freedom
Making Freedom
by Claire Wolfe

"Freedom has a thousand charms to show,
That slaves, howe'er contented, never know."

Do those who wish to control us actually beliir own propaganda?
Do they imagine all is well in Happiland? Do they think all that's required to put the finishing touch on their Utopia is a few more laws, regulations, executive orders, judicial fiats, presidential decision directives and canisters of CS gas? Do they -- folly of follies -- ultimately imagine that a few million abused freedom lovers simply don't matter?

In a way, it doesn't matter what they think. Something has changed in the last few months in the way many of us, the freedom lovers, think. We've stopped believing in illusions. We've stopped chasing chimeras, stood still and taken stock. It's been coming for a long time -- years -- for some, even decades. But just recently -- in a way that millions suddenly feel, but few have yet articulated -- the freedom movement has reached a critical mass of disillusion. Maybe it was the sickening gyrations of the Senate and the NRA in the wake of Littleton. Maybe it was long before. But millions of us have
irrevocably lost hope in all the institutions and methods we've looked to for years.

And it's a good thing we have.

Because that means we can quit wasting our time on what doesn't work -- on being polite and begging our would-be rulers please, please, please don't take our freedom away quite so quickly. Go a little more slowly. Tread a little less roughly on our hearts.

Yes, I know there are millions still doing it. Begging, writing, pleading. I receive their URGENT! LEGISLATIVE! ALERTS! everyday. They urge me to urge my readers to join NOW! in the latest, newest, desperate, most-important-ever-ever-ever SAVE! OUR! RIGHTS! Beg-A-Thon to Congress. And while they blow their priceless energy on these touching Civics Class exercises, control freaks snicker and freedom erodes.

But enough have now stopped doing the useless. We can get on with what actually works. Ultimately the only thing that can work is for millions of good people to become ungovernable. To live our freedom for ourselves. And to do that, we don't need a majority. Mainly, we need our hearts -- plus a lot of courage and just enough numbers that tyrants can't arrest or kill us all.

Easy? No. But necessary. Time for each of us to start finding our own path.

In the end our determination to be free may mean having to fight tyrants with weapons, as well as wits. I hope not. I don't want it. I don't call for it. I'd a thousand times rather use wits alone -- wits and truly free spirits and creative disregard for unjust laws. The monkeywrench can be a more powerful weapon than the M-16, in the right circumstances. So can the pure, ungovernable, hellraising soul. But like a lot of others who'd rather just be left alone to live free, I'm becoming convinced that freedom lovers who don't simply leave for freer pastures will have to stand and fight someday.

No threat. Just a realistic assessment.

Leave if you can. If your heart allows. Find a place with a less imperial government and a means of making a living there. But if you stay here, prepare to live your freedom, regardless of what the government does. No one is going to hand you liberty, no matter how much you beg or threaten. No matter how many letters you write, marches you march, rallies you raise, e-mails you fling or articles you read or write. No matter how many times you replace Reptile A in Congress with Reptile B, freedom ain't gonna happen like that.

It's too late -- if it ever could have worked at all.

One way or another, if you want it -- if you really, sincerely want freedom and don't just prefer to whine about its loss -- you're going to have to take it back yourself. In your own life. In your own attitude. In your own actions. Pray you can do it with your wits, in your own uniquely, peacefully intransigent way. But know that you are the only one who can do it.

And let's get on with it, making freedom, ourselves alone.
 

Back To Peace

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 -THE KUBBY FILES-

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-The Valdez Murder-

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-A Smuggler's Tales From Jails-

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