To Fight For Freedom

On the physical plane, the fight for freedom is an endless struggle. I've just realized that this truth has eluded me for years. And denying it has been the source of frustration, rage and despair.

Like a proud Roman Citizen, I imagined that my "Empire" would last forever. It seemed to have every sign of doing so. I thought it was the culmination of political and social evolution—here to stay.

What in the world was I thinking?

I have been blessed to live in the Best of Times: after the Great Depression and before the Great Dissolution, and I was fooled into believing it could be permanent.

But nothing lasts forever. Man is incapable of maintaining greatness for long periods of time. Corruption, decadence, degradation and a sense of entitlement inevitably follow periods of honor, self-sacrifice, discipline, courage and a sense of mission.

We are seeing the decline of America & the West. And with them, the decline of human Liberty. It is as inevitable as the cycles of the moon. Humanity, in its weakness, hubris, complacency and greed, always loses the hard-earned liberty bequeathed to it by former generations. It is a story as old as Cain & Abel; as modern as The Matrix.

(Yes, even Hollywood idiots instinctually understand the urgency and universality of the struggle even as they get all the players wrong, and the change the names to protect the guilty.)

The United States is not seriously endangered by external enemies. They can inflict damage, but never conquer us. We are being destroyed from within by those who are no longer capable of living free; by those who believe that "freedom" is too dangerous, too risky, too unpredictable. One can fail, starve, lose, die. They no longer have the virtues of discipline, courage, vigilance, steadfastness, self-reliance, industriousness or self-sacrifice necessary to live free.

And they are becoming the majority; there is nothing we can do to change them.

They are lost. They are serfs. They prefer the stability and predictability, the certainty and "peace" of servitude to the uncertainty, instability, danger & chaos of Liberty.

I've been fighting against inevitability, against History, against human nature. The sad truth is that the Free West cannot hold. It will be lost. And enforced conformity, socialist government control, obedience and oppression will be the norm rather than the exception.

But I see now that trying to convince the majority to accept something beyond their capability is as foolish as Liberal Utopian dreams. Rather than wasting time and effort on them, I must nurture the exceptions: those people in every generation, no matter how barbarous or dark the age, to whom freedom is the highest value. It is they, in some future time, who will once again throw off their masters, and claim their God-given birthright of liberty.

I can't hold onto the America I knew, it is already gone. But I can nurture the living seed , attend the eternal flame of Liberty, and pass it along to the best and bravest of the next generation, who will do the same.

It may end up a dangerous heresy in the coming darkness. But if we do it right, it will live on to inflame and inspire a future people to the battle again, and to the victory of Freedom.

We owe it to the future. And right now, it's the best we can do.

The Gunslinger