- I decided to delay this message until today, for reasons
which will become apparent. Many of you won't like the message, but it
must be said. If you don't like hearing that your "free" country
is dead, you're free to unsubscribe and go back to a world in denial. --LR
- _____
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- Today is Independence Day. Today Americans across the
country will show great reverence for an empty symbol, while showing disdain
for a worthwhile principle. We celebrate with great fervor the signing
of the Declaration of Independence, while showing absolute contempt for
the ideas expressed therein.
-
- What is it we are celebrating? Independence? Independence
from what? We rejoice at having thrown off a tyrant who taxed us at an
average of two to three percent, in order to establish new tyrants who
tax us at over fifty percent. Having been thoroughly indoctrinated into
the insane notion that "our" government supports liberty and
justice for all, we schizophrenically condemn the actions of King George
III, while remaining silent about the far more intrusive, oppressive, unjust
actions of the current tyrants we mislabel as "representatives."
-
- Let us set aside our picnics and parades for a moment,
and think back to this nation's birth, and see what it is we should be
celebrating. In his famous "Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death"
speech, Patrick Henry stated that "it is natural to man to indulge
in the illusions of hope," and that "We are apt to shut our eyes
against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she
transforms us into beasts." How many eyes are shut in this country
today? How many Americans today "having eyes, see not, and, having
ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation?"
On the other hand, how many Americans have this attitude?: "For my
part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the
whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it."
-
- Few. Very few. And who could say the following today,
and not be condemned by the masses as an extremist lunatic?: "Is life
so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and
slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take;
but as for me, give me liberty or give me death."
-
- And what of the Declaration itself? How many Americans
who pledge allegiance to a flag today can even remotely relate to the message
of that document? The Declaration has become a revered relic, whose words
have lost all meaning to most of those who worship it. We repeat the words,
but the spirit of the message is long since dead. Let us revive it, put
it into the modern vernacular, and assess just what the modern American
response to the sentiments expressed therein might be: When a government
infringes upon the rights of the individual, instead of protecting those
rights, the people have the right and duty to throw off that government,
violently and illegally if necessary. How many flag-wavers believe that?
One percent? Probably less.
-
- History shows that people will tolerate injustice they
are accustomed to, rather than doing what it takes to get rid of a familiar
system which oppresses them. Amen. And so it is with the dim, fading shadow
of this formerly great nation. As long as we have our couches and our TVs,
we will do nothing about tyranny in this land. So long as we are enslaved
in comfort, we do not resist.
-
- Much of the Declaration is a list of oppressions and
injustices, "injuries and usurpations," committed by King George
III. The Declaration proclaimed such wrong-doing to a "candid world,"
to justify their illegal, treasonous (and righteous) rejection of the government
they were under. In short, the complaints of the Founders against King
George III pale in comparison to the complaints modern Americans should
have against the far more oppressive regime they now call "their"
government. As one example, the Founders complained that the British Crown
had "erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of
Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance." In contrast
to modern America, that complaint seems laughable. Today almost three millions
people are employed by the federal government alone: a full one percent
of the population. State and local governments employ even more. The level
of micromanaging and regulation is far beyond what King George ever would
have dreamed of. One look at the Code of Federal Regulations, which takes
up an entire book shelf, will tell you that.
-
- Desperate to hallucinate something superior about this
country, people now resort to saying that, though we're not actually free,
we're more free than other countries. In reality, however, the U.S. does
not have the most freedom, either economically or socially, anymore. In
fact, the U.S. has the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world.
-
- So, what is it we should celebrate about this country,
and its independence? There is no substantive reason to celebrate. All
that is left is unthinking pack mentality: we "love" it simply
because we're here, the same way the people in every other country "love"
what they are familiar with--the same empty herd mentality which enables
tyrants to perpetually play the game of war.
-
- How many this "Independence Day" will say the
following words?: "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States
of America, and to the republic for which it stands." Only the familiarity
of those words, and our unthinking repeating of them, hide from us the
evil insanity underlying such so-called "patriotism." Blind allegiance
to a flag and a government is nothing to be proud of. (The reference at
the end to "liberty and justice for all" is now nothing but a
sad Orwellian lie.)
-
- The ideals which drove the American Revolution are stone
dead in the hearts and minds of the American people, who have been trained
to view subservience and obedience as virtues. The following are the words
of a current leading contender for the Presidency: "Freedom is about
the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority
a great deal of discretion about what you do" (Rudy Giuliani). And
millions would vote for him.
-
- To wave the American flag in public, to carry it in parades,
either demonstrates profound psychological denial, or profound historical
and philosophical ignorance. If the flag represents what this country and
its government has become, it deserves to be burned in contempt and disgust.
If it represents the ideals from which this country was born, it deserves
to be burned out of respect and sorrow, rather than desecrated by flying
it atop the giant shrines of tyranny in a land where freedom has died.
-
- Sincerely,
-
- Larken Rose
- www.larkenrose.com
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