It's about courage!
by Ross Elliot
Lots of comments lately about the effectiveness of voting, compromise in politics, the stupidity of the consensus, et al, blahdy, blahdy, blah...
So, what's the point of participating in the democratic process? Well, prima facie, not much. Except the fillip of knowing that at LEAST you tried to make a small dent in Fortress Statism.
Ponder this: did the citizens of Germany know they were living in a police state within a few years of the Nazi's rise? Yes. Did the Russians under communism? Yes. Have all the peoples of all the world's police states and "benign" consensus dictatorships known that the path they were following was doomed? Yes, probably. So, why didn't they just shake them off and institute new systems? Well, there are lots of secondary reasons, but most certain is a lack of courage.
The courage to swim against the tide, to be ridiculed, shunned. The courage to give up lifelong partnerships and position. The courage to refuse the dole, subsidy and legal privilege, and to stand on your own, when all around you are wallowing in their addictions. The courage to be prepared to be struck down socially, politically, financially, or in some cases, physically. To give your life for the SAKE of your life.
Sure, organisation, enlightenment, resources, all play important parts in shrugging, but the prime mover is the courage to take the first step. To actually seek out a proper solution and to do all of the above, because once the break is made, it's almost impossible to go back.
Thing is, in our time, not enough westerners have suffered enough at the hands of the consensus and of bad philosophy to find the courage to make the ultimate choice. The magnificence of capitalism's corrective mechanisms, and lucky pragmatism, have always saved them.
What IS important, is that when the time comes, when enough people have found the courage to say enough IS enough, then there must be a group of leaders, intellectuals, freedom fighters in waiting, who can pick up the torch and light the way.
NB: but that doesn't mean we can't have a damn good time amongst ourselves while we're waiting :-)
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