Bad History + Status Quo = Bad Future

 If history demonstrates anything, it’s that politics has always been our deadliest abstraction. Your neighbor by himself can, at most, steal a few things or even kill a few people before somebody with a gun stops him. But call that same person a “politician” or a “king,” and he or she can, with our collective allegiance and in the name of the greater good, take everything, kill millions, oppress, enslave and wage war. Not only do these people often get away with it, but those not caught or killed in the midst of their evil are typically called heroes.

And history shows that politicians invoke such terror by an invariably repetitious, astoundingly simple modus operandi: they break laws, both written and moral – and they do it precisely to the degree and duration that we let them get away with it.

I’ll skip citing examples since I’m sure you can think of plenty from Nero to Stalin to George W Bush. George Orwell stated the obvious when he said that political language “is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.” What’s hard to understand is why we keep falling for it.

The question at hand, now very pressing, is what do we do with our lawbreaking politicians? The answer is, typically, that we do nothing, and reap horrific consequences.

I’m not happy with that answer, yet I’ve had little luck trying to get people motivated to even ASK politicians for Rule of Law instead of Rule of Tyrants.

Remember, words like “holocaust” do not apply to even your worst neighbors. But such catastrophes are always on the To Do list of a politician, and apparently never foreseen by citizens.

…Or is there more hope than I’d imagined?

I never expected Ron Paul would connect to so many people with his “out of touch” message of liberty. I never expected a “throwback” or “fringe” candidate could raise so much money and cause so much excitement among so many. Of course I’m maddened that he’s treated so unfairly by both the media and his own party. But I had expected his candidacy to fizzle and disappear long ago under the combination of corrupt power and citizen stupor.

Are people waking up? Is now the time to reignite the torch of liberty?

I don’t know. But I don’t want to squander the opportunity, if it exists.

It’s getting awfully late in the 2008 election cycle, but since we currently have nobody at all even running for the constitutional office of Indiana Governor, there’s nothing for me to do but run for that office myself, right? 

I’m not fooling myself or anyone else. My chances don’t depend upon me, they depend upon voters. I’ve already thrown myself against that so-far intransigent brick wall many times, yet I’ll never again stoop to “pragmatic” pandering through “mainstream” electioneering (e.g., running as a Republican). That has never worked for any good purpose, and has always been a tool of evil.

So I’ll not sacrifice my job or anyone else’s job/sanity/health. I’ll delegate an awful lot (even public appearances, speaking, etc.) to others. If we can’t find enough people to spread that load, then we’ll have no shot on Election Day anyway, right?

We’ll play no games but we’ll have fun and do good work on behalf of liberty and justice. Who, among you who have an obvious interest in governed government, will join me?

Please send me your contact info, and we’ll get started. We can’t start too soon.  

“Find out just what the people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” – Frederick Douglass 

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” -Benjamin Franklin 

“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.” -Edward Abbey

“Give me Liberty, or give me my Money Back!” –me

 

Waste your vote, you say?

For at least as long as I’ve been reading his work, Chuck Baldwin has written strong, clear-headed and straight-to-the-root attacks on what needs to be attacked. Politics, of course. Politics needs never-ending attack. “Society,” certainly, as we have become a degraded lot. I’m always cheered to see this upright man of God attack idolatrous Christians and blindly loyal Republicans; as they are the ones above all who have no excuses for their behavior, and need a Nathan more than King David ever did.

This column is quite good also, but I’m disappointed he’s so late with its message. We really needed his influential voice on this ten years ago at the very least.

Even so, better late than never. It is indeed “…time to say it: the two major parties hold a death grip on the American people.” It is a death grip. And we must choose whether to break it, or die.

The “wasted vote” argument has always been a pathetic evasion of logic and duty. I’ve always been embarrassed for the afflicted voter who’d tell me “Of course I should vote for you if I want things to get better, but I don’t want to waste my vote!”

But now that argument is beyond lame and dumb. 

Now, if you intend to vote for any major party candidate instead of an alternative, you’ve got some explaining to do.

I’ll not offer up another litany of modern woes. I’ve done that enough. The cold fact of it is that if you’ve been voting for any major party, you’ve been voting for all of our troubles, magnified, many times over, with every election cycle. The politicians you’ve hired are not the problem; you are.

Deal with it. 

Of course, if you’re not the problem, your neighbor is. And we all have to deal with that.

I say it’s time to get busy. Shake things up. Change the world while we still have one. 

I mean right now.  Get busy.

If you’re in Indianapolis, check out Sean Shepard. If you’re anywhere in Indiana, check out me.  Wherever you are in the world, look for those who oppose the entrenched powers, or check your gut, roll up your sleeves, and do it yourself.

The choice is yours, and there are no more excuses.