A quote from Che.
"It is not necessary to wait until all conditions for making revolution exist; the insurrection can create them."
-Che Found here.
...So can efforts to prevent or pre-empt said revolution.
For instance, the British attempt to confiscate colonists' weapons, and the Mexicans' attempts to disarm the folks in Gonzoles, Tx. (origin of the "Come and Take It" flag). Both were attempts to prevent bloodshed that sparked it.
Belay that. They were not attempts to prevent bloodshed. Governments do not shy away from bloodshed if that is the path to retain power.
They were attempts to prevent resistance to unchallenged power.
As Master Oogway says, sometimes one meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it.
To continue our visit with Che...
"...Of these three propositions (AP- I only quoted the second) the first two contradict the defeatist attitude of revolutionaries or pseudo-revolutionaries who remain inactive and take refuge in the pretext that against a professional army nothing can be done, who sit down to wait until in some mechanical way all necessary objective and subjective conditions are given without working to accelerate them."
Are you listening?
Those who have ears to hear, do so. Those who do not? Continue present heading and speed.
Resist.
What style of revolution, are we looking at; French, Anerican or Indian?
ReplyDeleteThe guillotine, the musket, or the sit-in?
Blood/revenge driven, defense of self & Liberty, or being the immobile wall & change you seek?
Che believed covert or die.
Life the first right the one all other spring from.
Che, another person the would of nuked the US if he could.
Yep...It's called being proactive now days. ;)
ReplyDeleteRead more on Che. His attempt to create revolution didn't end so well for him later.
ReplyDeleteEnough people must already be at a tipping point for the "hundredth monkey effect" to be seen in action.
SERF-
ReplyDeleteHe died because he failed to follow his own advice. The concerns you raise are found in the next paragraphs of the work I referenced...
"Naturally, it is not to be thought that all conditions for revolution are going to be created through the impulse given to them by guerrilla activity. It must always be kept in mind that there is a necessary minimum without which the establishment and consolidation of the first center is not practicable. People must see clearly the futility of maintaining the fight for social goals within the framework of civil debate. When the forces of oppression come to maintain themselves in power against established law, peace is considered already broken.
In these conditions popular discontent expresses itself in more active forms. An attitude of resistance finally crystallizes in an outbreak of fighting, provoked initially by the conduct of the authorities.
Where a government has come into power through some form of popular vote, fraudulent or not, and maintains at least an appearance of constitutional legality, the guerrilla outbreak cannot be promoted, since the possibilities of peaceful struggle have not yet been exhausted."
Che's impact on the revolutions he participated in were profound. Yes, he died. We all die.
For one man though, you cannot deny his efficacy.
Josh- Not the point. We're looking at tactics/strategy, not ideology.
AP
The tactics and strategies only matter in how they're implemented.
ReplyDeleteA lot loft goals have lead a lot of evil.
Execution and results matter.
You should never seperate the why from the how, or what's the point.
Hmmm...
Josh-
ReplyDeleteI disagree.
A bad person can have excellent tactics, and can be learned from.
Why was Che fighting?
Well, we in the US might have to look hard in the mirror for that answer.
Batista, anyone?
Most aren't willing to do that.
AP
Che turned out to be just as blood and ruthless as the guy they over thru.
ReplyDeleteResults matter.
This now goes back to an earler question I keep asking what makes you think what ourside will build want be as blood and ruthless as the government we got now?
The answer; it's character that determns what kind of out come. Will The American Revolution 2.0 be blood revenge filled mess or not. Tactics and strategy only get you so far. to achieving your goal. Remember, to me anyways, the ends never justify the means. Tactics and strategy are dictated the morals of those using them.
You could build an Empire using the tactics & stratagy of Genghis Khan. Tactic or strategy is only usful if your willing to use it.
Destroying something is easy. Taking something whole and build something better and stronger from it is harder.
Results matter and are the ultimate judge if a strategy and tactis where sound.
Josh K-
ReplyDeleteActually, Che suffered because of his dislike of the corruption that crept in after victory.
He was ruthless, no doubt, like all good warriors.
And, to answer your question... if people are involved, it will always be screwed up. There are no guarantees besides that.
