Give me Liberty: I surrender
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Give me Liberty
Rodger Williamson
I am starting to get old. I am getting tired. In my youth, I was a high school and collegiate athlete. Later, I enlisted into the military, where I literally trained and fought for our country for most of my adult life.
In my prime I was a paratrooper and a member of a special forces unit. I sang my death-song at 44 years of age, while running armed convoy escorts up through Iraq in 2006 and 2007. I honestly did not believe that I would come home alive. Yet somehow, I made it home, slightly worse for the wear, and still physically intact.
When I retired in 2009, I felt compelled to continue to honor my oath to our constitution, leading me to adopt myself into Libertarian philosophy, as they are the modern proponents of the ideals set forth by our founding fathers who wrote our United States Constitution.
As I have aged in my post-service retirement, the aches and pains have grown exponentially. Let me tell you, getting old is not for the weak or for quitters. I now have a profound amount of respect for my grandmother, who lived until she was 92 years of age, before passing away from, as her pastor said at her funeral, “from length of years.”
Psalms 90, verse 10 promises that “the days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, …” If true, then my mothers’ mother was a very strong woman indeed, as she lived fourscore and twelve, which is much closer to fivescore than it is to four.
I, on the other hand, have only recently just cleared threescore. (FYI for those that may not know, a “score” is 20 years in length.) Biblically, I can hope for another decade here upon this earth. Statistically, the State of Alabama is on par with biblical expectations, with a life expectancy average of 72.2 years old for males in our state. For the U.S.A., the average is about 5 years higher at 77.28 years. Regardless, my time remaining on this planet is waning.
From my earliest memories, and throughout my life, I noticed that I was just a little bit different than everyone else. I care so much about the bigger picture. More so than what I perceive from others.
Many, many friends, family members, acquaintances, seem to me to be just a little bit too self-absorbed. They care about their immediate family. They care about their job, some more and some less. They care about what is for dinner, or what they will watch on TV. Some care about their church. Some care about sports teams. Some care about actors, musicians, or celebrities. Some care for their pets. Some care about their choice of leisure activity, whether it is cars, motorcycles, boats, hunting, fishing, hiking, or camping, or going to the gym.
Yet most, or at least a too large of a percentage, do not care enough to perform their most basic civic duty, to educate themselves regarding political candidates and to know the contents of our federal and state constitutions. Most don’t even have the slightest clue as to how badly they are being politically raped by government overreach! (Note: I wanted to use a certain verb that begins with the letter “F” instead of the word “raped,” but I doubt that this piece would have been left intact to see print.) I just do not understand that mindset. How is it that the average Joe and Jolene are OK with everything that they (government) is doing either to them, or doing with their hard-earned money?
249 years ago, our forebears dumped an entire shipload of tea into Boston Harbor rather than pay the British government three-pennies per pound in taxes. As recently as just 107 years ago, in 1916, our more recent ancestors did not have to pay any of the following: Inheritance Tax; Accounts Receivable Tax; Building Permit Tax; CDL license Tax; Cigarette Tax; Corporate Income Tax; Dog License Tax; Excise Taxes; Federal Income Tax; Federal Unemployment Tax; Fishing License Tax; Food License Tax; Fuel Permit Tax; Gasoline Tax (currently 56-cents per gallon); Gross Receipts Tax; Hunting License Tax; Inheritance Tax; Inventory Tax; IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax); Liquor Tax; Luxury Taxes; Marriage License Tax; Medicare Tax; Personal Property Tax; Property Tax; Real Estate Tax; Service Charge Tax; Social Security Tax; Road Usage Tax; Recreational Vehicle Tax; Sales Tax; School Tax; State Income Tax; State Unemployment Tax; Telephone Federal Excise Tax; Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax; Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes; Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax; Telephone Recurring and Nonrecurring Charges Tax; Telephone State and Local Tax; Telephone Usage Charge Tax; Utility Taxes; Vehicle License Registration Tax; Vehicle Sales Tax; Watercraft Registration Tax; Well Permit Tax; and a Workers Compensation Tax.
Why do we comply with the taxes today, when our forebears instead tarred and feathered the taxman, because the government got smarter and hid most of those taxes from you. If instead of paying all of those small taxes here and there, you instead had to write out a check, or go to the bank and withdraw an amount of cash to pay the government in a monthly lump sum, you, too, would probably see the bigger picture that I have been telling everyone here about for a couple of years now, and telling everyone that I know for at least a decade and a half, where I witnessed in Iraq, where many of those tax dollars were spent.
But alas, I am getting old and tired. Maybe I should stop caring. For why should I be concerned, if you’re not concerned enough to listen to my cries of warning, and then to actually do something.
Voting for either Republican, or even Democrat, is not the answer, as they together have created the problems we have today. It is time to think outside of the box. In the end, you have only two choices: either Libertarian, or Authoritarian. I choose Liberty. But then again, maybe living with less freedom under an Authoritarian Oligarchy won’t be as bad as I have been led to believe.