Resolve
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
Samuel Adams.
Resolve
As a write this it is December 12th, 2020 and the end of the year looms. Most will remember 2020 as a year of struggle and sorrow. It appears that 2021 will be at least as difficult. The C.O.V.I.D.-19 pandemic (real or imagined) has decimated small businesses, tested the faith of the American people in all levels of government, and disrupted everyday life to a level unprecedented in recent history. This real or imagined pandemic facilitated or became a catalyst for a multitude of political changes, both national and international, that threaten natural human rights and the existence of the representative form of government. However, it is not, in truth, any virus that has caused those changes and poses that threat. It is the fear of the C.O.V.D.-19 virus and the political exploitation of that fear that has does so.
Minority populations, having been condition for years to fear the police as perpetrators of systematic, racially motivated violence against them, were manipulated into causing a widespread wave of violence that paralyzed many American cities. Liberal politicians allowed and even condoned that violence. Despite the fact that the claims of such systematically applied racialism and violence are easily disproven with even a cursory examination of statistical data and history, police now face ever-increasing media-fanned hostility directed against them. They must, out of logical prudence, become more assertive in protecting their own safety. This greater assertiveness leads to even greater criticism and louder cries of "police brutality." This, in turn, causes police to perceive an even greater threat to their safety. This vicious cycle will likely continue into 2021 and beyond.
Seeing the violence and instability along with the disruption in the supply of many of life's necessities Americans who had never feared for their day-to-day safety no longer felt safe in their own homes. In response many, many of these people who had once been proponents of strict gun control laws, purchased firearms after realizing that law enforcement institutions that were already incapable of coping with the spreading civil unrest and violence were seemingly about to defunded and made even more resource strained.2020 was the year of fear. 2021 may well be the year of sheer terror.
Despite the mounting evidence of his having engaged in legally questionable entanglements with multiple foreign governments and influence peddling through his son, Hunter, it appears that Joe Biden will be inaugurated as president of the United States in January. This was facilitated through hitherto unprecedented use of mail-in voting. To make this possible, many states made sweeping and hastily conceived changes to the procedures for collecting of ballots and counting of votes. This was done in defiance of the law ordaining that only state legislatures are lawfully permitted to enact such changes. Observers who were legally required to be present during the processing of all ballots were made to leave, or obstructed from effectively assuring the validity of large numbers of cast ballots.
Joe Biden will have the title of president conferred upon him and will be granted all the power the office bestows. But that power is the only legitimacy his administration will have. Morally and ethically a Biden administration will be illegitimate. A façade of legitimacy will be provided by the force of a bureaucracy that includes armed federal agencies and the military services. Ultimately, people with guns will ensure that all Americans act as though a Biden administration is legitimate.
The election process has been defiled and the laws applied only to those who lack the resources to buy access to the halls of power or to simply buy the favor of lawmakers. Courts have shown only perfunctory interest in scrutinizing evidence of voter fraud even when presented with video recordings of votes being counted outside the parameters of established and legally required procedures. Mounds of uncounted mail-in ballots were 'discovered' in post offices or various dumping sights across the country. The Supreme Court of the United States, in an act of supreme moral cowardice, has shirked it’s reasonability to the U.S. constitution by refusing to even hear the arguments or review evidence presented by parties attempting to redress the corruption and the illegal changing of election law in the Wisconsin, Michigan, and other states in clear violation of their own states' laws and constitutions.
The mainstream media has ceased to function as a journalistic institution and is now a propaganda arm of the radical, socialist ideology whose proponents have infested all levels of government, Silicon Valley, and the educational system. Together, these institutions control the perceptions of a population which has deliberately been denied basic knowledge of history, economics, and even current events. This has produced at least one, and possibly as many as three, generations of weak, government-dependent drones that are incapable of critical thinking or the responsible use of individual agency.
These are generations that view weakness as a virtue, living in fear as a normal state of being, and blind conformity as the greatest of social virtues. Slavery is acceptable as long as that slaver is comfortable. Poverty is accepted so long as everyone is equally poor. Violence is allowable so long as it is directed at those who are designated by the State as ideologically impure. Orwell has been proven to be prophetic. But of course many, if not most, members of the recent generations are only vaguely aware of Orwell's work because reading ability has been, I believe, systematically degraded to a level of literacy just high enough to allow an individual to function.
The Bill of Rights, all of it, is under threat. The second amendment, the final and most potent check on governmental power as a whole has been under attack since 1938. In an age when technology allows surveillance of individuals to a frightening and unprecedented degree, the fourth amendment is all but meaningless. The first amendment is in the process of being subverted by the malleably vague definitions of 'hate speech' used in laws regulating such speech. This allows virtually any political or philosophical speech to be declared as hateful at the whim of even the most minor State functionary and banned. To the radical left, the Constitution is no longer a framework for just governance. For leftist extremists that make up the thuggish mobs such as ANTIFA and Black Lives Matter the Constitution is an obstacle that stands between them and a collectivist society where their basic needs are met without them having to contribute to society in any meaningful way. For the elitist oligarchs that are at the head of the subversive left, the Constitution is an annoying impediment to their plan to form a neo-feudal government not only in the United States but globally as well. The human race is facing serfdom under a small group of elitist ideologues and technocrats.
But not everyone has had their intellect retarded by the indoctrination of a bastardized educational system. There are those that have long ago abandoned the propaganda spewed forth like sewage by people who were once journalists. There are those who have not been made docile by the social justice warriors who are always waiting to assassinate the character of anyone who will not worship at the altar of the State and aspire to meet the standard of whatever way of thinking is considered "politically correct" at a particular point in time.
There are those who will fight for the soul of their country. There are those who will fight for the freedom of all. They will fight with words and laws if they can and with weapons and deadly resolve if they must. They have maintained the skills of rifle and blade. They still know the way of the hunt. They remember the stories of their grandparents and honor the sacrifices made by previous generations. They maintain the spirit of the minuteman and the wisdom of the men who signed the Constitution. They have been slow to anger but will be terrible in wrath.
It is my hope that speaking out against this upcoming tyranny will help to restrain it. I hope that essays and articles like this one are being written by people like myself all across the country and that they will become rallying cries for those of a like mind. I hope that legal or political means can be found to prevent Biden and his ilk from reducing the United States to a socialist, authoritarian nightmare such as Venezuela or, God forbid, North Korea. I have some hope that police and military forces will honor their oaths to the constitution and peacefully refuse to implement the evil agenda of Biden and the far-left radicals who are his masters.