AP
AP -
ReplyDeleteI'm still reading my latest book about Sam Adams, but the thing I've come to understand is that the Revolution was both engineered and spontaneous. Mr. Adams reached the conclusion that independence as the only workable solution in 1765, but had to nurture the idea both at home and in the other colonies for a decade before it finally came to fruition. Many times have I come back to the fact that there was a lag of years between the Boston Massacre and the events of Lexington and Concord, just as there has been a lag of years between events like Ruby Ridge, Waco and our present circumstance. (I have not forgotten Jose Guerena.) I never quite understood why there was such a long pause between the first set of volleys and the second. Now I think I do. In the late 1760s an early part of the 1770s, the people pushed back effectively against the various taxes. They continued their policy of non-importation for months on end. When they got what they wanted, they got back to their daily lives, because they had not yet understood what was at stake. That understanding only came later through the work of the Committees of Correspondence. Sam Adams helped organize the first such committee. He created, to use Che's words, some of the "conditions for making revolution". Che talks about engaging in political indoctrination concurrent with armed struggle. The leaders of the Revolution, I think, managed to get in most of the indoctrination before the fighting started. The Committees of Correspondence and the Committees of Safety existed because Colonial leaders had already won enough in the hearts and minds department. They didn't win completely, or there would not have been Tories as well as Red-Coats to fight, but it was enough of a win to maintain and establish armed resistance.
"The Revolution was effected before the War commenced" - John Adams.
Gentlemen,
ReplyDeleteChe was a petty crook and a sociopath. But, he had a talent.
Freedom minded men are NOT going to wage, nor can they win, a popular insurrection. To live as free men will require dedication and perseverance. We will never be in the majority. We must take a lesson from the socialists/communists and shove Freedom down their throats, whether they want it or not. Thus, "Live Free or Die" becomes a commandment, not a motto.
Life, Liberty, and Property!
LB
Che didn't fail in Bolivia because he disregarded his own book. He failed because the foco theory of revolution that worked in Cuba couldn't work in Bolivia.
ReplyDeleteHis tactics in Bolivia were bad, that's true. Very bad OPSEC forcing him to kick off the G war before he was ready. Very bad relations with the very people he needed, the Bolivian communists. He and his soldiers learned some Quechua, which didn't help since he was in an Ayamara speaking area. The bearded Cuban G force didn't help since the locals were beardless and very distrustful of foreigners. The complete lack of METT-T and IPB before the campaign even started. He said in his book revolution is impossible if land reform had taken place. Which it had in 1956 if I remember right.
And last he divided his force without any link up plan. Without alternate and contingency link up plans. The two units spent months wandering around trying to find each other, until one was caught at a river crossing and destroyed. That unit violated every small unit tactical movement rule in the book. They crossed at a known crossing in a cluster f...k. They didn't send a security element first. And one of their "allies" had informed on them anyway.
The only time they raided a town there was no military objective, Che just needed to get some asthma medicine.
I have very little respect for Guevara as a soldier. He was, from reading his diary, a brave and resolute man. Beyond that and more importantly, he was a mass murderer and a very bad guerrilla leader. I think he believed in his own myth. Looking good isn't the same as being good. But by account he did say in Bolivia, when they killed him, "you are killing a man".
Josh, our very own revolution was a crap-shoot.
ReplyDeleteYou said: Life the first right the one all other spring from.
BS! No man has a right to life who enslave others. No man has a right to life when he uses a proxy, such as a government, at his behest, to enslave others.
You know why liberty is a eternal struggle Josh? Because there is no shortage of men who believe they have a right to life while enslaving you. And as long as there are a majority of people who believe as you do, there will be no shortage of men who believe that they have the right to life to enslave, either personally, or through a proxy.
Evil has no right to life. And it matters not how it is eliminated. Guillotine or musket.
So what is the moral issue?
Is it that if we have a revolution, the out come may be worse than our current condition?
Well, let me throw this at you. If we do not have a revolution to deprive the life of those who believe they have the right to life to enslave you... well, remember where we were? Here we are. Imagine where we will be.
We can do nothing, and evil will prevail.
We can try to do something and one of 2 things will happen. Evil will be overcome, or evil will prevail.
If a man comes to your home to rape your wife, and you do nothing, your wife will be raped. If a man comes to your home to rape your wife and you fight to eliminate the man who wants to rape your wife, there are two outcomes... you will prevail and eliminate the evil that is going to rape your wife and it matters not how you do it, or evil will prevail despite what method you use to defeat the rape and your wife will be raped anyways.
Which one is the better man? The man who did nothing. Or the man who did something, by any means necessary, regardless if he prevailed or not?
