by Brandon Smith
Every Fourth of July, the temptation for many writers within the liberty movement is to reflect on the despair of freedoms lost, the philosophical ideals of generations gone by and the rage we all feel at the tyrannical mechanizations of the power elite operating with impunity today. It is easy for us to get caught up in the analysis of the thing. It is easy for us to live within the theoretical and intellectual boundaries of our own heads, to debate the merits of that which has already come to pass and hypothesize over crises yet to come. As disturbing as the ongoing collapse of America truly is, for many people, experiencing it academically feels much safer and easier than placing our feet on the Earth and dealing with it in a concrete manner.
This Fourth of July, I grow weary of the intellectual mind games and political postulations of ideological purists and sunshine patriots. It has never been enough to simply fantasize about reduced government, free markets, third-party candidates, protected civil liberties, etc. It has never been enough to simply back a Libertarian candidate, march around with signs and slogans, or even march around open carrying one’s firearm. These are not solutions to the problem. They are not true acts of defiance, because they are all tactics that function only within the parameters of the game. To defy the game, one must stop playing the game. The activist methods currently in play today serve only to make ourselves feel better about the darker truth of our situation. They give us false hope, not real hope.
This Fourth of July, I’m not going to talk about what we have lost. At this point, anyone worth a damn already knows what we have lost. Those who remain oblivious, in light of the recent avalanche of government scandals being exposed and the brash and unapologetic admissions of the political elite, are oblivious because they wish to be so. They are a waste of time and oxygen. If they really wanted to know the fate of this country, then they would be reading this article now and working to change things for the better.