I know that if such a revolt were to occur there would be consequences for our service people and police. Their paychecks and pensions might be at stake. But they will not be standing alone. Their neighbors and friends will be behind them when they are in need and beside them if comes time to fight. If they are there for us, we will stand with them. The government that is feeding them with one hand is holding them in chains with the other. They must ask themselves what their freedom and self-respect is worth; to themselves and to future generations.
Times are dark and basic human freedom is in peril. Never in my fifty-two years of life have I feared so much for my country. I do not despair, however. There is such a thing as righteous anger and I am angry and called to action. I will not be silent. I will speak the truth even when the truth becomes illegal. If words fail I will fight. If I die fighting, that would be an honorable death, and my words will remain in the minds of those who read them. I do not despair because while I can be killed I cannot be defeated. I am engaged in the great "animating contest of freedom." I am resolved to win that contest. I know that I am not alone.
But for the grace of god
I arrived at school on the first day of my junior year completely soaked. This was a common occurrence, since I refused to ride the bus in the morning, and routinely walked the nearly two-mile distance from my home, even when it was raining. I told people it was because I had to get up too early to catch the bus but, the truth was, I didn't like some of the people I knew would be on it. I was somewhat of a misfit, and was subject to ridicule and insults from the more socially adaptive students at my small, mid-western high school.
I was bigger than most of my classmates, so I was spared the physical bullying that my smaller misfit brethren were forced to endure, but I was constantly reminded, by students and teachers alike, that I didn't live up to that much-admired standard of 'normalcy' that adolescents strive for as though it were the Holy Grail. I didn't participate in any of the sports the school offered, I had no interest in singing or band, my grades were average, (except in history and social studies, in which I excelled) and I had no inclination to join any of the fickle and cliquish clubs that met after classes. My sole athletic endeavor was the martial arts, which I studied outside of the constraints of the school system, and my favorite pastimes were reading science fiction, drawing, and writing stories.
I cared little for the ever-changing quirks of high school fashion. I never had the latest designer jeans, or the ridiculously overpriced athletic shoes that were the symbols of one’s high-school social status, or the lack of it. I'm sure that my mother would have provided those luxuries if I had insisted, but I saw little utility in making a single mother of four boys work harder than she already was. In truth, I made no effort to fit in; I saw nothing of value in the transient world of teenage tribal bickering, and social castes. For me, with the exception of three close friends, high school was filled with a mass of unimaginative, petty, and shortsighted people who, quite frankly, weren't worth the time or effort to hate.
As I began my morning struggle with one of the school's reliably stubborn locker doors, the cycle of verbal abuse began. It started with the jocks. They had made it clear that they didn't like me but, because of my size, they would accept me into their august ranks, if I would play football that season. When I refused, the consistent, if uninspired slurs concerning my personal courage and manliness would begin. Following this, the clique of girls who made up the ranking class of social dilettantes, would begin their assault of my physical appearance. The third phase of ego assassination came from the supposedly well-adjusted students who had the best grades, who tried to make me question my own intelligence. I ignored the taunts and walk away, confident that, if I chose to, I had the ability to cause them severe harm.
The school system, in its ongoing effort to fit people into easily defined categories, had labeled me "academically uninspired." Because of this supposed lack of academic inspiration, I was placed into a special class of equally uninspired students. I was just as much of a misfit in that group as I was before. What the councilors and psychologists failed to realize, was that it wasn't me who was uninspired, it was they who were uninspiring. Rather than doing anything to prevent the constant stream of insults and harassment, they sought to make me more like my harassers.
My lack of conformity had manifested itself in junior high, and the emotional pressure had been building for years, but I had never resorted to violence unless physically attacked. This had happened twice, and the damage I had inflicted on my attackers had gained me enough notoriety to deter future assaults, but the social pressure never lessened. I think the school system saw me as the problem. If I would just worship at the altar of conformity, they reasoned, then the normal students would accept me. I now believe that they thought the harassment was a good thing; they may have even have encouraged it.
Despite my best efforts to insulate my self from it, the emotionally brutal world of high school did take its toll. Toward the end of the year, I was in study hall, working on a drawing that was coming out particularly well, when one of the jocks snatched the drawing pad away from me. He looked at me, smiled, and then tore the drawing in half. He was new to the school, and didn't know me, and that made his act of cruelty worse that if he actively disliked me. He had destroyed my drawing simply because he could. It would have been easier to forgive him had he hated me, or if I had hated him. It was the very senselessness of the act that infuriated me. I stood, knowing it would be seen as a challenge.
The teacher, who was supposedly supervising the study hall, realizing that violence was imminent, finally intervened. He had seen the jock rip up my drawing, and knew that it was me who had been provoked, and still threatened me with detention, without a word about the destroyed artwork.
This time I couldn't put the incident behind me. That night, when I was at home, the years of frustration manifested themselves by fueling a rage unlike any I had felt before or since. I began plotting vengeance, not just against the boy who had ruined my drawing, but also against anyone who had harassed me, and the teachers who had allowed it.
My family has always had guns in the house, and I had easy access to them. In an hour or two I had a detailed plan for killing my tormentors and their accomplices. I decided I would be striking a blow not just for myself, but also for the other misfits who had endure cruelty for cruelties sake. In my heart, I knew that I would never carry the plan out, but it was darkly therapeutic becoming involved with the details of it. The next day I went back to school and absorbed even more abuse as the cycle of harassment continued.
Years later, after high school was behind me, and the demons of adolescence had faded into mere bad memories, I heard about the tragedy in Columbine Colorado. Some boys, who had been tormented as I had, had not stopped at merely plotting a massacre, they had carried it out. As my coworkers struggled to understand how teenage boys could perpetrate such carnage, I understood. What I wanted to know was what had made me different that the boys at Columbine. Why had planning violence been enough for me and not for them?
The answer was apparent: my family. My father died when I was three, and my mother raised me and my three brothers with the help of my grandparents, while she worked long hours a registered nurse. My mother and my grandparents were devoutly religious, and had passed their religious faith on to me. It was not necessarily any kind of Christ-like compassion that allowed me resist the urge to avenge myself on my tormentors, it was the certainty that my tormentors would be punished. I knew that they would have to answer to God for the way they treated me, and those like me. Even if the school officials couldn't or wouldn't protect the misfits of the world, even if Earthly authorities looked upon schoolyard harassment as not worth serious attention, my harassers would eventually be held to account.