We can't guarantee the outcome of a revolution whether for good, or for evil. But we can guarantee this, do nothing and evil will prevail anyhow.
For evil to prevail, there must be a lack of enough good men to prevent it.
Sadly, that is where we are today. But that doesn't mean that good men should sit on their arse and let it prevail anyways without any resistance. Many a good man died before the revolution officially kicked off... and again, there were no guarantee that it would end for good or worse.
I'll also guarantee you this. As things progressively get worse in this country, those who believe they have the right to life to enslave you are not going give one wit about your moral pontification about your - moral right way - to prevent them from enslaving you. They, whether they be active participants, or passive participants through proxy, will use any means necessary to prevail. Any, and all means.
Life is sometimes a crap-shoot. Even our Founding Fathers knew that. It was for them to do, and leave the outcome to God.
Evil prevails because good men do nothing. And evil may very prevail anyhow when good men do - do something.
Anyhow... I'm not going to squabble over what method I use to prevent bad men from coming into my house whether it was a moral method or not. As sometimes the end DOES justify the means.
Causa -
ReplyDeleteI said first not only.
It's Life, Liberty and then the Pursuit of Happiness.
With out a deep respect for the first you will get the French Revolution, the ends justifies the means and all that left crap.
It's going to take just one Timothy McVeigh type moron to turn the population against us.
This is why I don't like this do what ever it takes rhetoric.
At the time to be happy it was though you had to lead a good and moral life.
ReplyDeleteAt the time property could include the right to another mans life(Slavery).
Just some FYI.
Hmmm....
"Actually, Che suffered because of his dislike of the corruption that crept in after victory." - AP
ReplyDeleteHis own corruption? He had almost endless power with in the Castro regime. He became drunk on the power he had over his previeved enemies. So, if he actualy belived in the loft goals of his stated Revolution, he did have the moral conviction to see it thruogh.
He just wanted what he want and was willing to do and kill anyone to get what he wanted.
Josh K-
ReplyDeleteChe had foibles, but you are wrong about him.
Dig deeper.
Deeper.
Or not.
AP
If you say so, AP.
ReplyDelete;-)
There is an assumption in your sugestion that because I didn't come to the same conclusion, that it must be I just didn't dig deep emough to find the true heart of the revolutionary.
People can claim to be alot of things, but even as you have suggested yourself, actions speak louder than words.
;-)
LongBow up untill the early 20th Century free men where in the majority. Why can we not unraval what has been done?
ReplyDeleteNo let us just burn the quilt of America and start a new, what?
That is lazy thinking, violent revolution rarely gets those who partake in it what they want, and they usualy end up worse than those they replaced.
There is a big deference between the American Revolution and the French/Cubain style Revolution. Anyone who has studied George Washington understands what leanghs he went to to ensure that our revolution didn't turn into a revenge driven blood mess.
The American Revolution has been one of the exceptions, and not the rule, for armed revolution.
Josh-
ReplyDeleteWhen I say "keep digging", I mean, for example, answer the question,
"Why would Che keep fighting when he was a hero and had it made in Cuba?"
He was an idealist who really did fight against what he saw as oppression.
When people see and experience oppression, they will eventually fight it. Che fought real issues from an idealist marxist perspective. When Cuba did not pan out, he moved on.
I'm not trying to imply that you haven't looked deep enough because we disagree; I am saying that his post-Cuban days are quite instructive, although popular propagandized history skips from Cuba to Bolivia.
Reading about him from a Marxist, rather than American source also helps one gain a more balanced view.
There's a lot more to Che than meets the eye. I learned this through the words of one of my friends who frequents this site.
And Josh, some parts of the Revolution were just as bad as anything the French dished out, we just don't hear much about that. I've posted on this before. Too much to explain here, but there are some excellent books out there that I've linked to.
BTW, have you studied Washington and the other "founders" from the British perspective? Very instructive, and honest.
AP
AP -
ReplyDeleteI try view what people actually did history as apposed to what they say they believe or what others think they believed. (Was there mistakes after ouf revolution, yes, but nothing like the French, Cuban and most other before or since.
Yes, he (Che) more than likely was an idealist, that couldn't stand for people not to just 'see' how perfect the ideals where. To me I feel that it became more about the 'revolution' than the people he was trying to free. He became brutal in his squashing any perceived opposition to his glorious revolution. >Why can't people just see the truth!!! I can not possibly be wrong, so all oposition must be crushed and delt with. Then people will then see the light that I was in the right. I will make see my point even if I have to kill you to do it.< This is fanatisism at it's core.
