Liberty or Tyranny

Or Chaos

It's a safe bet that many of us are searching out the depth of our souls in these difficult times.

Through the years, I've understood myself best by having deep conversations with another person or through deep journaling. I have stacks of notebooks. Although I advise against making Facebook or blogs your diary, sometimes what is most personal and deep is also the most universal.

At this point, I'm enduring the government's overreach and corruption like this artic blast—hunkered down in the heat, relying on my limited resources to keep myself, my dog, and my cat warm and fed.

The government wants me to rely more on it and believe in its motherly-like, soft tyranny that's growing stronger and turning harder; unlike the weather our nation is enduring right now, our government, now almost entirely controlled by the Deep State, has self-awareness and a plan to keep us on our place. It is as normal and natural as the change of seasons that governments will get out of the banks and flood into your life, that it will get out of the fireplace and burn down your shelter.

Governments have killed more people than war. Historically, it's only a fraction of human history that people have true freedom. The desire to dominate people is the norm, whether by chiefs, kings, queens, emperors, dictators, Prime Ministers, or Presidents. And the USA was unusual for a few years in that we lived in liberty.

The soft tyranny turning hard is quickly becoming a physical threat to us. A nonsensical obsession with renewable energy weakens our electrical grid. Blackouts are unavoidable and will put the poor, single parents, and elderly in an unsafe situation. If that's not enough, sheer stupidity drives inflation into the sky, which is a "tax" on people in poverty and those with fixed incomes. Armies of IRS agents are poised and aided by AI to audit everyone's taxes (AI won't miss a thing). Thus, our government and the corporations it partners with can burn your money on DEI programs or send it to Ukraine (to protect its interests, not yours) instead of burning coal or removing insane regulations that practically disallow new power plants, oil refineries, or the building of nuclear plants.

Don't think that my current disposition makes me docile or that I will go quietly into the frozen night with velvet chains in the FEMA camp for the "common good."

Just because I want peace and tranquility doesn't enslave me to ridiculous notions that make me harmless. Like bad weather, government overreach intends to keep me in the house, not because I don't want frostbite but because they want to diminish my carbon footprint by limiting my freedom so I don't use the tiny amount of energy eeked out of the wind turbines. I still hope and perhaps naively believe the sun will come out; a semblance of freedom will dawn upon us all again.

But is that not a problem, believing freedom is natural and will happen independently, rising like the sun? I still need to oust the stubborn remnants of my normalcy bias from my mind. I must embrace that freedom is a garden that I must tend, walled off and protected from natural chaos that tyranny will utilize to dominate. The price is vigilance. The paradox is freedom is not free. So, is my hope a fairytale? I don't know. Can I walk any longer in this pleasant fiction of diminishing hope?

Like my mom's flower garden that needs tending, seeds she lovingly buried bloom every spring; though she is now with God and long gone from the garden she so dearly loved, I am reminded of her when I see her flowers blooming. I stand as my shadow darkens a little patch of her garden that I have not tended or protected very well since she departed this world. Her flowers bloom like freedom. Freedom, as life, is powerful. And I sit here in this nation and relish the beauty of someone else's sacrifice, risk, vision, and work.

I can't be too self-critical. I have fought in my way, the modern civilized way, with the "pen," which is said to be "mightier than the sword." I have, at times, tirelessly fought intellectually in online debates and, more subtly, in my bestselling book Blood & Soul. And in other places, with my "pen" on social media for over 20 years. I have conclusively defeated many freedom-haters dressed in the sheep's clothing of liberalism in online debates, and I have rung the liberty bell with their Marxist noggins.

The Planneddemic showed what extremes governments and corporations will go to in real life. They have stretched the boundaries of their influence and control. They have moved the Overton Window so quickly that it's dizzying.

I lose sleep as I ponder what happened in 2020, like not being allowed to gather at a church building on Easter Sunday, that your license plate would be noted in Kentucky. You'd be quarantined for 14 days, and drones in NYC were on loudspeakers warning people to "social distance" that drones are monitoring hikers in the UK. People were being locked up for not practicing social distancing. People were being thrown off subways for not wearing a mask.

I'm reading my bible a lot more lately. I'm still paying attention to the news, but it drains me. I need that verse, "Be still and know that I am God." I'm not the least bit happy-go-lucky or Pollyanna about it, nor am I a Chicken Little. And I won't sound the alarm for every speculative thought stream that courses through my mind like the boy who cried wolf.

I don't want to waste my firepower. I'm keeping my powder dry right now, mostly. My intellectual guns are up. Perhaps that's all we need right now. Because if I climb the roof of the town square and raise the "Don't Tread On Me" flag and stand my ground, the first thing I think is I will lose everything: my job, my income …I won't be able to pay my bills. My life would change. That kind of action would take me out of this war.

As it is now, I post online. At least I can do that. I don't want to pull that type of trigger yet. Is that the last resort? Or is that civil disobedience?

We are on a different road now. Hopefully, it's not the Road to Serfdom. But we need to go back. The point of no return is fast approaching if not already here. It's the same old road to tyranny – for the "common good," they say.

I'm not sure if there is a point before the horizon when everything goes completely Mad Max, a time when we will have to hit the ditch at a roadblock designed to catch the "unvaccinated" or "the ones who won't use the right pronouns," or "the ones who posted something offensive," whip out a firearm (previously lost in a boating accident), and trade led with a government henchman and fight to the end. Are our intellectual bullets even hitting the target worthy of the thoughts? Are we there yet? Are we close? Will we dodge this bullet aimed at our freedom? If we do nothing, will it near-miss us like a comet streaking by the Earth?

I admit that I don't want my life interrupted. That's what I'm fighting inside. I want to go back to normal. I want to go to work. I want to cycle on the trail and woods. I want to write my books and read. I want to learn. But is a semblance of freedom now a dream gone into the mist of memory? Or is it on hold?

Are we willing to say, "We Mutually Pledge To Each Other Our Lives, Our Fortunes, And Our Sacred Honor" at this point? I want to start brushfires of freedom. But as I look around, I see few minds with the kindling needed.

It may come to that, and we've all been caught with our pants down.

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Thank you for reading my Substack, and remember...

Proverbs 25:2

Click here for a list of last year's posts on my Substack.

One more thing: I'm working on recording audio and some video on my Substack. I'm testing mics and techniques and need to update my video editing software. I have a lot to figure out.