Frustration breeds violence. Many children (perhaps the children of someone who reads this essay) go to school filled with dread in their hearts knowing that they will be ridiculed just for being themselves. Some of them may have been suffering such ridicule since they were in the lowest grades, and have born the burden suffering in silence, after having been told repeatedly such harassment is normal and had to be endured as a rite of passage. I know that feeling well, and I completely understand the forces that drove the children at Columbine. Had it not been for my belief in a force wiser and more compassionate than man, I would have no doubt killed many people years ago, and would likely be dead myself.
High school is thirty-years in the past, and I have forgotten the names of many of the people who once caused me so much misery, and I'm sure they have forgotten me. I'm sure they have lived their lives oblivious to how their youthful actions affected the misfits two decades ago. However, I do remember the urge to strike back at those who had wronged me. I remember those dark, primal thoughts that lurked at the edge of being acted on. I know that out there, alone in a room somewhere, is a miss fit thinking the very same thoughts. What I wonder about is rather or not that miss fit has a reason not to act, not to kill. Is there that source of strength and hope that will help him endure? For me, it was the grace of a just and loving God that let me face the abuse day after day. When I hear about incidents like Columbine I will always know that were not for God's grace my name would be spoken of in the same breath of the with those of the children who killed their classmates at Columbine.
I was bigger than most of my classmates, so I was spared the physical bullying that my smaller misfit brethren were forced to endure, but I was constantly reminded, by students and teachers alike, that I didn't live up to that much-admired standard of 'normalcy' that adolescents strive for as though it were the Holy Grail. I didn't participate in any of the sports the school offered, I had no interest in singing or band, my grades were average, (except in history and social studies, in which I excelled) and I had no inclination to join any of the fickle and cliquish clubs that met after classes. My sole athletic endeavor was the martial arts, which I studied outside of the constraints of the school system, and my favorite pastimes were reading science fiction, drawing, and writing stories.
I cared little for the ever-changing quirks of high school fashion. I never had the latest designer jeans, or the ridiculously overpriced athletic shoes that were the symbols of one’s high-school social status, or the lack of it. I'm sure that my mother would have provided those luxuries if I had insisted, but I saw little utility in making a single mother of four boys work harder than she already was. In truth, I made no effort to fit in; I saw nothing of value in the transient world of teenage tribal bickering, and social castes. For me, with the exception of three close friends, high school was filled with a mass of unimaginative, petty, and shortsighted people who, quite frankly, weren't worth the time or effort to hate.
As I began my morning struggle with one of the school's reliably stubborn locker doors, the cycle of verbal abuse began. It started with the jocks. They had made it clear that they didn't like me but, because of my size, they would accept me into their august ranks, if I would play football that season. When I refused, the consistent, if uninspired slurs concerning my personal courage and manliness would begin. Following this, the clique of girls who made up the ranking class of social dilettantes, would begin their assault of my physical appearance. The third phase of ego assassination came from the supposedly well-adjusted students who had the best grades, who tried to make me question my own intelligence. I ignored the taunts and walk away, confident that, if I chose to, I had the ability to cause them severe harm.
The school system, in its ongoing effort to fit people into easily defined categories, had labeled me "academically uninspired." Because of this supposed lack of academic inspiration, I was placed into a special class of equally uninspired students. I was just as much of a misfit in that group as I was before. What the councilors and psychologists failed to realize, was that it wasn't me who was uninspired, it was they who were uninspiring. Rather than doing anything to prevent the constant stream of insults and harassment, they sought to make me more like my harassers.
My lack of conformity had manifested itself in junior high, and the emotional pressure had been building for years, but I had never resorted to violence unless physically attacked. This had happened twice, and the damage I had inflicted on my attackers had gained me enough notoriety to deter future assaults, but the social pressure never lessened. I think the school system saw me as the problem. If I would just worship at the altar of conformity, they reasoned, then the normal students would accept me. I now believe that they thought the harassment was a good thing; they may have even have encouraged it.
Despite my best efforts to insulate my self from it, the emotionally brutal world of high school did take its toll. Toward the end of the year, I was in study hall, working on a drawing that was coming out particularly well, when one of the jocks snatched the drawing pad away from me. He looked at me, smiled, and then tore the drawing in half. He was new to the school, and didn't know me, and that made his act of cruelty worse that if he actively disliked me. He had destroyed my drawing simply because he could. It would have been easier to forgive him had he hated me, or if I had hated him. It was the very senselessness of the act that infuriated me. I stood, knowing it would be seen as a challenge.
The teacher, who was supposedly supervising the study hall, realizing that violence was imminent, finally intervened. He had seen the jock rip up my drawing, and knew that it was me who had been provoked, and still threatened me with detention, without a word about the destroyed artwork.
This time I couldn't put the incident behind me. That night, when I was at home, the years of frustration manifested themselves by fueling a rage unlike any I had felt before or since. I began plotting vengeance, not just against the boy who had ruined my drawing, but also against anyone who had harassed me, and the teachers who had allowed it.
My family has always had guns in the house, and I had easy access to them. In an hour or two I had a detailed plan for killing my tormentors and their accomplices. I decided I would be striking a blow not just for myself, but also for the other misfits who had endure cruelty for cruelties sake. In my heart, I knew that I would never carry the plan out, but it was darkly therapeutic becoming involved with the details of it. The next day I went back to school and absorbed even more abuse as the cycle of harassment continued.
Years later, after high school was behind me, and the demons of adolescence had faded into mere bad memories, I heard about the tragedy in Columbine Colorado. Some boys, who had been tormented as I had, had not stopped at merely plotting a massacre, they had carried it out. As my coworkers struggled to understand how teenage boys could perpetrate such carnage, I understood. What I wanted to know was what had made me different that the boys at Columbine. Why had planning violence been enough for me and not for them?
The answer was apparent: my family. My father died when I was three, and my mother raised me and my three brothers with the help of my grandparents, while she worked long hours a registered nurse. My mother and my grandparents were devoutly religious, and had passed their religious faith on to me. It was not necessarily any kind of Christ-like compassion that allowed me resist the urge to avenge myself on my tormentors, it was the certainty that my tormentors would be punished. I knew that they would have to answer to God for the way they treated me, and those like me. Even if the school officials couldn't or wouldn't protect the misfits of the world, even if Earthly authorities looked upon schoolyard harassment as not worth serious attention, my harassers would eventually be held to account.