He went to Bolivia, I think to try to relive his glory days, He was not a popular indevidual their at the end in his beloved Cuba. He was feered and powerful, but not beloved. I think that eat him up inside.
AP, You believe in your personal code of coduct and beliefs, and that it is the most optimal way to live. Would you make that coded the law of the land and force all others to follow it?
But wouldn't everyone be happer living that way? Don't you have a moral right to ensure everyone lives in liberty?
Or, are you through your writting saying this is how I think we should live. Come join me!
Resist!
"You can't go around building
a better world for people.
Only people can build a better world for people.
Otherwise it's just a cage."
- Terry Pratchett, "Witches Abroad"
This is why I have said in the past, "The most insidious form of Tyranny is the one conducted in the name of Liberty."
A Tyrant says, "You will be free even if I have to kill you to make you that way. Because it's better to be dead than a slave, and if it good enough for me, then it good enough for you."
It is, "Give me liberty or death" not "Force all to liberty or death."
One is a personal choice. The other is making a choice for others.
Josh
Josh-
ReplyDeleteI am not going off what Che said. He left glory and honor in Cuba in frustration. He was beloved, more than most of us can hope for.
Josh, look at him with human eyes, not American eyes.
As to the other points-
You cannot secure liberty without "forcing" other to be free. Most colonists did not want to be ripped away from England.
Washington and the founders "forced" their wills on the other colonists.
Just think about it.
AP
One thing to remember is that Che was thrown out of Cuba by Castro. He was a commie hero in name but he knew that Castro had discarded him and viewed him as a threat. How did that circumstance play into Che's mindset and what havoc did it wreak in his ability to execute his endeavors. Che talked a good game and wrote a good narrative - however when left without the guidance in execution of his plans, by Castro - Che became his own worst enemy. In the same manner that a great technical writer can grasp and write intricate and detailed engineering procedures; sometimes the technical writer has no inkling of how to initiate and execute that procedure in a real world situation. Che was a charismatic sociopath and a leadership figure of some note; and a an accomplished scribbler on the subject of revolution. There are many indications that he was carried and used as a honed, personal killing tool by Castro - until such time as Castro didn't need him anymore; until such time as Che was a liability to be discarded. Who would have known Che's foibles and weakness better. And as history proves - once outside of the influence and supervision of Castro, Che died as a pathetic afterthought to revolution. Che was a usefull tool and such tools have their place, but to attribute to him some vast insight into guerrilla warfare is to ignore the fact that Castro lives today and Che does not. Castro was always the brain that utilized the blunt instrument that was Che and then disposed of that broken tool at need.
ReplyDeleteNo I'm looking at this from thepoint of view of what I percieved to have happened. The only groups that loved him was the American Left, the Castro regime and certain groups that thought he was a rovolutionary genius. Remember love and worship are two diferent things.
ReplyDeleteThey're quite a few Cuban mothers that would disagree with you.
http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y09/enero09/23_O_3.html
http://www.fortliberty.org/che-guevara-revolutionary-jerk.html
http://www.cubaarchive.org/downloads/CA08.pdf
Hmmm... You where correct my general understanding was lacking, but I haven't found anything yet to change my opinion of him.
"You cannot secure liberty without "forcing" other to be free. Most colonists did not want to be ripped away from England." - AP
ReplyDeleteI feel most colonist feared the uncertanty of this new concept of liberty. The uncertanty of freedom, the lack of percived security, can be scary.
And, some figured one person telling them how to live their lives was as good as another.
;-) 20-60-20
It is, "Give me liberty or death" not "Force all to liberty or death."
ReplyDeleteOne is a personal choice. The other is making a choice for others. - Josh
You have a very serious logic problem.
Communists, socialists, fascists and etc. could care less about your freedom and liberty. In fact, the better part of history tells us that tyrants, no matter what political stripe, has a very strong record of killing off those who want nothing more than freedom and liberty.
They are not shy of forcing on you, with violence, enslavement. The only way to prevent that, as Washington showed, is to meet violence, with violence. Even then, there was no guarantee of success. And yes indeed, the American revolution was in fact paved with blood.
There is no place for individual liberty from those who do not believe in individual liberty, but their liberty to enslave you. So why should I give them the liberty to enslave me?
