Richard Fernandez had an interesting post at the beginning of this week that discussed what I’ve long thought is the fundamental problem with preserving liberty:
Paradoxically, maybe Barack Obama is right about one thing. Capitalism is too preoccupied with doing things. It leaves governance as an afterthought. It puts the “pursuit of happiness†front and center and goes about its business trusting to the existence of a civil society or the continued maintenance of a social contract. People working one hundred hour weeks have no time to think about Roland Burris II. But the problem is that people like Roland Burris II have lots of time to think about them. People like Blag probably think of nothing but. And therein lies the rub. Capitalism has this blind spot. Obama is right about that. While government was small and largely charged with keeping the bandidos at bay and collecting the garbage it was possible to leave governance to take care of itself, except for the time just before and after elections. But with the increasing power of the state and its growing propensity to tax, perhaps it is no longer possible for the productive people in America to simply go about their tasks while leaving Washington to amuse itself.
Read the whole thing. It’s excellent. Activism is very time consuming. During the run up to the 2008 election, it was like having a second full time job. My weekends were spent working gun shows, and weeknights talking to gun clubs and gun owners. If not that, then making calls for the local pro-gun politicians. If it were not for the fact that Bitter was not employed, I doubt I could have dedicated as much to it as I did. The 2010 elections will be much harder on our time if, God willing, we’re both employed.
Activism is difficult for the productive, and people with families. It’s easy for those who make their careers as community organizers. We on the right need to start thinking about better ways to organize, that reflect the reality that most of us have jobs and families. Richard is right. We can’t afford any longer to leave Washington and the left to their own devices.
This is a great point, and a reason some former friends just can’t stand me anymore. They don’t want to hear about what the busybodies are doing or be called out for their inaction. “Of course it’s wrong but I have some gardening to do. Thinking like this gives me a headache.”
It is like fighting guerillas. The best way is to climb into their safe zones and dig them out, hit them where they live. So, conservatives have to get going on the attack if we are to survive.
The English are in such a mess partly because they are so good at “muddling through”. Their passivity has been used against them, and it’s about too bloody late to change anything.
Their future is ours unless we get off the dime.
This is why demonstrations are largely a leftwing program, because they can afford to devote themselves full-time to the cause, what with the trust funds that enable them to not work. Most people aren’t interested in public policy; it’s not fun. If you want to change things, you have to entertain the masses in the hopes that you might slip in some education.
If I am going to have to leave my good, decent, honest, hard-woking, productive, patriotic lifstyle to fight traitors who want to disarm us, tax us, and enslave us under unconstitutional socialism, then I am not going to waste my time trying to “out-stuff” them at the rigged voting booths (reference Franken’s fabrication of votes in Minnesota). No sir; I shall do as our Founding Fathers did: grab my arms, join the militia and make violent war upon traitors and tyrants! “An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!” – Patrick Henry
This reminds me of the joke I heard this January 20th: “Hey, did you hear two million people showed up to watch the inauguration? Yeah, I guess about a half dozen of them had to miss work for it.”
It’s VERY hard to find time for actively engaging in politics; I do automobile racing, shooting, gaming, play guitar in a band, I’m trying to get back into Judo, in short I’m trying to live my life and I just want to be left alone. The way people around here are talking, I think by the time you see the productive class organizing, Sebastian, it’s going to be into fire team / squad / platoon…