Frustration breeds violence. Many children (perhaps the children of someone who reads this essay) go to school filled with dread in their hearts knowing that they will be ridiculed just for being themselves. Some of them may have been suffering such ridicule since they were in the lowest grades, and have born the burden suffering in silence, after having been told repeatedly such harassment is normal and had to be endured as a rite of passage. I know that feeling well, and I completely understand the forces that drove the children at Columbine. Had it not been for my belief in a force wiser and more compassionate than man, I would have no doubt killed many people years ago, and would likely be dead myself.
High school is thirty-years in the past, and I have forgotten the names of many of the people who once caused me so much misery, and I'm sure they have forgotten me. I'm sure they have lived their lives oblivious to how their youthful actions affected the misfits two decades ago. However, I do remember the urge to strike back at those who had wronged me. I remember those dark, primal thoughts that lurked at the edge of being acted on. I know that out there, alone in a room somewhere, is a miss fit thinking the very same thoughts. What I wonder about is rather or not that miss fit has a reason not to act, not to kill. Is there that source of strength and hope that will help him endure? For me, it was the grace of a just and loving God that let me face the abuse day after day. When I hear about incidents like Columbine I will always know that were not for God's grace my name would be spoken of in the same breath of the with those of the children who killed their classmates at Columbine.
sharp: an exampnation of persoanal national purpose
A State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hand even for beneficial purposes-will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished.
John Stuart Mill, 1859
When I was five or six years old my grandpa gave me my first knife. It was an old folding knife with a two-inch blade. My grandpa had carried it in his pocket for years but had finally replaced it with a new one and passed it on to me. I was so proud of it that I showed it to each of my three brothers one at a time and then went looking for anyone else that I could show it to. My mother was hesitant about a boy as young as I was having I knife but, seeing how much I cherished it, she gave me a long and heartfelt admonition about how dangerous knives were and I was allowed to keep it.
At the time I really didn't understand why I loved that little blade so much. I had plenty of the trendiest, most popular toys of the day. My treasure trove of toys included Micronaught action figures, a large toy construction crane made by the Tonka company when they still made their toys out of metal and, (best of all) an extensive collection of the old, twelve-inch tall G.I. Joe action figures along with a shoe-box full of tiny guns and other equipment that went with them. But that knife was different; it was not a toy. It was a tool.
Even after the initial novelty had faded, I was proud of that knife. While I had been allowed to keep it, I had never been allowed to carry it on a daily basis. It occupied a place in a small metal toolbox that had been another gift from my grandpa. The knife shared the box with a Canadian quarter that, to me, was exotic because it was from a country other than the United States, an arrow head I had traded away a cap-gun to obtain, a small white rock that I just thought looked cool, and few other objects that my young mind attached importance to. The box's contents were my private treasures; things that held a value for me and no one else. It was a value I couldn't articulate then and would have difficulty explaining now.
Most of those treasures were lost over the next few years as my interests changed and I began to look more critically at the world. That little knife stayed with me, though. I continued to cherish it; taking it out occasionally just to look at. I wondered how it had acquired each of the scratches on the blade and pondered why the wooden grips on the handle were so worn and smooth. Grandpa had carried that knife for years and it had served him well. I would imagine him using it on the farm he once owned, or at the Ohio Valley steel mill at which he had worked years before my birth. So much of what Grandpa was seemed to be imprinted on that simple device of wood and steel. He had given me many other gifts, some expensive and some not, but none helped him live his life like that little pocked knife had. It had not just come from him; it was, in a way, part of him.
A couple of years later I started to carry the knife every day. No one had given me permission to and I had not asked. One day, I had just decided that it was wrong to leave something that had once been so well used to waste away unused in a box. Over one summer I had used the knife for all the various tasks that are mundane and simple, but would be impossible without a cutting tool. By the end of that summer the edge had dulled.
I took it to my grandpa and asked him to sharpen it for me. Instead, he rummaged in a tool box for a wet-stone and a bottle of three-in-one oil and then showed me how to sharpen the blade myself. I worked for a few minutes and then asked him to inspect my work. He ran his thumb along the edge and shook his head. "You let this get pretty dull," he said."It's going to take some work to put the edge back on it." Those probably were not his exact words, because this all occurred over thirty years ago. The next words he said never left me, though. "If you're too lazy to sharpen a knife, you're too lazy," he said when my face had showed my displeasure at having to work longer to restore my knife to functionality. "A dull knife ain't good for anything," he added.
I returned to the wet-stone and began to hone the edge. As I slid the edge over the stone as if I was attempting take a thin slice off of it, Grandpa's words kept running through my head. A dull knife ain't good for anything. As I heard the grating sound of steel on stone and concentrated on keeping the right angle on the blade, the simple but profound truth of those words crept into my perception. I suddenly understood why that knife meant so much to me. It had purpose. It could shape twigs into skewers for roasting hot dogs, it could skin freshly caught fish, and cut the twine off of hay bales. It had thousands of uses and therefore it had value that far exceeded its purchase price.
I thought then of my purpose. Actually, I asked myself if I had a purpose. Sadly, though, my honest answer to that question was no; I had no purpose that I knew of. I went to school, I read voraciously, and I drew fairly decent pictures, but I had no particular reason to do any of those things. I had not yet found a purpose to give my life value.
I spent my teenage years and my twenties struggling to find a purpose. Somewhere along the way I lost track of what purpose meant. I mistook aspiration for purpose. I aspired to make my living drawing comic books and spent many years in vain efforts to do so. I aspired to work in law enforcement and was confronted with my own mediocrity and unsuitability for that profession. I survived in jobs varying from fast food to security guard. I had no purpose in attempting those jobs; no goal that had meaning for me. I worked without direction or purpose because I felt I had to do something.
In my late twenties, I began to see that the United States had lost not only its sense of purpose; but that we had lost our sense of morality first. We had forgotten that there is such a thing as righteous anger. We had allowed ourselves to be convinced that the choice between good and evil is ephemeral, and that morality is subject to the expediency of the moment. Without moral clarity we became hesitant to make difficult choices, or any choices, because without such clarity our purpose is unclear; there is nothing to strive for and no goal in sight. We became unwilling to act in our own interest, to support the interests of our allies, and sometimes, even to effectively defend ourselves. I realized that my own lack of direction mirrored that of my country.
