Tag: liberty

The New Counter-Culture

…we are now the counter-culture. That our ideals and values now run counter to what is accepted as mainstream.

Received in an email from a friend:
THE NEW COUNTER-CULTURE

The counter-culture movement of the sixties and seventies has won. Not that that’s a bad thing, they just have. The movement, in those days, was mainly about social change, women’s rights, race relations, sexual liberation and anti-war.

It was a generations way of rebelling against the values of their parents, the generation that fought the Second World War. And by any metric, they won.

While the media would have us believe otherwise, the various races of this country have never been more equal and in some cases we are actually starting to see it shift in the opposite direction. Away from repression of the African Americans and towards evil whitey.

A prime case in point is the Ahmaud Arbery shooting. A young black man killed by two white men is newsworthy today as an example that the race war still exists. But the intentional hunting and execution of an elderly white man and woman in a veteran’s cemetery gathers barely a mention. In case you haven’t heard about this, you can read about it here, https://justthenews.com/government/local/couple-their-mid-eighties-murdered-during-daily-visit-their-sons-grave

And while neither of these cases appear to be justifiable, it is clearly evident that one of them is more justified than the other. Just as the #MeToo movement has sent misogynists running for cover, entertainment is full of examples that sexual exploitation or representation is totally acceptable. Where the counter-culture stood on the fact that a woman has the right to choose what happens to her body is now a mainstream view, if not hotly contested. But the counter-culture won the war and what was once counter to our existing culture is mainstream to it.

All the things the counter-culture stood for were absorbed into mainstream culture and as a result there was no longer anything to counter and radicals of the day were absorbed and assimilated.

There is no better proof for this statement than the example of Bill Ayers. Once the leader of a radical anti-war movement that committed acts of terrorism like bombing buildings. He became a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, at one point holding the titles of Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar. An admitted Communist, Ayers was fully accepted into mainstream life, even though he was a known terrorist.

It could be argued that the current social activists are still carrying the counter-culture torch, but that would incorrect. Because what has become mainstream cannot be counter to it.

However, that does not stop these social justice warriors from claiming they are fighting the good fight. Let’s take a minute and look at that.

While the current Progressive Leftists, arguably what became of the original counter-culture, claim they are still fighting for racial equality, they are doing more damage to the idea than their previous generation undid.

Racial relations are at historic lows. A wedge far worse than anything that existed in the 60’s has been driven between law enforcement and minorities. While every shooting of a black man is held up as evidence of this, it does a terrible disservice to the ideal. Jim Crow laws are long gone. Young black men are not really in danger of being arrested and beaten on any given day for no reason, despite what the media portrays. A black man was elected president of the nation, a move Martin Luther King probably didn’t dare hope for in such a relatively short time frame.

Inversely, now every police officer has to be worried should they be forced to defend themselves or others with lethal force should the criminal in question be among the more equal classes. With near certainty the officer in question will be considered guilty until proven innocent. And even if they are, with enough pressure applied by various activist groups, they can essentially find themselves facing double jeopardy having to defend themselves yet again in a Federal Court.

And I’m not saying every shooting is justifiable. Many are not and if not, the officer should face the full weight of the law. But the race of the victim should be of no concern whatsoever. The law should be colorblind and yet it is not.

Do not mistake this for what is often incorrectly referred to as reverse-racism, for no such thing exists. Something is either racist or it isn’t. The race in question is not the qualifier but the act itself being committed based on the race of the victim.

Women’s rights were championed as well and a cornerstone of this was about abortion and the right of a woman to have the final say of what can and cannot happen to her body. And yet these same people are the ones now supporting a mandatory, even forcible vaccination from a virus with extremely low mortality rate. What happened to my body, my choice?

What about the anti-war stance? Hilary Clinton was very much pro-war when she was Secretary of State and running for president. I firmly believed that had she won we would have quickly been in conflict with Russia. Ukraine was cast into turmoil in her efforts to destabilize Russia. The Left is very much pro-war, so long as Russia is the target. But you better not look at China as a threat.

