Why does your enlightenment demand that I sacrifice?
Monday - 30Mar2009 Filed in: Can't stop the signal&Morality & Modern Life
This is a page from the original version of Pagan Vigil. There are some formatting differences. Originally published at www.paganvigil.com/C1415225799/E20090330134047
Make your choice
I grew up watching Star Trek.
More than that, I grew up reading some of the best fiction available. But I wasn't picky. I'd read almost anything. To this day, if I eat alone, I'm reading.
Yes, the literature was great. Arthur Conan-Doyle. Mark Twain. Jules Verne.
Because that was the stuff that really got me going. Science fiction.
Oh sure, fantasy was great. But it was science fiction that was just around the corner. It was science fiction that showed what could happen. It was science fiction that captured my dreams early. It was science fiction that made me a libertarian.
Before the fall of Richard Nixon, it seemed to this kid like anything was possible. Tommorrowland was out there and it was bursting with abundance. Before you know it, we were all going to have flying cars in the garage. There was going to be a spaceport on the Moon. Mars would have it's bases and eventually it's cities. We'd mine the asteroids and explore the deepest oceans. And if we met the UNKNOWN, well, we'd take it's measure and move forward.
Just because we could you see. It's what Red Blooded Americans did. And if someone didn't like it, we'd spit in their eye and do it anyway. Twice on Sunday.
So I grew up watching Star Trek. I loved those characters. There was Kirk, American Eagle to the core, and not above pulling the occasional flim-flam to get his way. Spock, the walking encyclopedia who divorced himself from his emotions in the name of reason. McCoy the empathizer. And Scotty, the worker of miracles and my personal favorite.
It all flowed you see. It all fit. It was going to happen.
I was four years old when we landed on the Moon. A very precocious four, with Asperger syndrome yet. Patterns, especially predictable patterns are vitally important to Aspies. Breathing is more important, but not by much.
The moonshot was the first concrete evidence that my future dreams were unfolding exactly as they were supposed to.
But then Nixon fell, undone by his own hubris and the political undertows of a schizoid American public.
And the dreams had to get smaller. We had to, we were guilty of trampling other dreams. Americans were told that we weren't allowed to be exceptional anymore.
The American dream would have to be sacrificed to atone for our sins.
Anything Americans had in abundance, especially "white" Americans, had to have been stolen from someone else. Americans didn't deserve their Dream. Americans didn't deserve the future. Americans didn't deserve to prosper.
We pulled back inside ourselves.
Until Reagan told us it was morning.
But after Reagan, we retreated again. We let ourselves be limited by our fears. We let go of the future. We almost forgot that freedom makes us great.
And then 9-11 happened. That would have destroyed most other nations. It just pissed us off. By October 1st, 2001, Americans were ready to take the world apart and put it back together in our own image. And we almost set out to do exactly that and be damned with the consequences.
But no, we had to be multi-lateral and multi-national and multi-phasic and multi-tasking and multi-cultural and multi-apologetic.
Freedom and liberty have always been our beacons. That's when Americans are at our best. That's when we change the world for the better.
But when we take our eyes off those beacons, we lose track of the future. We undo the things that make us stronger.
In the name of fairness, we subsidize water and power to millionaire farmers. We build cities in the desert that can't support them. And then when the supply gets tight, do we let the prices rise? No, we put in low flow toilets.
We start legislating the color of cars and the tire pressure.
We argue if kids taking nude pictures of themselves should be charged with child pornography.
We give up our responsibility to an ever expanding state.
We lose the future.
We lose the Dream.
I say we take it back. Not the old Americans can trump anything dream, but the older one. The one that invokes Lady Liberty and her sister Lady Freedom.
We can make things better tomorrow. But not if we limit ourselves today.
Raise your eyes above your feet.
Raise your eyes above the horizon.
Raise your eyes to the STARS.
That's where we need to be.
I'm taking my dreams back. You can share them if you want. But don't buy into this sacrifice "for the greater good."
If you choose to sacrifice to make things better, you should make the choice of what to sacrifice, how to sacrifice, and when to sacrifice. It's your choice.
Not the choice of some idiot Congresscritter or deluded FedGov functionary.
Otherwise it's theft. Not just of the sacrifice, but of your dreams. It's theft of your tomorrows. Take your choices back. Don't let the State steal your future.