In time, my lifelong interest in history and politics became more than a passing interest. In my late thirties, I entered university, majoring in political science and history. I immersed myself in the currents of the past as they flowed forward to form the present. I studied the institutions mankind creates to govern itself and the theories that shaped those institutions. I wanted to know, above anything else, why my generation, myself especially, had such a singular lack of vision and purpose.
Why had my Grandpa's generation, and those before it, had such a clear sense of purpose, not just personally, but nationally? I looked at my nation and saw a dull knife; something that was once sharp and useful that was now blunted and useless. As a student of history, I could look back and see a time when the United States was sharp and useful. It had been the bread-basket of the world, the arsenal of democracy, and the land of opportunity. The United States had been the hand that fed the hungry, the shield that protected the weak, and the sword that struck down the wicked. Our leaders were not perfect, and our mistakes were many, but we had purpose. That purpose was not to make men free, but to allow men to make themselves free. In an act of supreme vanity, I made that purpose my own. I made the freedom of each and every person on the planet my personal responsibility.
My foray into higher education did show me why my generation lacked the drive and purpose that previous generations possessed. Our educational system, from the primary school to university level, had systematically destroyed it. The false and dangerous idea of moral relativism had become a central part of education in America. If one is taught that morality is relative, and if there are no longer any moral absolutes, then how could a purpose, any purpose be worth accomplishing? If no absolutes existed, then why even try to achieve anything? Anything that was accomplished would be without any real meaning. It would be hollow.
Our children are taught that no principle is worth fighting for; that compromise, even if a given compromise is clearly against their own personal or national morality, is preferable to conflict of any kind; rather that conflict would be political, economic, or physical. Our sense of morality; of what is right, has been systematically eroded and we now find ourselves infected with crippling indecisiveness. Without the anchor of morality a society loses its will to act, to build and, eventually, even to survive. Mired in moral ambiguity we are confronted with the immorality of inaction and with the slow but sure killer of any civilization: stagnation.
There are moral absolutes. Even the most complex moral dilemmas can be distilled down a choice between black or white; right or wrong. It often takes great patients, wisdom, and disciplined (sometimes even painful) intellectual honesty to discern what is right from what is wrong. It then takes courage either to do what is right, or stand against what is wrong. But, once the right course of action has been determined, there is a moral imperative to act. Inaction then becomes immoral.
This commitment, within the United States' educational system, to moral relativism is only one aspect of an ideological cancer that infects the American body politic. This cancer is an insidious movement encompassing the world. It casts disdain on those who base their life on morality and strive for wealth and greatness. It has many forms and many names: socialism, communism, fascism and, its current politically correct and misleading name, progressivism. Although each of these forms of government has slight ideological differences from one another, they all invest all political and legal power in the State. This base ideology is most accurately called statism.
Whatever name it takes; it always seeks to enforce equality among people through subjugation. It has no legitimacy other than force and no function other than the accumulation of power. In statism the political State is god; a god that does not offer salvation to the individual, but only to the collective. To stand out from the collective is an unpardonable sin; to disagree is blasphemy.
Statism sees those with drive, ability, and moral clarity as threats to those who possess less of those qualities. Worse, it sees the distribution of natural ability as being unfair to those who may not have been blessed with such ability. It seeks to oppress anyone who uses their talents to better themselves. It seeks to award mediocrity and punish exceptional ability. Those that create wealth are to be robbed to enrich those that create nothing. In the name of social justice and equality statists want to destroy the type of people that make America great. They see America's purpose as making everyone equal; even if they are equal only in poverty. For the statist slavery is the only way to ensure equality.
Statism destroys the individual drive to create and achieve by demonizing the creators and achievers. Statism confiscates what is produced through the effort of the producer to subsidize the mediocrity of the less motivated of society. Under the guise of law and regulation for the public good the statist seeks to make it impossible for the individual to achieve. It teaches moral relativism so its own amorality becomes unapparent. It questions the morality of those who have created wealth while justifying the robbing of the wealthy as morally imperative. With this pretense, the state confiscates not only the property of the wealthy, but all private property, even what little property the poor might own.
All of this eventually brings private production to a halt and the State attempts to fill the gap; making the people dependant on the State for all goods and services. The State claims sole right to create and produce. But the State has no creative spark; no purpose other than to perpetuate its own existence. It cannot create anything. Creativity is a trait to be found only in the individual motivated by the desire, through his own action, to better himself and, as a direct or indirect consequence, others. But, because the individual ability to innovate and create has been crushed by the forced equality of the State's collective, the State cannot fill the production gap. Society then stagnates, regresses, and eventually dies.
A statist collective inevitably breeds corruption. Although it expounds equality for all, a hierarchy always develops. Since the State has exclusive power to allocate resources, it must invest bureaucrats with the authority over how those resources are dispersed. These people, who the members of the collective are now dependent on for the necessities of life, then find themselves in positions of almost unlimited power; and power corrupts. A system of bribery for survival evolves. Those who are of value to the bureaucrats get a greater share of the available resources; those who are not of use go without. Equality, while being the droning mantra of the statist, is not the goal of the statist. The goal of the statist is the accumulation of economic and political power and the concentration of that power in a very few hands.
All men are not equal. They all have certain God-given rights under the laws of both God and man, but there will always be those that work harder, those who are more intelligent, and those who are willing to sacrifice more to achieve whatever purpose drives them. Such people will always succeed to a greater degree than those who are not as gifted or as driven. It is such people that create prosperity for themselves and those around them. They are the makers and the producers. They are the doers. They may not actively help people of lesser ability or resources, but they do not actively harm them either. They work toward their goals and hope others work successfully toward theirs.
I am speaking here, of the iconic self-made man. I speak of the man who started out mining coal, and later came to own the coal mine, or the man who invents a revolutionary new device in his garage. It is these people who epitomize the individuality and self-reliance that I revere. I am not speaking of corporations which are another type of collective and succeed only when they allow and encourage individual drive and initiative. A corporation, like a collectivist state, withers and dies when individual initiative is suppressed.
We all benefit from the doers' activity rather they want us to or not. This is because they do not redistribute wealth; they create it. They make more where there was less. Their purpose is to better and enrich themselves but, in doing so, they create conditions that provide opportunities for others to improve their own situations. To try to force the doers into equality with those that are less talented and driven is to defy nature and provoke a predictably devastating reaction. These people have vision and purpose. They point the way for those who do not.
