The Left always creates problems, blames their opponents, and pretends to be the hero to solve the problem.
True, but it's more general that that...
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H. L. Mencken
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Most people hate freedom. They prefer their bread and circus above all else.
And they hate anyone who holds up a mirror to them - forcing them to see their own cowardice and pathetic existence. This is why they cannot hear or see the truth. The truth is an existential threat to them.
As long as we allow (by way of "democracy") that ever increasing proportion of feckless people to rule us, we are doomed.
The monsters of the world know all this, and they know that liberty is a fire that can be extinguished with enough patience and effort. Time is on their side - unless we do something about it.
But, "doing something" does not mean just winning the next election. That's a long term losing strategy as long as the elites of the world continue to inspire the masses to mediocrity and obedience.
I'm not sure what the answer is, but it must somehow involve fanning the flames of liberty in the hearts of men.
You can stomp out a fire. You can't stomp out darkness. So, the only answer is to keep the fire alive and making it grow.
This question was well analyzed in the 1500's by Étienne de La Boétie.
https://www.amazon.com/Politics-Obedience-Discourse-Voluntary-Servitude/dp/1610161238
States are more vulnerable than people think. They can collapse in an instant—when consent is withdrawn.This is the thesis of this thrilling book. Murray Rothbard writes a classic introduction to one of the great political essays in the history of ideas.
In times when dictators the world over are falling from pressure from their own people, this book, written nearly 500 years ago, is truly the prophetic tract of our times.
Étienne de La Boétie was born in Sarlat, in the Périgord region of southwest France, in 1530, to an aristocratic family, and became a dear friend of Michel de Montaigne. But he ought to be remembered for this astonishingly important essay, one of the greatest in the history of political thought. It will shake the way you think of the state.
His thesis and argument amount to the best answer to Machiavelli ever penned as well as one of the seminal essays in defense of liberty. La Boétie's task is to investigate the nature of the state and its strange status as a tiny minority of the population that adheres to different rules from everyone else and claims the authority to rule everyone else, maintaining a monopoly on law. It strikes him as obviously implausible that such an institution has any staying power. It can be overthrown in an instant if people withdraw their consent.
He then investigates the mystery as to why people do not withdraw, given what is obvious to him that everyone would be better off without the state. This sends him on a speculative journey to investigate the power of propaganda, fear, and ideology in causing people to acquiesce in their own subjection. Is it cowardice? Perhaps. Habit and tradition. Perhaps. Perhaps it is ideological illusion and intellectual confusion.
La Boétie goes on to make a case as to why people ought to withdraw their consent immediately. He urges all people to rise up and cast off tyranny simply by refusing to concede that the state is in charge.The tyrant has "nothing more than the power that you confer upon him to destroy you. Where has he acquired enough eyes to spy upon you, if you do not provide them yourselves? How can he have so many arms to beat you with, if he does not borrow them from you? The feet that trample down your cities, where does he get them if they are not your own? How does he have any power over you except through you? How would he dare assail you if he had no cooperation from you?"
Then these inspiring words: "Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed.
I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces."In all these areas, the author has anticipated Jefferson and Arendt, Gandhi and Spooner, and those who overthrew Soviet tyranny. The essay has profound relevance for understanding history and all our times.
As Rothbard writes in his spectacular introduction, "La Boetie's Discourse has a vital importance for the modern reader—an importance that goes beyond the sheer pleasure of reading a great and seminal work on political philosophy, or, for the libertarian, of reading the first libertarian political philosopher in the Western world. For La Boétie speaks most sharply to the problem which all libertarians—indeed, all opponents of despotism—find particularly difficult: the problem of strategy.
Facing the devastating and seemingly overwhelming power of the modern State, how can a free and very different world be brought about? How in the world can we get from here to there, from a world of tyranny to a world of freedom? Precisely because of his abstract and timeless methodology, La Boétie offers vital insights into this eternal problem."
Since they can lie to you, but you can’t lie to them, the best advice I’ve heard is from a Bobby Fischer interview. When he was a kid, his mother was under frequent investigation by the FBI. She instructed him to answer EVERY question the FBI might ask with, “I have nothing to say to you.”
Point to point (i.e. "simplex") - about three to five miles at best. Using a repeater - up to maybe 50 miles.
Reliable 100 mile (2 hours drive) communication usually requires some amount of "skip" and lower frequencies (ham bands 10-12m, 15m, 17m, 20m, 40m, 80m) and different equipment. The lower numbers (e.g. 10-12) are better during the day. The larger number (e.g. 80) are better at night. 20 and 40 split the difference. Your mileage may vary.
I like turtles.