You want hope? You want change?
It starts and ends with your choice.
Make it a damn good one.
More than that, I grew up reading some of the best fiction available. But I wasn't picky. I'd read almost anything. To this day, if I eat alone, I'm reading.
Yes, the literature was great. Arthur Conan-Doyle. Mark Twain. Jules Verne.
Because that was the stuff that really got me going. Science fiction.
Oh sure, fantasy was great. But it was science fiction that was just around the corner. It was science fiction that showed what could happen. It was science fiction that captured my dreams early. It was science fiction that made me a libertarian.
Before the fall of Richard Nixon, it seemed to this kid like anything was possible. Tommorrowland was out there and it was bursting with abundance. Before you know it, we were all going to have flying cars in the garage. There was going to be a spaceport on the Moon. Mars would have it's bases and eventually it's cities. We'd mine the asteroids and explore the deepest oceans. And if we met the UNKNOWN, well, we'd take it's measure and move forward.
Just because we could you see. It's what Red Blooded Americans did. And if someone didn't like it, we'd spit in their eye and do it anyway. Twice on Sunday.
So I grew up watching Star Trek. I loved those characters. There was Kirk, American Eagle to the core, and not above pulling the occasional flim-flam to get his way. Spock, the walking encyclopedia who divorced himself from his emotions in the name of reason. McCoy the empathizer. And Scotty, the worker of miracles and my personal favorite.
It all flowed you see. It all fit. It was going to happen.
I was four years old when we landed on the Moon. A very precocious four, with Asperger syndrome yet. Patterns, especially predictable patterns are vitally important to Aspies. Breathing is more important, but not by much.
The moonshot was the first concrete evidence that my future dreams were unfolding exactly as they were supposed to.
But then Nixon fell, undone by his own hubris and the political undertows of a schizoid American public.
And the dreams had to get smaller. We had to, we were guilty of trampling other dreams. Americans were told that we weren't allowed to be exceptional anymore.
The American dream would have to be sacrificed to atone for our sins.
Anything Americans had in abundance, especially "white" Americans, had to have been stolen from someone else. Americans didn't deserve their Dream. Americans didn't deserve the future. Americans didn't deserve to prosper.
We pulled back inside ourselves.
Until Reagan told us it was morning.
But after Reagan, we retreated again. We let ourselves be limited by our fears. We let go of the future. We almost forgot that freedom makes us great.
And then 9-11 happened. That would have destroyed most other nations. It just pissed us off. By October 1st, 2001, Americans were ready to take the world apart and put it back together in our own image. And we almost set out to do exactly that and be damned with the consequences.
But no, we had to be multi-lateral and multi-national and multi-phasic and multi-tasking and multi-cultural and multi-apologetic.
Freedom and liberty have always been our beacons. That's when Americans are at our best. That's when we change the world for the better.
But when we take our eyes off those beacons, we lose track of the future. We undo the things that make us stronger.
In the name of fairness, we subsidize water and power to millionaire farmers. We build cities in the desert that can't support them. And then when the supply gets tight, do we let the prices rise? No, we put in low flow toilets.
We start legislating the color of cars and the tire pressure.
We argue if kids taking nude pictures of themselves should be charged with child pornography.
We give up our responsibility to an ever expanding state.
We lose the future.
We lose the Dream.
I say we take it back. Not the old Americans can trump anything dream, but the older one. The one that invokes Lady Liberty and her sister Lady Freedom.
We can make things better tomorrow. But not if we limit ourselves today.
Raise your eyes above your feet.
Raise your eyes above the horizon.
Raise your eyes to the STARS.
That's where we need to be.
I'm taking my dreams back. You can share them if you want. But don't buy into this sacrifice "for the greater good."
If you choose to sacrifice to make things better, you should make the choice of what to sacrifice, how to sacrifice, and when to sacrifice. It's your choice.
Not the choice of some idiot Congresscritter or deluded FedGov functionary.
Otherwise it's theft. Not just of the sacrifice, but of your dreams. It's theft of your tomorrows. Take your choices back. Don't let the State steal your future.
You want hope? You want change?
It starts and ends with your choice.
Make it a damn good one.
Posted: Mon - March 30, 2009 at 01:40 PM
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