I do not count myself among the doers. I have failed at every career I have ever tried and am even now dependent on the good will of friends and family for my livelihood. I lacked the drive to fulfill my chosen purpose. My current impoverished situation is my fault and mine alone; I can blame nothing but my own lack of purposeful will. But I have had an epiphany recently. I have resolved to become a doer. My purpose is to bring my nation back from the brink of the dark pits that are progressivism and statism. I will oppose anything that seeks to crush individual potential, drive, and ability under heel in the name of equality and social justice. I shall do this by enriching myself and accumulating as much wealth as possible without apology or shame. I will use these resources to fight statism in all its forms.
While in college I lost my sense of purpose. I was swept up in the same purposeless apathy that caused me so much concern in others. I saw my country falling apart around me and becoming morally indifferent; feeling powerless to stop it. Americans, as a people, have no clear direction and, like a person with idle hands, we fall into folly. Our national pride has faded almost entirely, our leaders are corrupt and feckless, our freedom is being eroded in a false exchange for safety, and no one seemed to care. To my shame, I ceased to care as well.
I saw the failing of the country so clearly and looked for someone who saw it too. There were a few who did and we tried to make other people see. But, to our frustration, most people did not want to see. Worse, some were perfectly aware of the decline that was all around them and chose to ignore it. Worse still, when I spoke of the decline, I was met with hostility.
I discovered that there was an insidious, pervasive form of cowardice infecting the American people. If they refused to acknowledge the problem, then they did not have to solve it. Now used to being purposeless, they feared having purpose again. I became dejected. If almost no one else cared, then why should I? My sense purpose was murky and nearly gone. I began to decay just as the nation was decaying. I had nothing to drive me; no reason to do more than simply exist. I fell into profound depression.
I had made a dangerous mistake. I had become so lost in the various reasons for the withering of my country that I had forgotten that all my studying and efforts to mobilize resistance against statism were intended to give the people of America a chance to save the nation. I had begun to think only in terms of institutions and agencies; of powers and principalities, and not of the individual people that the evil that I so hated would harm most. I had fallen into the ideological trap of collective salvation; the group was supreme, the individual unimportant.
Even among my own family and friends; even among those who shared my political views, I felt as though I was alone. No one saw the evil as clearly as I did, or shared my zeal for its destruction. I had isolated myself from those I wished to protect; and from those who would protect me.
With the help of family and friends I have found purpose again. It is for them that I continue to make feeble efforts to help the nation turn away from its headlong rush to becoming a collectivist state where freedom would be only an often-repeated lie, and achievement would be measured only by one's capacity to conform. I write essays like this one, I write letters to public officials that go unanswered save for polite but dismissive form-letters, and expound my views to anyone who will listen. I do not know if I make a difference or not, and I do not truly care. It is the action itself; in the ability to take action, any action, that I find satisfaction. I have purpose. As my financial situation improves I will make other, hopefully, more effective measures to battle statism. I know there are others like me now.
I broke my Grandpa's knife after carrying it for a few years. It had served me as well as it had my Grandpa. I collect knives now, and carry one almost everywhere I go; leaving it behind only when I go somewhere where carrying it is not permitted. I use it for common tasks and am always glad that, when I need it to perform its designed function, it can be counted on to do so. I never let it get dull so it becomes less useful. It has a purpose and therefore value. If I keep it sharp it maintains that usefulness. A dull knife is not good for anything.
I have the same view about the nation. If we maintain a focus on a purpose that is clear and moral we, as a nation, are sharp and therefore useful for the world. If we lose that focus and clarity of purpose, we will become dull and useless. If we become useless it will because we have allowed ourselves to be worn down by the assault on the individual and the inspiration draining effect of statist collectivism.
So, as an individual, I will remain sharp. I will do my best at everything I do and not accept failure lightly. I will seek out those that can produce and achieve and give them the respect they deserve. I will unapologetically seek to enrich myself and achieve as much success as possible. I will stand unyielding and uncompromising for what I believe is right. I will be useful and sharp. I will never again give into despair.
John Stuart Mill, 1859
When I was five or six years old my grandpa gave me my first knife. It was an old folding knife with a two-inch blade. My grandpa had carried it in his pocket for years but had finally replaced it with a new one and passed it on to me. I was so proud of it that I showed it to each of my three brothers one at a time and then went looking for anyone else that I could show it to. My mother was hesitant about a boy as young as I was having I knife but, seeing how much I cherished it, she gave me a long and heartfelt admonition about how dangerous knives were and I was allowed to keep it.
At the time I really didn't understand why I loved that little blade so much. I had plenty of the trendiest, most popular toys of the day. My treasure trove of toys included Micronaught action figures, a large toy construction crane made by the Tonka company when they still made their toys out of metal and, (best of all) an extensive collection of the old, twelve-inch tall G.I. Joe action figures along with a shoe-box full of tiny guns and other equipment that went with them. But that knife was different; it was not a toy. It was a tool.
Even after the initial novelty had faded, I was proud of that knife. While I had been allowed to keep it, I had never been allowed to carry it on a daily basis. It occupied a place in a small metal toolbox that had been another gift from my grandpa. The knife shared the box with a Canadian quarter that, to me, was exotic because it was from a country other than the United States, an arrow head I had traded away a cap-gun to obtain, a small white rock that I just thought looked cool, and few other objects that my young mind attached importance to. The box's contents were my private treasures; things that held a value for me and no one else. It was a value I couldn't articulate then and would have difficulty explaining now.
Most of those treasures were lost over the next few years as my interests changed and I began to look more critically at the world. That little knife stayed with me, though. I continued to cherish it; taking it out occasionally just to look at. I wondered how it had acquired each of the scratches on the blade and pondered why the wooden grips on the handle were so worn and smooth. Grandpa had carried that knife for years and it had served him well. I would imagine him using it on the farm he once owned, or at the Ohio Valley steel mill at which he had worked years before my birth. So much of what Grandpa was seemed to be imprinted on that simple device of wood and steel. He had given me many other gifts, some expensive and some not, but none helped him live his life like that little pocked knife had. It had not just come from him; it was, in a way, part of him.
A couple of years later I started to carry the knife every day. No one had given me permission to and I had not asked. One day, I had just decided that it was wrong to leave something that had once been so well used to waste away unused in a box. Over one summer I had used the knife for all the various tasks that are mundane and simple, but would be impossible without a cutting tool. By the end of that summer the edge had dulled.