Universities were a breeding ground for the counter-culture revolution of the 60’s and 70’s and many of those revolutionaries never left. Going from student to professor and never holding any real job outside of the university echo chamber. Whereas freedom of speech and open exchange of ideals were championed and even the use of psychedelic drugs was promoted as a path to enlightenment, today they are free speech dead zones.

Today the counter-culture doesn’t want new ideas or to create a place one feels safe to express themselves, though that is the very reason they use to repress it! Universities are echo chambers of uni-thought where differing ideas are to be stamped out at the first occurrence. Where the counter-culture fought for equality, and won it, they now fight for inequality.

The idea of equal morphed into Animal Farm. Some animals are more equal then others. Why? They essentially achieved their goals. Then, they themselves, moved the goalpost. Maybe because they did so well they just figured they could keep on going.

Maybe looking back on this you’ll come to the same realization I did today in a conversation with my friend. That we are now the counter-culture. That our ideals and values now run counter to what is accepted as mainstream.

The New Counter-Culture Yes, I am part of the counter-culture. But I’m not wearing tie-dye and growing my hair out, well, just my beard. This is what the new counter-culture looks like. It’s full of people that want to live their lives the way we see fit. We want to worship in the method we choose. Or not. Counter-cultures are typically anti-religion, we are about the freedom to decide.

We want to be able to speak our minds, freely, whether people agree with what we have to say or not, that’s liberty.

I am not a Nazi, racist, bigot or homophobic. But I am routinely labeled one because I use the wrong pronoun or didn’t check the bulletin board for that day’s list of acceptable New Speak words. Or to worry what electronic device was listening to us.

During the original counter-culture movement surveillance was a time consuming and manpower heavy job. People would have to physically access your phone line or break into your home to plant a listening device. Today, we’re dumb enough to actually pay for them ourselves and willingly bring them into our homes! Why must I wonder who’s listening, because someone is always listening. And we accept the fact!

We want to provide for our families. To work, endeavor and achieve and we want to enjoy the fruits of our labor. Why are we selfish that we do not want to share what we’ve earned or created with the lazy? I’ve spent decades of my life, lost time with family and friends, broken my body to achieve what I have. I paid all the costs, no one helped me. Where was my white privilege when I was breaking concrete slabs with a sledgehammer in the Illinois winter cold? And how can anyone think they are owed any part of the reward? Meager as they were back then.

And I include the Federal Government, who always has their hand out.

We want to be free to associate with whoever we want, where and when we want. The chosen can gather in mass and commit criminal acts of looting, arson, assault and general mayhem. But let twenty or thirty thousand of us gather in defense of our rights and we’re called terrorists.

Let us openly display our keys to liberty, weapons, and we will be shouted at and called all manner of foul names. Yet the Black Panthers can stand outside a polling station and that is not called intimidation?

We want to be able to choose our medical treatment and insurance. Not be shoehorned into or priced completely out of the market. Medicare and Medicaid are bloated beasts rife with abuse and grifters. This is publicly acknowledged by Congress continually, though nothing is done. The VA is a pathetic healthcare provider, the idea of even placing it into that classification is disgusting use of the term. And yet, all these programs are ran by the same people that want to take over my healthcare?

We want the right to decide how to live our lives, every facet of it, down the seemingly insignificant. Is that really too much to ask? Isn’t that the very reason this nation exists in the first place? Did the founders of this country not leave their native land and risk everything in the hope they could lead their lives in the manner they see fit? Did they not want the opportunity, not the guarantee, of success? Were they not fully ready and willing to accept success or failure?

The new counter-culture is now the very ideals this nation was founded on. We’ve come full circle it seems. We are, once again, going to have to fight for the very principals the Constitution set forth as immutable. That, by my very existence, I have certain rights and I am entitled to the opportunity to attempt, to risk it all and reach for the stars. Other than that I am owed nothing.

You cannot be owed a right, you have it by your mere presence. They cannot be given and they cannot be taken away. They can be surrendered freely and that is the problem.

We’re surrendering our rights with nothing more than muttered sniveling.

