Jahfre Fire Eater only and do not represent
the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Jahfre Fire Eater is
solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an
employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
Outstanding article, Mr. Fire Eater! You demonstrate the much-needed leadership ability that the recently-awakened tea-partiers are desperately in need of.
Holding a sign and shouting is not political activism, it's just a way to vent dissatisfaction with being ruled by scoundrels.
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