You keep inferring as if liberty is all inclusive and equated with all political thinking.
Again, you said: It is, "Give me liberty or death" not "Force all to liberty or death."
And again, I want to remind you that every man on the American side of the battlefield forced all to liberty... and in many cases through death.
Anyhow, our government has studied Che. In fact, our government studied the Nazi machine and their methods in Operation Paper Clip. It has studied the KGB. It has studied the Stasi... Our very own military has studied every military campaign ever written about in centuries past or observable in the present ... then they took the lessons learned, separated the wheat from the chaff and incorporated in their SOP.
There isn't a SOG in America that hasn't studied guerrilla warfare, from propaganda to combatant, and applied lessons learned.
Facts... not feelings.
ReplyDeleteSo Josh-
ReplyDeleteQuick, easy question.
Is your problem that war is fought by ruthless people like Che...
That people like Che, who are "bad guys" (as were the founding fathers, every last one) sometimes win through ruthlessness...
Or something else?
I mean, I'm not following you very well here.
There are quite a few "liberated" Iraqi and Afghan mothers who would disagree with American charity and goodwill, as well.
See, people are judged after the fact in so many different ways. One man's psycho is another man's commander. One man's insurgent is another's freedom fighter hero.
On another note, you're mostly wrong about the colonists. Many were targeted for their loyalty to their legal .gov after it had been overthrown. Targeted for oppression and retribution, Che style. Many left everything they had because they did not want to be "forced" into "freedom".
We read cute history stories of tar and featherings. Do you know what that process can do to the human body? Yet you glorify our "sanitized", holy revolution, while demonizing others'.
All struggle involves ruthlessness.
All victories involve trampling what someone, somewhere sees as his "rights".
This is reality, it is ugly, but it is truth.
We cannot reason with coercive government force.
Governments, in the end, only speak one language: coercive force or the threat of it.
Hence MLK's utter failure as a activist until the Race Riots happened. Then *blam*! Civil rights.
You've heard of Ghandi.
Ghandi was offering the British a way out, a way to humanely leave India. Behind him stood a movement threatening a bloody expulsion.
Adamant protests and eloquent speakers only go so far against governments.
In the end, it is ruthless, blood soaked men like Washington, Che, Greene, Hitler, Lenin, and Mao who lead their governments into "changing". It is not MLK, but Watts riots that convince governments to act.
Here's the thing in modern America.
Tea parties aren't going to change a thing in America.
The escalations of Occupy are going to see results.
This is the message I tried unseccessfully to push, to an unreceptive audience more interested in laughing at Occupy's antics that acting.
Now, we will have our tea parties and our Glen Beck, and they will have their way.
Watch, see, and learn.
AP
I have rule: those that feel that they have the right or abilty to make life and death decisions for others are not the ones you want making those choices.
ReplyDeleteI never said those choices might not need to be made or should not be made.
I just find those that want to or find it easy to make those decisions suspect.
1.) So what action does your rule drive you to? So far I hear you saying to tolerate everything done to us, because change is uncertain and scary.
ReplyDelete2.) Your unwillingness to address points presented to you is revealing. Come out of your preconceptions. Come off the stage; come out and play. You're almost there, Josh.
Those willing to change things that are may be an unknown quality, but it is this very friction, tension, and uncertainty that drives history upon its course.
AP
It must be pointed out that Che is quickly becoming not-the-point here, isn't he?
ReplyDeleteI kinda want to move my last comment to here:
ReplyDeletehttp://arcticpatriot.blogspot.com/2012/01/god-bless-amerika-battlefield-usa.html
I'm seeing more and more bullies moving onto the security / Leo fields, but mostly it just people who want to do good and feel they have the right to make life and death decisions for others.
:-(
One more item, Josh- Consider who is driving change.
ReplyDeleteI posit that it is Team Freedom that is fighting in response to a revolutionary oppressor. I say to you that the enemies of liberty are revolutionary. We are reactionaries, combatting an insidious revolution. Those seeking the power of life and death, the ones you rightfully mistrust, are the bad people.
We the people already posses this power, it is ours by nature to safeguard or surrender.
AP
I thought I was advocating restrant and for measured responce.
ReplyDeleteI have a tendency to go to extremes and right people off. I tend to have misanthropic tendencey and a strong urge to just Jeremiah Johnson and let the world burn.
