Is This How Freedom Dies?

Occupy Wall Street hides behind the legitimate indignation at the co-mingling of government and the private sector, but in reality it is nothing more than a Marxist propaganda group that wishes to give more power to government and destroy the private sector as it is. A *rational* mind would, instead, have argued that a wall of separation between government and the private sector needs to be respected just as the fabled wall of separation between church and state, and that the current issues are not, in fact, the cause of a capitalist system, but that of a statist Keynesian system in which it is acceptable for government to act upon the private sector (and thus open the channels for the inverse to also be possible).

 A rational mind would, but Occupy Wall Street isn't a rational movement. Under the guise of emotional appeals, it seeks to destroy the private sector and true, non-government-contaminated capitalism- the things that make the modern world possible- and utterly devastate the world. And this paean to Socialism is going on while, at the same time, Europe is starting to collapse under the weight of decades of a socialist economic doctrine-- with the Euro at the very brink of utter and complete obliteration. Vast debt, stifling controls, decreasing production and 'wealth redistribution' (might those two be linked?), and the result? If Rome isn't burning already, it certainly is beginning to smolder, and someone is beginning to tune the fiddle.

And to quote William Blake-- "O who hath caused this? O who can answer at the throne of God? The Kings and Nobles of the land have done it! Hear it not, Heaven, thy ministers have done it!" -- every politician, and every person who supports them who subscribes to the belief that your life, your property, your person and your rights are not truly yours-- but either belong to the government or to 'society'. That you have no right to choose EXCEPT the choices that the government or society approves for you. The idea that you have no right to live-- unless it is to live for others and never for yourself, that you are not allowed to own anything--- except what the government 'lets you keep', is the idea that you as an individual are nothing more than a tool of the state, a resource for the ends of others. And resources, don't you know, are there to be... spent. And we all know that a government is more than eager to gleefully spend resources to the point of withering if there is no fetter.

And yet they still cry-- they took the 'hard edge' out of communism and instead sell it as Socialism, Progressivism. It's "moderate", they say, trying to appeal to others as the benefactors of humanity. Yet how can the 'moderate' forced sacrifice of others be more acceptable than the 'unmoderated' version? It is an irrational position-- on equal foot of claiming that 'moderate' murder is somehow more acceptable, 'moderate' dismemberment is somehow less horrific, and 'moderate' poisoning is not as shocking. But this is what neither liberals nor conservatives understand: that if the principle is unchanged, the results will always remain the same *regardless* of what new coat of paint is applied or what new terms are given. Socialism will always result in ruin and wreck, as the frozen corpses on Russian soil will attest or the miserable starvation of Cuba--- and 'crony' capitalism (which isn't capitalism, it's statism disguised under a name to blame capitalism) will always result, also, in ruin and wreck. Both schools seek to control, destroy freedom and obliterate choice. The *principle* is the same, the *methods* are the same, the only thing that changes is the name of the god for which either side wants to sacrifice you.

And neither will tell you that the answer is freedom and individual rights, because it carries with it their destruction: a government that only exists to ensure its constituents are free and protected from violations against their freedom is not a government of overreaching power... and both liberals and conservatives love nothing more than to tell you what to do, how much to keep, whom to marry and with whom to sleep, where to pray, where not to pray, what you can and can't buy, and what you can and can't sell.

Do you want to find the answer? Look to the air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. There you will find a woman that has been called Mother of Exiles, but her name is simply Liberty. From her hand glows a beacon-light of reason, for only reason can grant freedom.  At her feet lie the broken chains of tyranny.  At this moment, you are standing at the crossroads with only two outcomes: The conservatives and liberals, in their current rhetoric, want those chains to be re-forged and bind you, the individual, to their agenda--- *what* exactly each agenda constitutes is irrelevant, it is sufficient to know that each wishes to shackle you to a different god, but a god they hold above you. The other road carries with it the rejection of all chains.

“At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings. But he broke their chains. He was enslaved by his birth, by his kin, by his race. But he broke their chains. He declared to all his brothers that a man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take away from him, no matter what their number, for his is the right of man, and there is no right on earth above this right. And he stood on the threshold of freedom for which the blood of the centuries behind him had been spilled.”

Are you going to turn away from the threshold of freedom and return to those chains? If you do, liberty will fall and her lamp shall be extinguished. And from that darkness, it is very unlikely that anything shall ever rise again.