FREEMANSPERSPECTIVE
I closed a recent post by saying this:
If you’re not willing to suffer for your beliefs, you’re not much of a believer.
To that I will add that the statement remains true, no matter what types of beliefs we’re talking about. Either we have the guts to stand by our beliefs or we don’t. (Which is why a lot of people avoid them – they haven’t the guts to choose.) Holding to our beliefs under fire is the crucial test – not of our beliefs, but of ourselves.
Anytime you move the world forward in some way, you will receive a backlash. In a world like ours – a world neurotically devoted to stasis – that is almost unavoidable.
Have you ever noticed that when people complain about tax collectors or the police, they look around first and lower their voices? The reason why is ultra-obvious: They expect those groups to seek out and hurt people who oppose them.
Why We Suffer
In societies that dedicate themselves to law and punishment, people learn to neurotically avoid all blame. That’s the big problem with “law” – it demands that you remember tens of thousands of rules and punishes you if you fail to obey them. That leaves all of us subject to punishment at every moment of our lives. And that’s a recipe for stress and neurosis.
On top of that, people very well understand that by changing their opinions or actions, they are judging their previous choices as “bad.” And bad, of course, means that you can expect punishment.
Since everyone in a “modern society” grows up learning that changing opinions invites punishment, they come to instinctively avoid it.
What all of this means is this:
For all practical purposes, progress is grounds for punishment, and talk of progress is both suspicious and dangerous.
Yet here we are… and here all sane, healthy people are… trying to move forward.
The sad truth is this:
If you wish to progress, those people who’ve bought into the system will instantly see you as a threat and will therefore oppose you.
Sure, these people should grow up and do better, but the system has trained them in this behavior all their lives. My dad, for example, was a very bright man and definitely not a coward. But when he once asked me what I was doing that evening, I mentioned that I might attend a meeting of libertarians, and he said, “Ah, crap. You’re gonna go to jail.”
My dad may have leapt to a conclusion, but he very rightly understood that going against the status quo brings trouble.
(I didn’t actually go that night, and believe it or not, I’ve only attended one or two official libertarian meetings ever.)
The Price We Must Pay
As I say, in the current situation, moves forward will be opposed, and that means you’ll have to accept pain. That sucks, but it doesn’t suck worse than the alternative, which is a neutered stasis in a permanent semi-slavery.
And please don’t think you can avoid the pain and still make any meaningful progress. What’s going on when we move forward is that we suffer for our virtues. The only way to avoid that is to turn away from those virtues. And that means diminishing ourselves.
Don’t do it – your life is worth more than that.
We may as well accept that we’re enemies of the status quo, and our lives therefore involve risk.
Anyone who is serious about goodness becomes an enemy of the system. Anyone who is serious about liberty is already an enemy of the system. We can either accept that or evade that, but it will not go away.
If we accept it, we make ourselves better and we eventually make the world better.
If we evade it, we degrade ourselves and we degrade the world.
Let’s choose not to be harmless serfs. We’re so much better than that.
Paul Rosenberg
[Editor’s Note: Paul Rosenberg is the outside-the-Matrix author of FreemansPerspective.com, a site dedicated to economic freedom, personal independence and privacy. He is also the author of The Great Calendar, a report that breaks down our complex world into an easy-to-understand model. Click here to get your free copy.]
Beautiful & well written article. “If you’re not willing to suffer for your beliefs, you’re not much of a believer.”
I would like to introduce you to someone, also outside-the-Matrix, who is living what you are talking about.
http://themercurialworld.blogspot.com/. (Read the sidebar).
This is what his commitment is to the Truth. He tattooed it on his forehead,( He has suffered much to do this) ‘I Am That I Am’. The symbols on his head, collectively, are a foolproof formula for the destruction of ignorance which is the birth of enlightenment.
This is the true manifestation of undiluted courage & guts.
I cannot begin to tell you how it has affected his life.
It has been on there for 25 years.
He made a decision, ‘No more business as usual.’
His commitment is to the death, obviously.
25 years ago, when I met Him, He told me something I didn’t understand then but do now. He said, “I AM Self-Governed.
Thank you for your support & Rays of Light.
We may as well accept that we’re enemies of the status quo…
Indeed ! And the current legal system that you describe so accurately in terms of it’s effect …
That’s the big problem with “law” – it demands that you remember tens of thousands of rules and punishes you if you fail to obey them. That leaves all of us subject to punishment at every moment of our lives.