I'm an optimist that people keep proving wrong.
Mostly I'm not arguing with you, but with myself.
This might sound conceited, but have it in me to make Che look like a rank amature.
I don't trust myself; let alone anyone else to make life and death desitions for others.
Does that even make any sense?
P.S. I believe I have adressed all the points put forth; maybe not to your satisfaction...
ReplyDeleteI really need to read in more depth on our Revolution and about the run up to the War Between the Sates, but I do know a couple of things:
ReplyDelete1) The founding fathers, many of them, tried to keep things civil for as long as possible, in order to maintain the "Moral High Ground". This meant distancing themselves from random acts of vandalism and violence. Planned vandalism that made a British official resign was ok, but vandalism that grew out of resentment and short tempers could backfire, so it was discouraged and denounced, at least initially.
2) They did this not only to maintain their position relative to England, but also in order not to drive away the not-yet convinced. As late as 1776, Congressional delegates - "the cream of their colonies", to quote 1776 - were resisting the idea of independence. The War had already begun, but they still hoped for reconciliation.
3) Once the militias started to organize, some of them raided British magazines and gun batteries. This was in late 1774, before the attempt to capture Adams and Hancock at Lexington or the Patriot cache of arms and powder at Concord.
4) Once the shooting started, there were loyalist Colonials who fought with the British. I don't know if they were organized into Militias in the same way that the Committees of Safety were, but I expect so. The British commanders on the ground tried to build organized forces out of these loyalists. I think this happened mostly in the Middle and Southern Colonies, where there had been less British repression, were more holdouts for reconciliation, and more loyalists.
5) Once the Patriots won, many loyalists did flee to Canada.
6) The Battle of Trenton was, by the standards of the day, not militarily fair. Attacking during the other guy's Christmas festivities? By Napoleonic standards, that's guerrilla warfare, even terrorism.
7) The same kind of Loyalist vs Secessionist pattern, I think, also emerged in Texas after Secession. I don't know about the other States. I imagine that in the Deep South, Loyalists were thin on the ground while in the border states, there was a much greater tendency to brother-vs-brother schisms. As before, there were outbreaks of violence, and even attempts to foment rebellion, like Bleeding Kansas and John Brown's Harper's Ferry raid. At least in Texas, Union supporters or fence-riders had to find a way to avoid the question by fleeing their homes and farms or by finding some other job that kept them close to home and out of the fight. Some who could not find that kind of work lived in the woods as fugitives. They had their property stolen and destroyed. Some were hunted down and killed. After the war, Union loyalists were resented.
8) Finally, both sides kept prison camps that were inhuman in their conditions. Elmira Prison, on the Union sidde. Andersonville, on the Confederate. Such places were hell on earth and produced survivors as emaciated as any that come out of the Nazi death camps.
I could continue on the subject of the Indian Wars. As a constitutionalist, I view King Andrew's illegal enforcement of the Indian Removal Act as a profound injustice. My wife is part Cherokee, so I take that shit personally.
AP, could you repost those book recommendations, please, both about the Founding Fathers, and about the War from the British perspective?
Wars are shaped by those that act decisively.
ReplyDeleteWork toward the day .... create the conditions..
ReplyDeleteLike Adams and like Che: Make it happen.
-sofa
Hey josh,
ReplyDeleteI understand you perfectly well now with your last admission.
You don't trust yourself.
Sarah Brady and Paul Helmke,as well as many others feel the same way man.
Good luck
CIII
No thats not it. I find it to easy, to say fuck you all. If you had to make a chioce between saving the world and child, I choose the child everytime. I have no problem defending myself or those I care about. But fuck the rest of you petty busybodies.
ReplyDeleteThe government is force, and so is the revolutionary. Both sides of the same coin. The vast majority of people just want to live their lives unmolested by either side, they live on the coins edge if you will.
AP -
For your consideration:
http://theultimateanswertokings.blogspot.com/2009/07/of-sheep-wolves-sheepdogs-and-mutts.html
Are you a protecter of Liberty bringing it to the masses whether we want it or not.
It's not your or anyone elses responsibility to ensure my liberty. Each and everyone of us must do that for ourselves or it's meaningless.
Sigh.... I'm not sure I have the words in me, at lest in the written, to express this.... any better.
:-(
P.S. “I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”
ReplyDelete― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
I think it works better this way, “I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live or die for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live or die for mine.”
And that, Josh, is just it.
