15

Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death

Posted by freedomforall 5 months, 2 weeks ago to Philosophy
90 comments | Share | Flag

Excerpt:
"It is not easy to take one’s independence back from those who have taken it away, for they will not give it back. Frederick Douglass understood this. He said a man gets exactly the amount of tyranny he is willing to abide.

If you have tired of abiding it, then stop abiding it. If a committed-enough minority of Americans decides to do just that, perhaps in the not-so-distant future Americans will be able to celebrate their independence again.

As opposed to what has become the Farce of July."
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D.C. is much worse than King George ever was.
NIFO
SOURCE URL: https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2024/07/03/our-independence/


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    Posted by mhubb 5 months, 2 weeks ago
    Give me Liberty or your death is a better option

    remember what Patton said "No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making some other poor dumb bastard die for his country."
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    • Posted by $ 25n56il4 5 months, 2 weeks ago
      Georgie Patton was my herio. nb
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      • 10
        Posted by $ 25n56il4 5 months, 2 weeks ago
        My eldest son chose Armored when he enlisted in the Army. My youngest 'little daredevil went 101st Airborne Air Assault. My husband was Infantry 20 years 3 months and 26 days. (Korean Conflict and Viet Nam x two. n
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        • Posted by $ rainman0720 5 months, 2 weeks ago
          Thanks to you and your family for your service. Every year at this time I am reminded of how I felt when I was your son's age when he enlisted; every year I have to hang my head in shame a little bit.
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          • Posted by nonconformist 5 months, 2 weeks ago
            Thanking someone for enslaving you is a serious stockholm syndrome symptom.
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            • Posted by $ rainman0720 5 months, 2 weeks ago
              Um, not sure I understand your comment. If you were willing to put on a uniform and quite literally risk your life so that I could do what I'm doing right now, I would thank you as well.
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              • Posted by nonconformist 5 months, 2 weeks ago
                You are right, I should have explained a bit more.

                Statism has psychologically manipulated you into a certain belief system to keep you in their mental slavery.

                It is one thing to put on uniform and provide security services to someone. But it is quite a different thing to forcefully do it by charging arbitrary amounts of money for it and preventing competition from existing.

                The state is a protection racket. What do you think would happen if you decided that they are charging too much for their 'service'? What if you decided that you want to get the same service from a competing entity? It will be war. You see, they are not protecting you so that you could do what you are doing right now. That's what they want you to believe. They are only protecting you from not being their slave.

                I would respect these people only under the condition that they must provide their service voluntarily and not prevent competition from existing. Additionally, I would not provide them with any more respect than I would a farmer, a baker or a mechanic. It is just a service for god's sake, what's with the religious fervor?
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                • Posted by 5 months, 2 weeks ago
                  Exactly. The farmer, baker, and mechanic don't have power to control you so it's a voluntary exchange.
                  Government without adequate limits (and punishment for exceeding limits) has power and will use force to make people do whatever government wants, aka involuntary servitude, slavery.
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                  • Posted by nonconformist 5 months, 2 weeks ago
                    Well, I would argue that the limit is zero, i.e. no involuntary action allowed (except in defense against non-voluntary action).
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                    • Posted by 5 months, 2 weeks ago
                      If there is any authority that can apprehend those who offend others, then that authority must have limited power.
                      Do you contend that all such power resides in each individual?
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                      • Posted by nonconformist 5 months, 2 weeks ago
                        First of all, there should not be any apprehending going on, except for one specific purpose: to force someone to pay back the damage that they caused to someone else.

                        Why does it have to be a guy with special privileges? Why can't it be anyone that is willing and able to do it, provided that the law is followed? Most people wouldn't want to do it but would be more than willing to pay someone to do it. This is where you let the free market determine the price for such a service and allow it to weed out corruption, fraud, etc.
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                      • Posted by amhunt 5 months, 2 weeks ago
                        This is the heart of the matter. The Declaration of Independence states that the answer to your question is "yes" and that we delegate that power to a "government". The real problem I think is that we tend to delegate power that must not be delegated. As a result we create a government "power magnet" that over time attracts the "thugs" that are willing to abuse that same power to serve their own interests at the expense of the rest of us. Even the functions of courts, police, and military can (and are) subject to this corruption. I think we need some sort of competition mechanism such that the watchers watch the watchers (the 3 branches of the US government was a brilliant and valiant attempt to provide such checks and balances -- sadly we are now seeing how that has been eroded since the beginning of our republic. Perhaps government should be chosen by lot AND that person must be able to pass some sort of qualifying test that is randomly created (for each lottery winner? looser?)
                        from a huge (really huge) set of questions? Keep the terms in office short so that the official returns to live in the societal environment he helped create. However "lobbying" for such a system does worry me. Just some thoughts -- one could spend a lifetime thinking about these issues. I read many interesting ideas here in the Gulch.
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                        • Posted by nonconformist 5 months, 2 weeks ago
                          Checks and balances idea is crap. There is nothing stopping the 3 branches from conspiring against 'the people'.

