Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Few men desire Liberty
Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.
Gaius Sallustius Crispus, generally known simply as Sallust, (86-34 BC), a Roman historian
I first heard this quote about 10 years ago and it has puzzled me ever since. Could it be true that most men truly wish to be ruled by someone else? It sounds absurd to me. I have never felt this way. How is it that a rational-thinking person could want to be controlled by someone other than himself? Why would an adult not want to make his own decisions and guide his own life based on what he/she thinks is best for themselves?
This idea demotes people to positions of servitude in exchange for lack of personal responsibility. AHA! Perhaps that's the ticket. That sounds like an entitlement attitude, you have the power, you give me what I need and you take responsibility for whatever goes wrong. Me, I'm just a small piece of this puzzle and I cannot be expected to govern myself.
Liberty requires responsibility. To be free you must accept the responsibility for yourself and your actions. If you make a mistake, you must endure the consequences of that mistake. If you make a great decision, you can reap the rewards for that decision. It's not rocket science to understand this.
And therein lies the real issue, I suspect. Not many people have a problem accepting rewards for good decision-making. Everyone likes a pat on the back or a bonus check or public praise for doing a job well. Not many are as accepting of criticism or negative feedback for doing a job poorly. Criticism affects their feelings of self-esteem, which liberals know is the wrong way to treat people. Everyone is a winner and winning raises everyone's esteem and there are no losers in our utopian, progressive world.
Does this indicate a weak person? Or a weak society? Perhaps so. I remember times during my childhood years when I felt unjustly punished for something I had done and tried to pass the blame onto someone else. The Family Circus comic strip even has a pseudo character called "Not Me", for a common child's response to who did something wrong, and I pulled that card on more than one occasion. Kind of hard for me to get away with that line, however, since my brother and sisters were much older than me and my sisters had moved away. And my mom was a smart woman!
As I grew older and more mature, however, I no longer tried to deflect blame away from myself, it never worked like I planned anyway. I learned that accepting responsibility for my actions, good or bad, was the better choice because ultimately it all came back to me anyway. The true measure of a man is not what he does in public but how he behaves when no one is looking.
I believe that wholeheartedly. It gets back to the karma thing, whether you believe in karma or not, what you do will come back to you. Do good and you will reap good things. Do bad and you will be cursed. Much more complicated than that, but basically true.
I remember a woman who worked with/for me for a time when I was in charge of developing new guidelines for writing and naming software. Previously they were called standards and the first thing I did was change that to guidelines. I felt we didn't need hard and fast rules that covered every situation but rather some general rules of thumb to follow and allow the programmers to flesh out the details as they pertained to their particular situation.
This woman insisted that she needed standards, hard and fast rules to follow. She said she didn't want to make her own programming decisions but rather needed to be instructed on exactly what to do. I was amazed by that line of thought. She wanted a just master after all. So, perhaps I do have some insight into why few men really want liberty and freedom; they just don't know how to handle it.
So now that Barack Obama is in the White House and he has the backing of Nancy Pelosi in Congress and Harry Reid in the Senate, this group of stooges is going about the business of installing government as the just master of the American people. Every effort they undertake is fed by the idea that most Americans do not want liberty and freedom and the feedback they receive proves them right.
Those who screamed the loudest about the tyranny of George W Bush and his oppressive big government intrusions are now happily and joyfully turning over more power to the federal government than ever before. The fires of big government are just getting stoked and the inferno will be massive. And the liberals and the uninformed and the spineless conservatives are helping the fire burn brighter. Call it socialism, call it fascism, call it benevolent governance, it doesn't matter what the name. It's all destroying capitalism in the name of "the people" and that scares me more than I can admit.
Some kids never grow up, and for the most part I'm content to let idiots be idiots and ignore them. They may be just as well off being ruled by a master instead of themselves. Not me! When the idiots are running the show, it's time to be very, very scared. Most men may only wish for a just master.....
As for me, give me liberty or give me a f*ing break! Period!