ReplyDeleteYou have to form a collective to protect liberty.
Individuals die and are enslaved alone.
Your principles are noble, but they are defeatist. In the end, the noble, rugged, "leave me alone" types lose. Always.
I won't take the "F U" personally, either...
;-)
AP
But only because others feel they have the right to make decisions for others.
ReplyDeleteThe Catch 22. We can never be truely free, because our responses will be directed by what others do or don't do.
Sigh....
"You have to form a collective to protect liberty." - AP
ReplyDeleteCollective.... Liberty...... Seems to me to be counter intuitive.
I'm going to take a break from this discussion, for a little bit, let somethings percolate. See what bubbles up.
:-)
Josh
Yes, do let it simmer.
ReplyDeleteAn Army is a collective, as is a militia, as is a family unit.
Necessary to secure liberty.
Counter-intuitive, but absolutely true.
Liberty through collective efforts, peace through ruthlessness.
Just how it is.
AP
Oh, I know voluntary groups that suport one another are generaly a good think. It's just when the group Identaty becomes more important than the indevidual identitiy things go horably wrong.
ReplyDeleteI was mostly balking at the word collective... It's seems to me a short step from that to.... good of.
Two other collectives: the State and Cults.
;-)
What Josh is saying...
ReplyDeleteNo has a right to right a wrong, individually or collectively.
And, no one has a right to wrong a right, individually or collectively...
Because...
There are no oral absolutes.
Josh says most people want to be left alone.
When the fact is, most people want to be left alone and have their proxy ... the government ... doing their busyness for them.
But gee Josh, as long as the people are having their proxy doing the immoral for them, it's okay! And as long as the proxy is doing the immoral will of the people, it's okay! And who in the hell am I to say any different! Who am I to resist that!
Dude, not only do you have logic issues, you have moral issues.
Liberty is not the freedom to do as one wills. That is license. It is the law of man. It is the straying from natural law.
Meh... no sense in going around your circular logic.
Causa said...
ReplyDelete"What Josh is saying...
No has a right to right a wrong, individually or collectively. [When did I say this?]
And, no one has a right to wrong a right, individually or collectively...[ Or this?]
Because...
There are no oral absolutes. [Spoken Truths? I'm not even sure what this means.]
Josh says most people want to be left alone. [ I did say this in a general over arching mannor, that I can't prove, but is what I feel.]
When the fact is, most people want to be left alone and have their proxy ... the government ... doing their busyness for them. [This is what you feel is the truth. And I can probable find anecdotal evidence to suport both positions, but neither could be considerd fact.]
But gee Josh, as long as the people are having their proxy doing the immoral for them, it's okay! And as long as the proxy is doing the immoral will of the people, it's okay! And who in the hell am I to say any different! Who am I to resist that! [This what is called a strawman arguement.]
Dude, not only do you have logic issues, you have moral issues. [How so? Please use actual quotes or statments, when misrepresenting my positions. I do not believe proxes are right for ether side. I would like to see the quote where I made the statement where I advocated to not Resist. "If you don't know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere." - Henry Kissinger “If we do not change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed.” Ancient Chinese proverb. All I've said was think about where you are headed that way when you get there you're not suprised. Whose morals?]
Liberty is not the freedom to do as one wills. That is license. It is the law of man. It is the straying from natural law. [You like this, "Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add “within the limits of the law,” because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual." - Thomas Jefferson
Or
"You who've lost the concept of a right, you who swing in impotent evasiveness between the claim that rights are a gift of God, a supernatural gift to be taken on faith, or the claim that rights are a gift of society, to be broken at its arbitrary whim -- the source of man's rights is not divine law or congressional law, but the law of identity. A is A -- and Man is Man. Rights are conditions of existence required by man's nature for his proper survival.If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work. If life on earth is his purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being: nature forbids him the irrational. Any group, any gang, any nation that attempts to negate man's rights, is wrong, which means: is evil, which means: is anti-life."
- John Galt (Ayn Rand)]
Meh... no sense in going around your circular logic." - End Quote.
Some themes that I've advocated:
Respect Life.
Idividual over the group (either side.)
Use of Force leads to the Darkside.
You can justife (wrongly) anything with the frase, "It's for your own good." I wasn't advocated this as a good thing. It's the shepards mentality or the I'm smarter and know better than you mentality that keads to a lot of evil.
If your going to accuse me of something please site examples.
:-)