                          There is a solution: allow the people needing the service to select their provider and to pay for it voluntarily.

                          Any other way to do it requires the application of violence (to enforce the thing) and that's not kosher in my view. Just stop the violence and all these problems you speak of go away.
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                          • Posted by amhunt 5 months, 2 weeks ago
                            "Checks and balances idea is crap." On the contrary, as it seems to me that is precisely how a free market works. The question most people I have discussed these issues with worry about the question of "warring" law enforcement agencies. I argue that that is not a problem since people will soon learn not to trust those that "initiate the war" and not purchase their services. They quickly point out that the history of the world indicates otherwise, that most people are sheep, and are perfectly willing to trade freedom for "safety" (thereby gaining neither). With this point I must agree -- witness the behavior of the vast majority of American's during covid.
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                            • Posted by nonconformist 5 months, 2 weeks ago
                              The wars would be costly, so, these agencies will need to raise their prices to pay for them. That will cause most people switch providers to someone not at war. Attack is always costlier than defense, so, maybe there is a case to be made that the attacker will suffer greater losses and their prices will need to go higher. So the attackers will lose more customers. Although, sometimes you have to attack to defend, so maybe this isn't going to work every time.

                              If the masses are too lazy to vote with their dollar and would not care about the corruption going on with their service provider then lord have mercy on us all.

                              However, I don't think the masses will act this way in my scenario. Trading freedom would not even going to be a choice. Any law would have to be formally proved first, which isn't going to happen because giving up freedom (becoming a slave) is not something that is even allowed by logic, at least by the line of reasoning that I imagine would back the whole thing. So, I don't think they would even be presented with the option. There is no voting in my system, so, a majority can't simply vote to push anything on the minority. Still, any attempt to force the loss of freedom would result in the unwilling customers switching providers. The new provider will go to war against the former one if they continue their shenanigans.

                              One additional protection would possibly be the fact that there are going to be more behaving security providers than the occasional non-behaving one. So, if a war was to break out between a couple of them, the behaving ones are going to join the right side and try to make money by bringing the misbehaving agency to 'justice'. The misbehaving one is probably not going to have too many friends just because of the questionable nature of their actions. So, the result would be a humiliating defeat of the misbehaving organization. Unless everybody suddenly becomes corrupt and conspires, which I guess is possible... In that case we are going to be fucked... and we would actually be in the same situation we are now (states preying on humanity). Though it is hard to see how corruption on such a great scale can all the sudden occur if these agencies would continue going around putting it down all the time.
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                            • Posted by nonconformist 5 months, 2 weeks ago
                              Free market stops conspiring by allowing new competitors to appear and bust the cartels. However, if the three branches conspire against the people, a fourth branch would be prevented from being created by independent parties, hence the cartel would not be busted.
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        • Posted by nonconformist 5 months, 2 weeks ago
          The only problem here is that they were taking liberties and giving deaths by being a part of a criminal organization known as the state, and even joining its violent appendage no less. You guys are so misguided...
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          • Posted by mccannon01 5 months, 2 weeks ago
            Everyone I know that served still believed they were volunteering to serve "The home of the brave and the land of the free" and the ideals the Republic represented. NONE of them served to enslave anyone. They were honest citizens and disparaging them is disgusting. Just because the state has moved away from its original intent due to corrupt and evil actors does not detract from the personal efforts of those who volunteered to serve presumably on our behalf. Notice as the corruption and immorality of the leadership becomes more known, the volunteering is tapering off.
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            • Posted by nonconformist 5 months, 2 weeks ago
              Yes, they are pretty well brainwashed. I do feel pity for them as well. However, they are grown up persons and must answer for their actions.

              I think the problem that you have is that you are also brainwashed. You should first figure out exactly the reason why I am disparaging them. I am sure if you are a reasonable person, you would eventually agree with me. By the way, the reason is they are actually helping in the enslavement. They are also accepting funds that were gained by larceny.

              The state has NEVER been non-corrupt. The whole idea of the state is evil. Volunteering levels are easy to restore with some application of brainwashing, gaslighting and bit of false flaggery.
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              • Posted by mccannon01 5 months, 2 weeks ago
                No sale. "I am sure if you are a reasonable person, you would eventually agree with me." Bullshit. A reasonable person may not agree with you, either. Don't blow smoke up my ass in an attempt to control my thinking. Far better to use facts than condescending pap. You're coming off like a control freak yourself. It seems the state isn't the only expert at gaslighting.
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                • Posted by nonconformist 5 months, 2 weeks ago
                  'attempt to control my thinking'

                  I guess I did try to give you guys a bit of your own medicine, didn't I? lol.

