"Posterity, you will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in heaven that ever I took half the pains to preserve it." -John Adams


Welcome to Patriot's Lament. We strive here to educate ourselves on Liberty. We will not worry ourselves so much with the daily antics of American politics, and drown ourselves in the murky waters of the political right or left.
Instead, we will look to the Intellectuals and Champions of Liberty, and draw on their wisdom of what it is to be a truly free people. We will learn from where our Providential Liberties are derived, and put the proper perspective of a Free Individual and the State.
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Sunday, August 12, 2012

Dear Freedom Movement

Over the last three years or so I have become increasingly disappointed with the freedom movement as a whole. Basically it's a bunch of people who whine about how enslaved they are while refusing to do anything that is actually within their own personal control about it. In the meantime most of them are completely dismissive of suggestions and strategies that would give them much greater personal decision making authority over their own lives and the lives of their loved ones (isn't this what freedom is?).

They bitch about taxes in America, about inflation, about property and zoning regulation, about EPA restrictions on cars and heating devices, about TSA gate rape at the airport ... ALL VALID COMPLAINTS. Here is what they do about it: --->                <---

In general, they don't withdraw their energy, wealth, or consent from the system they complain about non-stop. They don't diversify assets overseas. They don't consider moving (or even traveling just to see if moving is something worth considering). They don't reduce their dependence on the state institutions around them. They don't even save fiat dollars in a totally unstable banking system or pay down debt. They dig the hole deeper as they complain about how deep the hole is. I'm also going to throw out my opinion that moving out into the woods when you don't actively want to live in the woods is NOT withdrawing consent. It's making yourself irrelevant while simultaneously destroying your ability to make enough money to actually reduce your dependence on the institutions around you (ones which are not looking so stable these days). "I'll kill a moose and cut firewood" is not only a naive statement for most people, it also makes you a sitting duck for all those "Feds" who are going to round you up and take you to a camp. If you're really THAT scared of the system around you, entrenching yourself deeply and permanently within that system's claimed area of control is unbelievably stupid.

Well guess what all you slaker "patriots"? YOUR freedom is YOUR responsibility. Stop kicking the can and making excuses. No one is listening to you because no one wants to be like you. You don't exemplify a free individual who is realizing their maximum potential in a world that is overflowing with opportunities. You exemplify a lunatic isolated survivalist hovering over MREs in your basement with a completely useless gun in your hand, afraid of a boogey man that either doesn't exist, doesn't care, or one you could simply walk away from. You spend your time throwing rocks and sticks at Mr. Boogeyman just so he does something to you to "prove your point." This not only makes you look stupid, it makes the message of liberty look very undesirable to "normal people" and sets back the progress of literally the entire human race.

It's time to practice what you preach. It's time to stop talking about living free and to start ACTUALLY LIVING FREE.

This video was posted on the Lew Rockwell blog today. I thought it was excellent and it pushed me over the edge in finally writing this post.



I can already anticipate the comments, "We are not the most free people in history." Depends on your metric. Your ability to travel anywhere in the world is probably better now than ever before. Your ability to communicate with anyone for education, commerce, or personal reasons, also better than ever before. The number of hours worked to amount of leisure time is, even with all the inflation, still close to being the best it has ever been historically...if you don't dig a giant debt hole for yourself (which is YOUR choice, not "the system" forcing you).

Finally, two brilliant articles posted on International Man.

First, "Gold Can't Solve Everything"
As the author notes, "...many people reading this should remember that, often, individual procrastination is the enemy, not the State."

Second, "Last Exit Coming Up"
"In actual fact, few prepare an exit then delay the date. What is delayed in most cases is the preparation - researching destinations, choosing a country and creating an exit plan."

This is you Freedom Movement. Your MREs are not going to save you. They are not actually a reasonable preparation at all. Time to put up or shut up.

Just to be clear, I am not saying "do this" or "do that." I am saying that as adults, we need to solve our own problems to the maximum extent possible. If we don't do this first we are in no position to help anyone else.. It turns out that once we stop whining, a lot of problems can be solved with minimal effort.

2 comments:

  1. Where is the line between griping to gripe and griping to educate/share information?
    I gripe a lot, but not for the sake of griping, I hope.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Griping while doing something vs griping wile doing nothing.

    ReplyDelete