I can feel it. There are quotes from famous philosophers all over my school. The media seems to be turning for and against the President in a strange hurricane-like pattern. Admirably, some members are calling Obama on every mistake he's making. Unfortunately, others are scrambling to sweep that under the rug.
I don't know who hung these flyers up and why, but they bring together great points. Two of my favorite quotes of all time are hanging up:
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin
"We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." - Martin Luther King Jr.
These flyers went up fast, almost as if in a response to the MassPIRG flyers that went up a few days ago, urging a vote for MassPIRG to stay on our bills. I voted against MassPIRG. While I do believe that they have the right to exist in our schools, I do not believe that a fee should be attached to our bills to be waived. Money should be raised in a separate fashion.
In case you are unaware, MassPIRG is a lobbyist group that has student participation. Everyone is entitled to do so in some fashion. However, they should only be able to get money from those they've officially asked, instead of saying "We'll take $10, added to your annual bill, UNLESS you say otherwise." This is the scenario I see. For these reasons I voted against MassPIRG. By doing this, they undermine their opposition, which is to assume that opposition does not exist.
If this is the reason these flyers go up, I commend the hanger/hangers.
If they're upset with this country and the direction we travel into, I praise them as well. I hope those quotes never come down (although I'm sure they will, and the reason will be because they weren't stamped; but we all know the truth), they remind us of where we come from, and what we stand for. This nation is not and never will be about bullying others to agree, nor will we be bullied by any false-deity who steps into power. It happened in Germany, it happened in Italy, it happened in Russia and Cuba, and it probably is happening here.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist, I do not believe these people in power to be intentionally attempting to take us down like some evil comic book villain, I believe they are trying to do what they see right for the country. At the same time, I believe that Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and Castro all believed the same. They were looking to make their country better in their own eyes. In all cases, however, their ideas undermined the basic principles of liberty. Therefore, their principles are inherently incorrect steps to ruling a country like ours. Our country, founded on the principles of liberty, cannot exist in a state of true freedom with such strangleholds on our rights as we see today. Governments outlawing smoking by not only absurd taxation, but banning as well, Governments absurdly taxing firearms and banning as well. All for the vision of safety. A false sense of safety, which can only be created by the elimination of freedoms, will leave the individual powerless. Powerless to protect himself. He then must rely on a greater power to protect him, that previously established greater power is his State. We as a nation have the right to submit ourselves to a god of some form (I personally choose to submit myself to no one but myself). However that person, whether or not he chooses to exercise this freedom, now must submit himself to a greater power, a god, known only as the State. And as some religious people know, a god doesn't always answer. Neither does the State. This is an idea I've been thinking about, introduced to me by a book I read in high school called "The Children's Story". Most students blew this off, didn't put much thought into it, however this outlines the realities of how we take our freedoms for granted, both in the book, and ironically, in real life. I recommend reading it, it's a great short story.
Why must we rely on a state? Why cannot we rely on our gods, or ourselves, allow ourselves to be our own keepers, or allow our gods to will ourselves to take care of each other? We as a people are responsible for ourselves. When we put a trust in someone else, in the State, for example, they won't always answer, or maybe they won't answer right away. The average police response time is 8-10 minutes, varying depending on location (obviously). 8 minutes can be too long. That's 8 minutes of you praying that an officer will turn the corner. Your life is in someone else's hands, someone who isn't always the most reliable (see any blunder the country has made in the past 50 years). Those 8 minutes may feel like a lifetime, and in some cases, could be the rest of your life.
Someone once asked me, "Why don't you trust the police when it comes to your safety?"
I responded, "Why do you put so much trust into a government, that you are willing to leave your own life in their hands, ready for them to drop it at any moment? Do you really trust a giant bureaucracy, where you are just a statistic, with your life? I trust myself, and anyone who is close enough to me to allow me to give them my trust."
He had nothing more to say. I don't know or care whether or not he dismissed me as a loony. I don't trust anyone or anything but my own judgment to take care of me, and when I'm on my deathbed and lose my sense of judgment, I then trust my family and closest friends to do what's right for me. To do what I would've done in that situation. Never would I trust anyone else, especially not the government, who cannot even balance a checkbook, let alone play Superman and World Police all at once.
I leave you with this: War to create or spread freedom is a fallacy. This is no war at all, this is a slaughter of innocence and a slaughter of liberty. The only war worth fighting is a war fought by the oppressed to remove the oppressors, in order to provide for liberty. This is a true state of freedom. The rest is just oppression.
If you are a (or the) person responsible for hanging these quotes, and if you do believe we have lost our way, I commend you. Thank you for speaking out.
-- Beneath this Mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, and ideas are bulletproof.
LibertyCatalyst
PS. If you are responsible, contact me, I want to establish a campus liberty organization around here and attempt to ruffle some feathers.
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