For about six years now since the turn of the millennium, we've seen the consequences of statism in our world. War, disease, famine, and, ultimately, death either by design or by incompetence of the governments that rule our world. And with each consequence we see our families, our friends, and our fellow human beings fall deeper into the belief that if the world, under the auspices of a government or a governmental agency, it will get better, despite the contrary facts. From planned economies to planned health care systems, we're seeing our world being turned into one massive, horribly managed system to which our children and their children will have to bare the brunt of all the consequences therein. The more we talk it seems the more this world is taken from us and our fellow human beings by force and by fraud. Leaving us with little or nothing to utilize for our own individual causes of liberty. Whether it's Ben Tucker spinning yarns of common ownership or whether it's Objectivists talking about taking back our minds from those who are the looters of this world, none of these things will be possible in a world where our very lives are owned by those who can and will extinguish them. None of them will ever be done, or attempted, unless we all decide to make the most critical choice of all: to become a hero in our own way.

What do I mean by becoming a hero? I was thinking about this while I was watching the Heroes TV series and considered that the element that makes one a hero is not super powers like the TV series seems to imply, but rather it's the mind and the values that the mind accrues to which actions results from the mind that accrues the right values. In short, it starts with you, apart from any given ability, ordinary or extraordinary. It means taking what you know to be right and doing it, even if others don't accept it. It means accepting that the world will not and cannot understand that must be done. This does not imply in itself that one ought to exact retribution or posse-style 'law', rather it implies that there are certain actions that must be done to see the next day through for ourselves and for that which we value most. It also does not imply that violence is the only option to gaining the chance to achieve what one values most. It does imply that the majority of people, and the world, will hate you for what you will do because the world as it is today does not have room for concepts of good and evil.

In this context, liberty is not about greys, but about what is right and wrong, and that for what we choose, no matter how different it may seem to each other, it is indeed the right thing that we choose for ourselves, individually. For the freedom each and every one of us chooses is not a freedom to cause harm to the lives of others, but rather the freedom to be apart from others and to be free to come together as we see as necessary. That kind of freedom is always right in every season and every portal to every door that has been and will be. It is the freedom that gave us language, art, philosophy, and science. It is this freedom that made our streets shine with electric lights, and it made the generators that power them. It is this freedom alone that we must defend, that we must be heroes to protect it at all costs.

The world today is full of so many greys that even the Sun and the Moon themselves are grey. And in this greyness, the world cannot see the truth of things, nor can most of its inhabitants. It takes a strong heart to be a hero, considering that if you do fail, you probably will lose everything you value, but how is that different from any other situation or day? I say it is not at all different, but it's a choice left up to you. Will you be a hero and fight for what is right? Or get lost in the grey of the world?

Tags: liberty philosophy heroes
My soul is filled with...: contemplative