It seems today that you can’t turn on the tv, radio, or God help us…facebook, and not see or hear something terrible that’s happened. Maybe it’s cops on a murdering spree. Maybe it’s the UN invading “muh sovereign dirt”. Maybe it’s devilish lizard people in the senate. Whatever it may be, it’s constant, loud, and it has the masses scared. It’s so constant that one would believe it’s done with a certain intent. We all know that main media outlets lean to one side or the other of the political spectrum. We also know that there’s always an agenda, and it never ends up with you or I enjoying more liberty. I mean, that’s why your here, right? You’re a fan of having more personal liberties and individual freedom. How do we deal with this garbage? It’s simple…TURN IT OFF!!!
Distraction and emotion can be detrimental to achieving one’s goals. That’s exactly what today’s media is. It’s a distraction that is designed to play on emotion. Have you ever wondered why we see so much of ISIS and none of what is happening in Venezuela? Or maybe you’ve wondered why we see black people being murdered just days after Hillary Clinton was exonerated of alleged treason. No one in the media cares about the others that were murdered by police this year until it serves as a convenient distraction from their sacred cattle. Have you ever wondered why we celebrate our freedom in July, and what we deal with every day couldn’t be farther from the truth? I have.
I’ve also wondered what could be done about it. Maybe we can just vote better, harder, and (if you’re a democrat) more often.”We’ll vote the bastards out” is the common chant. It’s a Pavlovian response, and it will not work for our purposes here. Maybe if we just stick to the rules and keep our nose clean, we’ll get by without incident. “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear” sounds familiar (…Pavlovian reactionism intensifies). Then there’s my personal favorite, “We need to pay more taxes so the government can keep us safe and slay the boogeyman”. Who’s a good boy? You are. Yes you are.
Once we see that turning to the collective does nothing to aid the individual in the pursuit of liberty, then we can truly be put on the correct course to tuning out the nonsense and getting to work. What does this “work” include, you ask? The first step is education. It doesn’t matter if you’re currently democrat, republican, liberal, progressive, conservative, constitutionalist, Libertarian, or any other flavor of collectivist nonsense . If you want more liberty in your life you have to learn the true nature of the thing you seek. What does freedom mean? How do sociopaths gain power by stifling the freedom of others? Why is liberty best attained at the individual level? These are all questions that will point you in the correct direction, no matter where you’re starting from. They will also challenge your confirmation bias. Remember, we’re learning about the truth of the matter. We’re not focusing on why everyone should support a “save the turtles” bill that your favorite politician happens to be pushing at the moment. We live in the age of information. It is an age that has given us unlimited access to all the knowledge we seek. Why would we not seek it? The only reason I can think of is what I call “confirmation bias by way of laziness”. The following steps include theory, practice, and teaching. However, let’s focus on one thing at a time. I’m sure we’ll dive into that in the future.
So I’ll ask you, what are you doing? What are you doing to build more freedom into your life? What are you doing to further your education? What are you doing to insure your young family enjoys more liberty in decades to come? What are you doing to keep oppressive forces out of your community? What are you doing to become a more solid person financially, intellectually, and morally? Turn off the news and forge your own liberty!