Re: Br'er Tim and the Bug Hole

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Robert Hettinga wrote:
>Meaning of course, when Patrick Henry... --- Oops, Thomas Paine, sorry,
>transposed my patriots there -- first stood up to be counted, he did it with
>a pseudonym.

Think how difficult it must have been to publish a pseudonymous writing back
in their day.  And compare how easy it is now.  With a basic Internet
connection and some software I can post this message under the name Nerthus,
and anyone who took the time to save my public key in their keyring can
verify with almost complete certainty that "Nerthus" wrote this.

But as we progress on some fronts, we digress on others.  The tools which
can empower the individual are readily available, but the individual is
quickly becoming an automaton, a shell of the man he used to be.

"I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, 
or give me death." -- Patrick Henry

What is life without liberty?  Abject slavery.  Any sane man would rather
die than be a slave.  But what is this slavery?

It is the state in which we live our lives.  More often than not, our
oppressors are our own selves: our fears, our imaginings, our hatred.

Everyone does this: the "right-wing-gun-nut" who detests the actions of
the BATF, the Christian zealot who detests the pro-abortion crusaders/
Zoroastrians/creationists/NWO types, the IRS agent who detests the "tax
protestors", the treehugger who detests the corporate greed/profit
machine that is destroying the planet... I could go on but I think you
get my point.

Injustice happens everyday.  The next time you find yourself at Burger
King stuffing yourself with greasy slop, think of the millions of people
in Africa who are slowly starving to death.  Injustice, yes, but what
are you going to do about it?  Anything?

The fact is you can't do anything, even if you wanted to.  And because
of that we all become reactionary, angered, resentful, violent.  We
perpetuate the disintegration of mankind, of ourselves.

No people in their right mind should bow down and lick the boots of their
oppressors.  But neither should they kill them either.  The intelligent
action is to show the oppressors the errors in their ways.  Every human 
being, even our "enemies" have a mind that is not completely devoid of
reason.  The sooner we show them a better way of living, the sooner we can 
move toward it.  Then the possibility for an end to the injustices that
surround us becomes more available.

I leave you with a quote to ponder:

"My country is the world, and my religion is to do good."

Any idea who the pinko-liberal, NWO cocksucker was that said this?

It was Thomas Paine in his book "Rights of Man".

Nerthus

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On Thu, Nov 13, 1997 at 05:59:51AM -0000, Secret Squirrel wrote:
[...]
> 
> "I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, 
> or give me death." -- Patrick Henry
> 
> What is life without liberty?  Abject slavery.  Any sane man would rather
> die than be a slave.

It makes nice rhetoric, but this is simply not true, you know.  Most 
people correctly evaluate that you have no chance for freedom at all 
if you commit suicide, whereas a slave *does* have a chance.

But of course we know from game theory that being completely
predictable can be a weakness.  So having a certain percentage of the
population who will behave irrationally is probably necessary for the
health of a society.  But if too many people act irrationally, 
society will disintegrate.  (By "irrational" here I am referring to 
behaviour clearly contrary to your own survival.)

-- 
Kent Crispin				"No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com			the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint:   B1 8B 72 ED 55 21 5E 44  61 F4 58 0F 72 10 65 55
http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html

>Injustice happens everyday.  The next time you find yourself at Burger
>King stuffing yourself with greasy slop, think of the millions of people
>in Africa who are slowly starving to death.  Injustice, yes, but what
>are you going to do about it?  Anything?
>
>The fact is you can't do anything, even if you wanted to.  And because
>of that we all become reactionary, angered, resentful, violent.  We
>perpetuate the disintegration of mankind, of ourselves.
>
>No people in their right mind should bow down and lick the boots of their
>oppressors.  But neither should they kill them either.  The intelligent
>action is to show the oppressors the errors in their ways.  Every human 
>being, even our "enemies" have a mind that is not completely devoid of
>reason.  The sooner we show them a better way of living, the sooner we can 
>move toward it.  Then the possibility for an end to the injustices that
>surround us becomes more available.

Many injustices follow from form and scale of government.  I won't be the first to point out that as the number of people, geography and ethnic diversity increase governance becomes ever more difficult and as is the balancing of individual liberty over the "overiding interests of the society."  The solution is clear, the method of its emergence is not.  Smaller geo-political units.  I doubt that our pressing social and political problems can be adequately delt with until the scale of governance is changed, but this requires those in the center to give up much and historically this has rarely if ever happened without bloodshed.

--Steve