Today I received a phone call. It was from a call center on behalf of the National Rifle Association. As they gave me their spill about national concealed carry, this quote entered my mind:
They talked about freedom, as they begged me for money so they could petition and lobby congress to enact legislation that would allow the government issued permission slip to be accepted in all the states. They petition for the "rights" to protect ourselves in the way they prescribe. The word "freedom" kept coming through the script the caller was reading. It sounded like nails on a chalkboard to me. The NRA does not want freedom. If they ever even got close to freedom, they would all be unemployed.
Millions of people think that "freedom" is what the state says it is, that It is what the bill of rights says it is. The very concept of freedom, as is generally understood, is fundamentally flawed.
If you have to ask, you are not free. If you have to jump through hoops, you are not free. You don't have the liberty to protect yourself and your interests from the biggest threats to you that exist. Your very existence is at the pleasure of the state, step too far outside your invisible fencing, and you are toast.
Yet, every single day, the invisible fence that segregates YOU from everything and everyone else is crossed, violated and may as well not exist. Try to defend it the same way the state defends theirs and you are looking at incarceration or death. Sure, you are valued as individual, the same way an individual brick is valued as an individual - only by what it can contribute to the entire building.
I have no wish to exert my will upon others and I sincerely hope that we can throw off the notion that we need to serve abstractions. It makes no sense to destroy the individual in favor of some collective "greater good" that is actually just some psychopaths' personal interest.
Isn't the "greater good" actually what is best for each individual? No sacrifice needed, no permission slip required?
I truly believe that men someday will enjoy liberty that we never even realized we were missing.