OH
Gaius Sallustius Crispus, generally known simply as Sallust, (86-34 BC), a Roman historian
I first heard this quote about 10 years ago and it has puzzled me ever since. Could it be true that most men truly wish to be ruled by someone else? It sounds absurd to me. I have never felt this way. How is it that a rational-thinking person could want to be controlled by someone other than himself? Why would an adult not want to make his own decisions and guide his own life based on what he/she thinks is best for themselves?
This idea demotes people to positions of servitude in exchange for lack of personal responsibility. AHA! Perhaps that's the ticket. That sounds like an entitlement attitude, you have the power, you give me what I need and you take responsibility for whatever goes wrong. Me, I'm just a small piece of this puzzle and I cannot be expected to govern myself.
Liberty requires responsibility. To be free you must accept the responsibility for yourself and your actions. If you make a mistake, you must endure the consequences of that mistake. If you make a great decision, you can reap the rewards for that decision. It's not rocket science to understand this.
And therein lies the real issue, I suspect. Not many people have a problem accepting rewards for good decision-making. Everyone likes a pat on the back or a bonus check or public praise for doing a job well. Not many are as accepting of criticism or negative feedback for doing a job poorly. Criticism affects their feelings of self-esteem, which liberals know is the wrong way to treat people. Everyone is a winner and winning raises everyone's esteem and there are no losers in our utopian, progressive world.
Does this indicate a weak person? Or a weak society? Perhaps so. I remember times during my childhood years when I felt unjustly punished for something I had done and tried to pass the blame onto someone else. The Family Circus comic strip even has a pseudo character called "Not Me", for a common child's response to who did something wrong, and I pulled that card on more than one occasion. Kind of hard for me to get away with that line, however, since my brother and sisters were much older than me and my sisters had moved away. And my mom was a smart woman!
As I grew older and more mature, however, I no longer tried to deflect blame away from myself, it never worked like I planned anyway. I learned that accepting responsibility for my actions, good or bad, was the better choice because ultimately it all came back to me anyway. The true measure of a man is not what he does in public but how he behaves when no one is looking.
I believe that wholeheartedly. It gets back to the karma thing, whether you believe in karma or not, what you do will come back to you. Do good and you will reap good things. Do bad and you will be cursed. Much more complicated than that, but basically true.
I remember a woman who worked with/for me for a time when I was in charge of developing new guidelines for writing and naming software. Previously they were called standards and the first thing I did was change that to guidelines. I felt we didn't need hard and fast rules that covered every situation but rather some general rules of thumb to follow and allow the programmers to flesh out the details as they pertained to their particular situation.
This woman insisted that she needed standards, hard and fast rules to follow. She said she didn't want to make her own programming decisions but rather needed to be instructed on exactly what to do. I was amazed by that line of thought. She wanted a just master after all. So, perhaps I do have some insight into why few men really want liberty and freedom; they just don't know how to handle it.
So now that Barack Obama is in the White House and he has the backing of Nancy Pelosi in Congress and Harry Reid in the Senate, this group of stooges is going about the business of installing government as the just master of the American people. Every effort they undertake is fed by the idea that most Americans do not want liberty and freedom and the feedback they receive proves them right.
Those who screamed the loudest about the tyranny of George W Bush and his oppressive big government intrusions are now happily and joyfully turning over more power to the federal government than ever before. The fires of big government are just getting stoked and the inferno will be massive. And the liberals and the uninformed and the spineless conservatives are helping the fire burn brighter. Call it socialism, call it fascism, call it benevolent governance, it doesn't matter what the name. It's all destroying capitalism in the name of "the people" and that scares me more than I can admit.
Some kids never grow up, and for the most part I'm content to let idiots be idiots and ignore them. They may be just as well off being ruled by a master instead of themselves. Not me! When the idiots are running the show, it's time to be very, very scared. Most men may only wish for a just master.....
As for me, give me liberty or give me a f*ing break! Period!
OH
# posted by OH @ 8:05 AM 