I took it to my grandpa and asked him to sharpen it for me. Instead, he rummaged in a tool box for a wet-stone and a bottle of three-in-one oil and then showed me how to sharpen the blade myself. I worked for a few minutes and then asked him to inspect my work. He ran his thumb along the edge and shook his head. "You let this get pretty dull," he said."It's going to take some work to put the edge back on it." Those probably were not his exact words, because this all occurred over thirty years ago. The next words he said never left me, though. "If you're too lazy to sharpen a knife, you're too lazy," he said when my face had showed my displeasure at having to work longer to restore my knife to functionality. "A dull knife ain't good for anything," he added.
I returned to the wet-stone and began to hone the edge. As I slid the edge over the stone as if I was attempting take a thin slice off of it, Grandpa's words kept running through my head. A dull knife ain't good for anything. As I heard the grating sound of steel on stone and concentrated on keeping the right angle on the blade, the simple but profound truth of those words crept into my perception. I suddenly understood why that knife meant so much to me. It had purpose. It could shape twigs into skewers for roasting hot dogs, it could skin freshly caught fish, and cut the twine off of hay bales. It had thousands of uses and therefore it had value that far exceeded its purchase price.
I thought then of my purpose. Actually, I asked myself if I had a purpose. Sadly, though, my honest answer to that question was no; I had no purpose that I knew of. I went to school, I read voraciously, and I drew fairly decent pictures, but I had no particular reason to do any of those things. I had not yet found a purpose to give my life value.
I spent my teenage years and my twenties struggling to find a purpose. Somewhere along the way I lost track of what purpose meant. I mistook aspiration for purpose. I aspired to make my living drawing comic books and spent many years in vain efforts to do so. I aspired to work in law enforcement and was confronted with my own mediocrity and unsuitability for that profession. I survived in jobs varying from fast food to security guard. I had no purpose in attempting those jobs; no goal that had meaning for me. I worked without direction or purpose because I felt I had to do something.
In my late twenties, I began to see that the United States had lost not only its sense of purpose; but that we had lost our sense of morality first. We had forgotten that there is such a thing as righteous anger. We had allowed ourselves to be convinced that the choice between good and evil is ephemeral, and that morality is subject to the expediency of the moment. Without moral clarity we became hesitant to make difficult choices, or any choices, because without such clarity our purpose is unclear; there is nothing to strive for and no goal in sight. We became unwilling to act in our own interest, to support the interests of our allies, and sometimes, even to effectively defend ourselves. I realized that my own lack of direction mirrored that of my country.
In time, my lifelong interest in history and politics became more than a passing interest. In my late thirties, I entered university, majoring in political science and history. I immersed myself in the currents of the past as they flowed forward to form the present. I studied the institutions mankind creates to govern itself and the theories that shaped those institutions. I wanted to know, above anything else, why my generation, myself especially, had such a singular lack of vision and purpose.
Why had my Grandpa's generation, and those before it, had such a clear sense of purpose, not just personally, but nationally? I looked at my nation and saw a dull knife; something that was once sharp and useful that was now blunted and useless. As a student of history, I could look back and see a time when the United States was sharp and useful. It had been the bread-basket of the world, the arsenal of democracy, and the land of opportunity. The United States had been the hand that fed the hungry, the shield that protected the weak, and the sword that struck down the wicked. Our leaders were not perfect, and our mistakes were many, but we had purpose. That purpose was not to make men free, but to allow men to make themselves free. In an act of supreme vanity, I made that purpose my own. I made the freedom of each and every person on the planet my personal responsibility.
My foray into higher education did show me why my generation lacked the drive and purpose that previous generations possessed. Our educational system, from the primary school to university level, had systematically destroyed it. The false and dangerous idea of moral relativism had become a central part of education in America. If one is taught that morality is relative, and if there are no longer any moral absolutes, then how could a purpose, any purpose be worth accomplishing? If no absolutes existed, then why even try to achieve anything? Anything that was accomplished would be without any real meaning. It would be hollow.
Our children are taught that no principle is worth fighting for; that compromise, even if a given compromise is clearly against their own personal or national morality, is preferable to conflict of any kind; rather that conflict would be political, economic, or physical. Our sense of morality; of what is right, has been systematically eroded and we now find ourselves infected with crippling indecisiveness. Without the anchor of morality a society loses its will to act, to build and, eventually, even to survive. Mired in moral ambiguity we are confronted with the immorality of inaction and with the slow but sure killer of any civilization: stagnation.
There are moral absolutes. Even the most complex moral dilemmas can be distilled down a choice between black or white; right or wrong. It often takes great patients, wisdom, and disciplined (sometimes even painful) intellectual honesty to discern what is right from what is wrong. It then takes courage either to do what is right, or stand against what is wrong. But, once the right course of action has been determined, there is a moral imperative to act. Inaction then becomes immoral.
This commitment, within the United States' educational system, to moral relativism is only one aspect of an ideological cancer that infects the American body politic. This cancer is an insidious movement encompassing the world. It casts disdain on those who base their life on morality and strive for wealth and greatness. It has many forms and many names: socialism, communism, fascism and, its current politically correct and misleading name, progressivism. Although each of these forms of government has slight ideological differences from one another, they all invest all political and legal power in the State. This base ideology is most accurately called statism.
Whatever name it takes; it always seeks to enforce equality among people through subjugation. It has no legitimacy other than force and no function other than the accumulation of power. In statism the political State is god; a god that does not offer salvation to the individual, but only to the collective. To stand out from the collective is an unpardonable sin; to disagree is blasphemy.
Statism sees those with drive, ability, and moral clarity as threats to those who possess less of those qualities. Worse, it sees the distribution of natural ability as being unfair to those who may not have been blessed with such ability. It seeks to oppress anyone who uses their talents to better themselves. It seeks to award mediocrity and punish exceptional ability. Those that create wealth are to be robbed to enrich those that create nothing. In the name of social justice and equality statists want to destroy the type of people that make America great. They see America's purpose as making everyone equal; even if they are equal only in poverty. For the statist slavery is the only way to ensure equality.
Statism destroys the individual drive to create and achieve by demonizing the creators and achievers. Statism confiscates what is produced through the effort of the producer to subsidize the mediocrity of the less motivated of society. Under the guise of law and regulation for the public good the statist seeks to make it impossible for the individual to achieve. It teaches moral relativism so its own amorality becomes unapparent. It questions the morality of those who have created wealth while justifying the robbing of the wealthy as morally imperative. With this pretense, the state confiscates not only the property of the wealthy, but all private property, even what little property the poor might own.
