Terrorists and tyrants

Charlie Earl offers us a clear explanation how people who originally loved liberty come to enslave themselves, from his post in littlestuff-minoosha. (This is a large excerpt, but not the entire post)

Fear is a powerful thing. Many people fail to take risks because they fear failing. Despots know this and utilize fear to control others. Evil flourishes when people allow their fear to subvert their desire for liberty. Fear overwhelms our rational thought and drives us toward making choices that are contrary to our best interests. Choosing to live a life that is marinated in fear as opposed to living in liberty is somewhat like a tiger preferring the cage to the wild. You are alive, but are you truly living? People who are free dare to dance. People who are fearful scurry for hiding places. Psychologists tell us that negative reinforcement and positive reinforcement are useful for manipulating behavior, and fear clearly fits into the negative mold...

Here in the United States we have experienced an interesting phenomenon. Our leaders of our REPUBLIC have used our fear of terrorists to advance the rule of tyranny. Our desire for greater safety has led us to accept the early vestiges of enslavement... True, the federal government is mandated to protect and secure our nation, but it has a greater responsibility to protect and defend our liberty. Our fear of outside threats has seemingly given the government carte blanche to run roughshod over our personal freedom. For our liberty to prevail, we must resist tyranny as forcefully as we denounce terrorism. There is no such thing as freedom from fear. The minds of people are fertile enough to imagine monsters of every type under our beds. Liberty can only survive when we reject fear as a lifestyle….and it does not matter what the source of our fear is.

The fear that is used by terrorists and tyrants springs from the same root. Sometimes fear can be a healthy thing for people because it may restrict our compulsion to act stupidly by taking unnecessary risks, but fear is more commonly manifested as paralysis. Liberty is too precious to be sacrificed on the altar of fear and indecision. We can never allow our fear of half-baked loonies to cause us to run to the momentarily safe arms of tyranny. The New Hampshire motto says it best: “Live Free or Die.” Freedom is fleeting, and death is inevitable. Why not live for liberty? It is better to live in freedom and die while pursuing a glorious purpose than it is to die slowly while bound in chains.