Our government governs at the consent of the governed. I withdraw my consent. I am determined to become ungovernable. I will resist at every opportunity, no matter how trivial the issue. I will not obey, I will not yield. I damn sure will not ask permission.I will not go quietly into that good night and that is why I am a pissed off American. In case you have forgotten your history, allow me to remind you of one fact. This nation was founded by angry men with guns and it’s going to require angry men with guns to take it back.

Freedom vs Liberty

the same liberal cult that wants to make us un-free also tries to take away personal responsibility, replacing it with government force.

The sad truth is what fuels the anti-liberty agenda of the liberal cult: masses of fools simply won’t know what they’ve got ’til it’s gone.

And it’s a really big deal when somebody takes yours away. But if you inherited it, and never were without it, you don’t really appreciate it, and just think it’ll always be there.

Social is good doers and busybodies want to have power over that which is not their property. They are the ones who infringe on others freedom via property right violations. They say; “it becomes my business if you actions infringe on my freedom. You may think you have an unbridled freedom to do whatever you want, whenever, but you will have to accept the responsibility for what may follow from your selfishness. We have to reach an accommodation, an agreement. That’s called compromise, and is what community and being a good neighbor is all about.”

My response is; ” I don’t compromise my liberty. If it is not your property, it is not your business.”

The doo-gooder response will be along the line of; “So you can defecate upstream in the water I have to drink? I don’t think so.”

It happens everyday.

Such thinking as yours pushes responsibility from you for you to others.

For instance, I once went backpacking along pristine Lake Superior. Others who got the mandatory lecture from the park ranger were appalled the ranger recommended filtering your water. In defense the park ranger put the burden on the drinker saying, you don’t know if a beaver just peed in the water around the bend or a dead moose is decaying in the water just out of sight.

If you own the water as it flows along your property, it is YOUR responsibility to make sure it’s purity meets your high standards.

Liberty is bounded by attendant responsibility; freedom is not.

Consider, for example, that the word “freedom” is rarely used in our organic charters, and in the published arguments for and against their ratification. Instead, when natural rights are concerned, the word “liberty” is used, to denote a latitude tempered by the responsibility not to violate the equal rights of others.

The quintessential example of the word freedom in our organic charters comes, of course, from the First Amendment guarantee that “Congress shall make no law… abridging freedom of speech, or of the press…” That admonition secured a pair of civil liberties against prior restraint. It does not refer to the right of speech or of the press, which are bounded by the equal rights of others, but rather secures the boundless freedom against government intervention before the fact.

That is to say, freedom of speech is the entirely limitless latitude to say anything at all without restriction beforehand. The right of speech, a facet of liberty, is the latitude to say that which does not necessarily violate the equal rights of others.

So imagine I say something defamatory about you that destroyed your reputation and ruined your livelihood. When you sue me in a court of competent jurisdiction and win a judgement against me, that court is providing remedy because I trespassed beyond the natural definition of liberty because my latitude of speech violated your rights. But that court had to allow me to make the defamatory statement before it could act. If it punished me before I uttered the defamatory words, it would have violated my freedom of speech, because freedom is unbounded and absolute.

My freedom to swing my arm has no limit, but my right to swing my arm usually ends at your nose… unless you are presently violating my right to my life, liberty, or property, at which point I have every right to punch you and more.

Freedom is liberty’s amoral cousin.

Freedom and responsibility go hand in hand. This is why the same liberal cult that wants to make us un-free also tries to take away personal responsibility, replacing it with government force. Patriots do the opposite of that. And this is a fundamental difference between the two camps.

Liberty requires taking responsibility for one’s personal well being and one’s own actions.

Liberty is like money and sex: it only seems like a big deal when you aren’t getting any of it.

Give me Liberty

Jefferson’s philosophy held that an individual’s unalienable rights are not given to one in a document, but by their Creator (and subsequently codified in the Bill of Rights “in order to prevent the misconstruction or abuse of its powers” as it states in the preamble.)

The terms “freedom” and “liberty” have become clichés in modern political parlance. Because these words are invoked so much by politicians and their ilk, their meanings are almost synonymous and used interchangeably. That’s confusing – and can be dangerous – because their definitions are actually quite different.