All of this eventually brings private production to a halt and the State attempts to fill the gap; making the people dependant on the State for all goods and services. The State claims sole right to create and produce. But the State has no creative spark; no purpose other than to perpetuate its own existence. It cannot create anything. Creativity is a trait to be found only in the individual motivated by the desire, through his own action, to better himself and, as a direct or indirect consequence, others. But, because the individual ability to innovate and create has been crushed by the forced equality of the State's collective, the State cannot fill the production gap. Society then stagnates, regresses, and eventually dies.
A statist collective inevitably breeds corruption. Although it expounds equality for all, a hierarchy always develops. Since the State has exclusive power to allocate resources, it must invest bureaucrats with the authority over how those resources are dispersed. These people, who the members of the collective are now dependent on for the necessities of life, then find themselves in positions of almost unlimited power; and power corrupts. A system of bribery for survival evolves. Those who are of value to the bureaucrats get a greater share of the available resources; those who are not of use go without. Equality, while being the droning mantra of the statist, is not the goal of the statist. The goal of the statist is the accumulation of economic and political power and the concentration of that power in a very few hands.
All men are not equal. They all have certain God-given rights under the laws of both God and man, but there will always be those that work harder, those who are more intelligent, and those who are willing to sacrifice more to achieve whatever purpose drives them. Such people will always succeed to a greater degree than those who are not as gifted or as driven. It is such people that create prosperity for themselves and those around them. They are the makers and the producers. They are the doers. They may not actively help people of lesser ability or resources, but they do not actively harm them either. They work toward their goals and hope others work successfully toward theirs.
I am speaking here, of the iconic self-made man. I speak of the man who started out mining coal, and later came to own the coal mine, or the man who invents a revolutionary new device in his garage. It is these people who epitomize the individuality and self-reliance that I revere. I am not speaking of corporations which are another type of collective and succeed only when they allow and encourage individual drive and initiative. A corporation, like a collectivist state, withers and dies when individual initiative is suppressed.
We all benefit from the doers' activity rather they want us to or not. This is because they do not redistribute wealth; they create it. They make more where there was less. Their purpose is to better and enrich themselves but, in doing so, they create conditions that provide opportunities for others to improve their own situations. To try to force the doers into equality with those that are less talented and driven is to defy nature and provoke a predictably devastating reaction. These people have vision and purpose. They point the way for those who do not.
I do not count myself among the doers. I have failed at every career I have ever tried and am even now dependent on the good will of friends and family for my livelihood. I lacked the drive to fulfill my chosen purpose. My current impoverished situation is my fault and mine alone; I can blame nothing but my own lack of purposeful will. But I have had an epiphany recently. I have resolved to become a doer. My purpose is to bring my nation back from the brink of the dark pits that are progressivism and statism. I will oppose anything that seeks to crush individual potential, drive, and ability under heel in the name of equality and social justice. I shall do this by enriching myself and accumulating as much wealth as possible without apology or shame. I will use these resources to fight statism in all its forms.
While in college I lost my sense of purpose. I was swept up in the same purposeless apathy that caused me so much concern in others. I saw my country falling apart around me and becoming morally indifferent; feeling powerless to stop it. Americans, as a people, have no clear direction and, like a person with idle hands, we fall into folly. Our national pride has faded almost entirely, our leaders are corrupt and feckless, our freedom is being eroded in a false exchange for safety, and no one seemed to care. To my shame, I ceased to care as well.
I saw the failing of the country so clearly and looked for someone who saw it too. There were a few who did and we tried to make other people see. But, to our frustration, most people did not want to see. Worse, some were perfectly aware of the decline that was all around them and chose to ignore it. Worse still, when I spoke of the decline, I was met with hostility.
I discovered that there was an insidious, pervasive form of cowardice infecting the American people. If they refused to acknowledge the problem, then they did not have to solve it. Now used to being purposeless, they feared having purpose again. I became dejected. If almost no one else cared, then why should I? My sense purpose was murky and nearly gone. I began to decay just as the nation was decaying. I had nothing to drive me; no reason to do more than simply exist. I fell into profound depression.
I had made a dangerous mistake. I had become so lost in the various reasons for the withering of my country that I had forgotten that all my studying and efforts to mobilize resistance against statism were intended to give the people of America a chance to save the nation. I had begun to think only in terms of institutions and agencies; of powers and principalities, and not of the individual people that the evil that I so hated would harm most. I had fallen into the ideological trap of collective salvation; the group was supreme, the individual unimportant.
Even among my own family and friends; even among those who shared my political views, I felt as though I was alone. No one saw the evil as clearly as I did, or shared my zeal for its destruction. I had isolated myself from those I wished to protect; and from those who would protect me.
With the help of family and friends I have found purpose again. It is for them that I continue to make feeble efforts to help the nation turn away from its headlong rush to becoming a collectivist state where freedom would be only an often-repeated lie, and achievement would be measured only by one's capacity to conform. I write essays like this one, I write letters to public officials that go unanswered save for polite but dismissive form-letters, and expound my views to anyone who will listen. I do not know if I make a difference or not, and I do not truly care. It is the action itself; in the ability to take action, any action, that I find satisfaction. I have purpose. As my financial situation improves I will make other, hopefully, more effective measures to battle statism. I know there are others like me now.
I broke my Grandpa's knife after carrying it for a few years. It had served me as well as it had my Grandpa. I collect knives now, and carry one almost everywhere I go; leaving it behind only when I go somewhere where carrying it is not permitted. I use it for common tasks and am always glad that, when I need it to perform its designed function, it can be counted on to do so. I never let it get dull so it becomes less useful. It has a purpose and therefore value. If I keep it sharp it maintains that usefulness. A dull knife is not good for anything.
I have the same view about the nation. If we maintain a focus on a purpose that is clear and moral we, as a nation, are sharp and therefore useful for the world. If we lose that focus and clarity of purpose, we will become dull and useless. If we become useless it will because we have allowed ourselves to be worn down by the assault on the individual and the inspiration draining effect of statist collectivism.
So, as an individual, I will remain sharp. I will do my best at everything I do and not accept failure lightly. I will seek out those that can produce and achieve and give them the respect they deserve. I will unapologetically seek to enrich myself and achieve as much success as possible. I will stand unyielding and uncompromising for what I believe is right. I will be useful and sharp. I will never again give into despair.