Freedom is a strange experience

This is a response to Eric Striedieck of Middletown who published a letter directed to me in the Middletown Times Star on January 18, 2008

Eric,

In your letter you say “Consensus is the epitome of Democracy. What in the world could be better than that. [?]”

I’ll tell you the answer, but first, if you don’t believe me I hope you will take the time to educate yourself about the issue of freedom vs. democracy.

Marx and Lenin

…both knew and advocated Democracy because it is the first step to complete Socialism which in their minds eventually leads to Communism.

As for our country, the United States of America, we are NOT a Democracy; we are a Constitutional Republic with a democratically elected representative form of government. And our Constitution guarantees individual rights, not collective rights which are what you seek.

No where in the Constitution does it say: “for the greater good” however the advocates of collective tyranny spout that phrase, or something similar, all the time and then they talk about democracy as if democracy is the reason we have been a free country for over 200 years.

We have been free because we have a Constitution that guarantees your individual freedom not because folks like you complain about wood smoke and want to debate it to reach some consensus which will override an individual right.

I don’t happen to think bicycle riders on our roads and highways is a safe practice. I think they present a hazard not only to themselves but also to the safety of the drivers of automobiles. And the roads and highways are paid for by taxes collected on the sale of gasoline and on licensing of motor vehicles, not bicycles.

So, based on that argument and using your approach to governing, I bet I could get a consensus that would restrict when and where bicyclers could ride on public property.

Yet I bet too, if you were a bicycler, even though cycling is a minority sport, you would argue you have a “right” to be on the road with your bicycle because you are free not because some group arrived at consensus.

Democracy and consensus works great for the one seeking to change things, but if you happen to be in a minority position you will just plain lose. That is why we have a Constitution and its amendments, to protect the rights of the minority or the silent majority.

Freedom is a strange experience as it can’t be recognized as something until it is gone, and then, it is too late. Freedom is only recognized for what it is when it has been replaced with an encumbrance you can feel.

A good way to experience this is to own a home and live outside the gates of a homeowner’s association and then buy a home and move behind the gates and experience the CC&Rs of the association. You will soon recognize your loss of freedoms.

Or better yet, join the military and really experience your loss of freedom and liberty.

The issue for me is not air-pollution; the issue is about losing freedoms and liberty based on hysteria being perpetuated by a religion called environmentalism that is filled with dogma, hypocrisy and little proof. (And by the way, I don’t use wood for a heat source, cooking source or general comfort since you referred to “your smoke” meaning my smoke. However, freedom of speech allows you to accuse me even if you are wrong.)

I am an advocate of individual freedom and liberty which will never try to intimidate you into silence through something called “political correctness” because I don’t have to resort to that level. I believe that when someone uses words like “inflammatory”, “arrogance” and “intolerance” in a single accusation they are normally being used to try to intimidate and embarrass, hoping to quiet a voice of opposition and truth. But I also believe you may say what you want, it just won’t work with me.

No matter what you accuse me of, what you think of me or what I have said, the fact will still remain; it is a free country and the choice to move away from the wood smoke will still exist. And I will never apologize for reminding anyone they are free.

But I feel that’s not your goal, (that being to invoke your freedom to move), I feel your goal is to remove another person’s freedom rather than inconvenience yourself.

And if you are too poor to move, fair was never promised, freedom is.

© January 24, 2008