… is one insidious aspect of the status quo that must be changed.
Examine carefully everything you have ever been told about our system of “law”.
There is a way out of the trap. Common-law does not presume to hold any authority or power over individuals when they conduct their daily business in a peaceful manner.
https://ncrenegade.com//editorial/how-will-we-govern-ourselves-after-we-win/
If the purpose for the belief in the truth that one holds is to be self governed, one does not know the truth. Lucifer’s desire was to be self governed and all of those who search for this path will destroy themselves because he is a destroyer of God’s creation. The only Truth that will set you free from the enslavement of the worldly system is found by those who become servants to Jesus Christ.
So, Jeff, we’re to believe in Jesus and accept slavery? Is that what you really mean to infer? Are you saying Patrick Henry was wrong? He was right to be a Christian but wrong to stop bending the knee to King George?
I understand your leaning on the old ‘all doing what is right in their own eyes’ as being invalid, but self-governance involves making moral choices and accepting responsibility for those choices. I fail to see how that conflicts with the teachings of Jesus.
Governments and most religions (including Christianity) tend toward ‘control’ of the masses and most veer far afield from the actual teachings, taken in context, of the Scriptures.
As for me, I agree with Patrick Henry, give me liberty or give me death. I am entirely capable of self governance and see no conflict between that and following the Master’s teachings.
I agree with you, based on history, that we are unlikely to attain our goal of being free of enslavement to a worldly system so long as we are in the world, but we should not fail to heed the words of Jefferson when he stated, “Rebellion to tyranny is obedience to God.”
I believe Scripture is the foundation on which all wisdom, all truth is established. And according to Scripture, God does indeed choose those who govern over us. So men like Jefferson, Washington, Henry, Adams, and Franklin lived in a time where God chose to do a new work in that generation. A nation was founded on godly precepts. There were ongoing works of revival in the early days of this young nation.
Today God also choose the leaders of our nation. But our generation is not like that of Jefferson or Henry. God sent Isaiah to warn Israel of their disobedience and a call to repent.
Isa 3:1
For behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts,
Takes away from Jerusalem and from Judah
The stock and the store,
The whole supply of bread and the whole supply of water;
Isa 3:2
The mighty man and the man of war,
The judge and the prophet,
And the diviner and the elder;
Isa 3:3
The captain of fifty and the honorable man,
The counselor and the skillful artisan,
And the expert enchanter.
Isa 3:4
“I will give children to be their princes,
And babes shall rule over them.
Isa 3:5
The people will be oppressed,
Every one by another and every one by his neighbor;
The child will be insolent toward the elder,
And the base toward the honorable.”
Isa 3:6
When a man takes hold of his brother
In the house of his father, saying,
“You have clothing;
You be our ruler,
And let these ruins be under your power,”fn
………..
Isa 3:11
Woe to the wicked! It shall be ill with him,
For the reward of his hands shall be given him.
Isa 3:12
As for My people, children are their oppressors,
And women rule over them.
O My people! Those who lead you cause you to err,
And destroy the way of your paths.”
As the Lord took away the Godly men of Israel during the time of judgment so it seems like we too are entering into a similar time where women and insolent children oppress what is left of this once moral nation.
There is a stream of thought amongst the liberty movement which is not of Christ but of Satan. Those whose goal is to remove all authority over this nation seeks to destroy this nation. Again look to the generation of Washington and Jefferson, in that revolution blessings were the product of belief in the truth. And across the Atlantic, the French Revolution turned out altogether different. That revolution was founded on Satan’s lie and they received the just curses for the path they chose.
Many church people today believe that there is a difference between the Christ of the Old Testament and the New Testament. They form their own god at their own peril. Christ is the same always. He slays the wicked and saves the humble.
Bob…
In terms of self governance, I was speaking to the individuals relationship with Christ or Satan. If it is the goal of the individual to live without the rule of Christ in their life, then that individual is like Lucifer, self ruled. Without God, we are doomed.
Agreed. My problem with many Christians, though, is that they walk the aisle, say the ‘sinners’ prayer, and then go back to business as usual as if nothing happened.
We must not only resist evil, we must fight evil. To do otherwise is to condone evil. When I look at most churches in America today … Just saying.
Blessings to you, brother.
“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
Bonhoeffer
Also etched in my lower receiver.
Sweet! We ARE of like mind!
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