What We Got Wrong

[The following was duplicated from the original at indarchy.com.]

With “we” here, I mean the so-called “freedom lovers.” I mean those of us who understood what’s been going on for a very long time, and who didn’t like it one little bit. I mean those who’ve been citing the Founding Documents, with a focus on the ideas involved. I mean those who knew all along that reality admits of no contradictions…not in the physical realm and not in the human realm.

We saw all this and we saw even worse. We knew all along that production wasn’t a series of numbers to be tracked. We knew–from principle as well as experience–that statism simply can’t last. We know the nature of the entities involved, and we know that something can’t come from nothing…no matter how deep your wish nor how long your whip. We understood the whole time, the last few decades and the next few years, what simply must happen if collectivism and statism rule the day.

And that’s the part we got wrong. Thank goodness. We see things how they are and we conclude to where they must lead. Hence, the picture in our minds is usually one of collapse. We see fools thinking they may sit at home and somehow live a long, happy life. We see fools thinking that if they tweak the whip just right, then they may be happy too. We see thugs all around us, honestly believing that they are doing the moral good, because they’ve been taught nothing else, not ever. We understand the errors, and we know that logic simply commands–that is, reality simply commands–that somehow all of this must collapse and somehow a new world must be built on the ashes and bodies so wastefully piled.

That was our error, for a human life is not a structure. There are no bricks to tear down, nor foundations to be dismantled. Human life is built on time, and the time is always what it is…now. There is no time in which action can be done, nor is there any time for which we may willfully choose, except the present.

It’s not that the foundation mustn’t be properly built; of course it must. Luckily that’s a piece of cake, so easy that it doesn’t even take any physical building. The foundation is what’s already there, and in fact was the only thing there all along. The foundation is what decent people choose, and decent people are chomping at the bit to choose what’s right. They just never heard it, that’s all. And from what I can tell, they’re about to hear it, in spades.

I guess the message here is simple. We’ve known this all along too, but these are the times when it must become clear as a bell, and not a single mistake can be made when imparting it. Human life is about creation and building, and we must remain ever-conscious in remembering that the only thing a human life can directly create and build, is the single life itself.

The correct message is not, “Tear it down.” The correct message is, “Build it up.”

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