“Freedom” is predominantly an internal construct. Viktor Frankl, the legendary Holocaust survivor who wrote Man’s Search For Meaning, said it well: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way (in how he approaches his circumstances).”

In other words, to be free is to take ownership of what goes on between your ears, to be autonomous in thoughts first and actions second. Your freedom to act a certain way can be taken away from you – but your attitude about your circumstances cannot – making one’s freedom predominantly an internal construct.

On the other hand, “liberty” is predominantly an external construct. It’s the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s way of life, behavior, or political views. The ancient Stoics knew this (more on that in a minute). So did the Founding Fathers, who wisely noted the distinction between negative and positive liberties, and codified that difference in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.

The distinction between negative and positive liberties is particularly important, because an understanding of each helps us understand these seminal American documents (plus it explains why so many other countries have copied them). The Bill of Rights is a charter of negative liberties – it says what the state cannot do to you. However, it does not say what the state must do on your behalf. This would be a positive liberty, an obligation imposed upon you by the state.

Freedom comes from Old English, meaning “power of self-determination, state of free will; emancipation from slavery, deliverance.” There were similar variants in Old Frisian such as “fridom,” the Dutch “vrijdom,” and Middle Low German “vridom.”

Liberty comes from the Latin “libertatem” (nominative libertas), which means “civil or political freedom, condition of a free man; absence of restraint, permission.” It’s important to note that the Old French variant liberte, “free will,” has also shaped liberty’s meaning.

In short, freedom is inherent to humans. It exists within them by virtue of their humanity. Liberty is a political construct that allows people to enjoy freedoms such as property rights, free speech, freedom of association, etc.

Sadly, liberty has not been the natural state of mankind.

private property, free speech, and freedom of association are negative rights. In other words, these are rights that prevent others – above all, the state – from transgressing on you personally or on your property.

Along with these rights come responsibilities. In other words, you must bear the consequences of your actions as you exercise them.

Like all negative rights, free speech comes with responsibility; if you use that speech to spread information which is false and causes harm, then you’re not protected carte blanche. Others can petition the court for the panic you’ve caused as a result of your exercise of free speech.

On the other hand, positive rights are granted by the government and involve the trampling of an individual or another class of individuals’ rights. These kinds of rights – like state-funded healthcare or public education – are justified on abstract grounds, such as the “public good” or the “general will.” By their very nature, they require the state to take from one group in order to give to another, usually in the form of taxes.

Appeals to the general will originate from the famous 18th century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who emphasized that a strong government makes individuals free and that individuals submit to the state for the sake of the greater good. If that sounds backwards to you, you’re not alone. If you don’t want to go along with the “will of the people” (or as Rousseau defined it, “the general will”), then the state can compel you to do so – even if that means trampling your individual rights and responsibilities. Rousseau’s concept of freedom had nothing to do with the independence of the individual.

Jefferson’s philosophy held that an individual’s unalienable rights are not given to one in a document, but by their Creator (and subsequently codified in the Bill of Rights “in order to prevent the misconstruction or abuse of its powers” as it states in the preamble.) In other words, an unalienable right is God-given. It isn’t granted by a president, a king, or any government – otherwise it can be taken away.

The manipulation of what liberty and an individual’s rights and responsibilities constitute has already made its way to the U.S., where the lack of understanding of what liberty truly means has been apparent since the advent of the Progressive Era.

During this period, political pundits and economic theorists became obsessed with scientism, which is “the over-reliance on or over-application of the scientific method” as a means of trying to move society forward towards an ambiguous utopia. Instead of focusing on the defense of foundational principles like liberty and the rights and responsibilities of the individual, 20th-century intellectuals focused more on “scientific” ways to plan society from the top down.

Discussions about freedom and liberty – as well as the important distinction between negative and positive liberties, which form the bedrock of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights – have become quite quaint, as people use these words in Orwellian fashion to justify a litany of government intrusions in our lives. When we let their meanings become obscured, we cede to those whose underlying goal is more state power the ability to manipulate the public for their own tyrannical ends. We not only need to comprehend the differences between freedom and liberty, but also recover their original meaning so that there is foundational clarity in political discussions.