                  Although maybe not. It depends on what reasonable actually turns out to be... I meant to point out that, assuming my reasoning is correct, another person that invests the time into following the same reasoning will eventually reach the same conclusion: that what is really going on at the root of government/state is enslavement and that the state brainwashes its subjects into willingly obeying.

                  I would be interested in discussing and debating the details, if anyone cares.
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              • Posted by j_IR1776wg 5 months, 2 weeks ago
                Are you an anarchist?

                Anarchy /ăn′ər-kē/
                noun

                1) Absence of any form of political authority.
                2) Political disorder and confusion.
                3) Absence of any cohesive principle, such as a common standard or purpose.
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                • Posted by nonconformist 5 months, 2 weeks ago
                  I believe anarcho-capitalist is the more correct designation, although, I deviate a little bit from the main line ancaps.

                  By the way, I take offense at that definition. Such garbage statist propaganda. Just because there is no criminal gang running everything doesn't mean the result is 'disorder', 'confusion', etc.
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                  • Posted by j_IR1776wg 5 months, 2 weeks ago
                    You are very confused. Our cave-dwelling hunter-gather ancestors understood the benefits of mutual cooperation in hunting, fishing, and defense against other wild animals (lions, hyenas, etc.)

                    That mutual cooperation is what led to the concept and formation of governments.

                    Have you thought out what an anarcho-capitalist society would look like? If so, would you care to share?
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                    • Posted by nonconformist 5 months, 2 weeks ago
                      I would like to accuse you of the same thing (being confused by statist propaganda).

                      I am not against cooperation on equal terms. I am against 'fake' cooperation where one party has more privileges than the other, which is slavery.

                      The history of government from my point of view is this:
                      1. Agriculture and animal husbandry required that human nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes settle down. By the way, they were not cave dwelling, that's made up nonsense.
                      2. Settling down made them sitting ducks for predation, whereas before that was not possible due to them moving randomly across vast distances.
                      3. Criminal gangs appeared that started to prey on the settled tribes (out of tribes themselves and other tribes).
                      4. Warlords appeared that controlled areas and kicked out competing warlords.
                      5. These warlords later came up with excuses for their behavior, this is where statist propaganda started to appear, with warlords calling themselves kings and such.
                      6. There were rebellions, which caused the warlords to come up with more ingenious ways to control their subjects, such as brainwashing, etc.
                      7. Eventually new more efficient systems of organization of the state appeared, such as democracy, etc.

                      Of course I have thought about the society I would want to live in. I would love to share, but there are a couple of problems:
                      1. I did not yet finish fully developing all the aspects of it
                      2. There is not enough space in this post to explain it in great detail

                      In summary, the society would be voluntarist, no violence or fraud would be allowed except in defense against such. There would be no voting. Laws would be derived logically by academia or something similar (possibly financially supported by security companies). There would be no made up laws but only those that can be proven to follow from basic universally accepted axioms. Laws would be directly tied to damage caused by one party to another. Laws would be considered universal and eternal, except when discovered and proven to be incorrectly derived. Security services/law enforcement would be provided by private companies. Some cost of enforcement would be paid by law violators (as is reasonable). The security services will want to go after criminals because they would be paid for doing so by the criminals themselves (after capture). There would be no prisons, only labor camps, no punishment but repayment of damage. There would be no death penalty. Judges would be arbiters, there would be no case law. There would be no borders, except where reasonable, such as around your property. There would be no war except between security companies when irreconcilable disagreement occurs regarding law proof. Such things would be rare and only occur when a security company goes rogue, which would be highly unlikely. There would be no taxes, only insurance-type payments to your favorite security provider/etc, unless you can do that yourself and don't need the service or you like living life on the edge.

                      By the way, I actually don't like the term 'anarcho-capitalist'. I would prefer other terms, such as 'free market absolutist' or 'somebody not wanting to be a slave'.
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    • Posted by $ allosaur 5 months, 2 weeks ago
      The Home Of The Brave And The Land Of The Free is now being run by that other dumb bastard "country"~~so to speak.
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      • Posted by amhunt 5 months, 2 weeks ago
        After the 2020 election I made some polo shirts with the caption:

        America
        Land of the coward
        And home of the slave

        I hope I was wrong -- we will see.
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        • Posted by $ allosaur 5 months, 2 weeks ago
          Think we will be a bit better off for at least 4 years if Trump can beat an assured attempted lib steal this year.
          Hope he picks a strong presidential material running mate this time around.
          Me dino was quietly considering Pence to be a Mr. Bland from the get-go.
          Never imagined he'd backstab Trump like a RINO coward.
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          • Posted by amhunt 5 months, 2 weeks ago
            I agree with you. And I am extremely disappointed (disgusted) with Pence. The more I read and hear about Vivek Ramaswamy the more I like.
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            • Posted by $ allosaur 5 months, 2 weeks ago
              I've listened to Ramaswamy speak during appearances on Fox News and have agreed with everything he says.
              Out of curiosity just looked him up. He was born an anchor baby of Hindu Indian parents in Cincinnati and I'd vote for him as POTUS if he ever won a primary. Would I ever vote for him in a primary? That would depend on who the other candidates are and what I know about them.
              I'm a MAGA dino who is accursed of the racism what D.E.I. Democrats really are.
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              • Posted by amhunt 5 months, 2 weeks ago
                He would make an interesting VP choice for Trump -- the Demopublicans would have to think very carefully about removing Trump. Of course they would then viciously attack him!
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                • Posted by 5 months, 2 weeks ago
                  I'll be very surprised if Trump picks someone with a functioning brain like VR.
                  More likely he'll choose a former Democrat socialist female from ultra-socialist Hawaii
                  (that will gain nothing in electoral votes at all and who will betray Trump's supposed
                  goals at every opportunity.)
                  His choice for VP may cause me to vote for NOTA.
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                  • Posted by amhunt 5 months, 2 weeks ago
                    Sad to say, I think you are right. But one can hope.
                    There is the possibility that he will realize that if he does choose a "former Democrat socialist female" it will embolden the demopublicans to more fiercely attack him -- a "reverse" KH effect -- chuckle!
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    • Posted by nonconformist 5 months, 2 weeks ago
      Yes, I always thought that asking for death is a bit defeatist.

      The second problem with that quote is that it seems to imply that liberty can be given. Bullshit. Liberty can only be taken away. So, it should be 'Don't enslave me or I kill you'.

      Except, even that is a bit of a miss. I would maybe try other options first, such as persuasion, conflict avoidance and finally enslavement of the offending party. Why kill them when you can put them to work doing something useful? Maybe after a while they will finally give up on their delusions and be more cooperative.
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  • Posted by $ Thoritsu 5 months, 2 weeks ago
    It is hilarious, the people here in MA celebrating the Farce of July, when they 1) hate the Second Amendment, and 2) would never abide a moment of inconvenience for any amount of freedom. Complete hypocrisy. They just love the day off work.

    My soccer buddy texted a video of Chelmsford Minutemen stopping ins a parade, and firing a volley of muskets. This would have been a massive approval morass, except black powder rifles are not firearms Federally (ATF-totalitarians) or in the Peoples Republic of MA.
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    • Posted by Flootus5 5 months, 2 weeks ago
      The people of the "Commonwealth" have the least excuse for not understanding what the hell 1776 was all about. I grew up in Winchester, MA - a hop, skip, and a short 10 speed cycle over to Lexington and Concord. When I was a teenager back in the 60's and early '70's, I used to go the Green and the Bridge on my own and contemplate what those events were all about. In particular that which would convince a person to risk his life to forcibly say no to tyrants.

      I more or less figured it out at a certain level back then, and just thanked history for what went down and created this nation and the ideals it embraced. However, I could then see that Massachusetts was on the path of stupidity and left. Have been looking for that place ever since. A Gulch? After trying New Hampshire, Arizona, Nevada, Wyoming, and then Nevada again and with the passage of 50 years, the realization that we are there again on the Green and at the Bridge is all too real. And no one is too old if the cognizance is there.
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      • Posted by 5 months, 2 weeks ago
        "Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston!
        The war is inevitable—and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.

        It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace—
        but there is no peace. The war is actually begun!
        The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms!
        Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle?"
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  • Posted by xba739 5 months, 2 weeks ago
    Be careful what you wish for. Your last civil war was the worst of times for many people and that is an understatement. Speak to Iranians or Irish or Vietnamese. War is written about in heroic language but in reality it is chaos death and misery. It would st your country back fifty years
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    • Posted by 5 months, 2 weeks ago
      Indeed, the last such conflict against tyranny put us here,
      needing another conflict against the same tyranny.
      Turning the other cheek to tyranny for the past 160 years
      has solved nothing and given the tyrants more and more power.
      The tyrants use force against American people constantly and
      now won't even allow peaceful demonstrations against their actions.
      Do you have a rational and peaceful solution to remove such
      unconstitutional tyranny today?
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    • Posted by mhubb 5 months, 2 weeks ago
      fully aware of the War Between the States

      back then people could mostly fend for themselves, except in big cities.

      today such a war would have millions starving as food shipments broke down
      medicines would be in short supply

      would be ugly, like an EMP attack
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  • Posted by tutor-turtle 5 months, 2 weeks ago
    We can put our foot down and face the consequences, come what may.
    Or we shut our pie hole and and resign ourselves to slavery, both economic and physical if the election is stolen a second time.
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