The Sad Truth

"A mostly sunny day, to some, can look a lot like partly gray." - Eeyore

I was struck a while ago by a post from our comrade in arms Sunni, concerning her recent bout of happiness. What struck me most was that she had to take some very difficult decisions to get happy. It wasn't just something she had managed to stumble across or have randomly occur. Nope. Sunni had to do some serious work to get happy and that got me to thinking, (a dangerous proposition these days).

It's easy to be sad, angry, hurt or depressed. Those come easy to us; genuine happiness, on the other hand doesn't come easy. It takes some work. Look at the news and what it does to us as a prime example. Every time the Powers That Be inflict some new travesty upon us or someone else, our reactions are predictable. We become angered, depressed or are saddened by whatever the pronouncement is. There's rarely any happiness to be found and when it is fleeting. A scant moment of joy.

Many of us become paralysed by the predictable reactions and get stuck in the rut of angered reaction. We let ourselves be swept along by events, due to those predictable reactions. Don't think that The Powers That Be are unaware of this either. They know that they rule over a nation of Eeyore's and Piglet's. Depressed and scared by the futility of events well beyond our control we allow ourselves to me manoeuvred into positions of powerlessness. Even when we manage small victories in whatever our cause may be they are outweighed by the defeats that sap the resolve which remains. Look at the last election cycle or the results of the War on Iraq. Look at those of who have embraced TEOTWAWKI and survival preparedness. We have folks who range from happily preparing but getting on with life to those who seemingly cannot wait for things to fall apart.

Where's the happiness? The Joie De Vie? Must we allow it to be hammered from us by events which are beyond our control? Or must we work all the harder to create genuine happiness and pull from these events that which will place another brick in our own foundations? The latter is my choice. Happiness is preferable at all times, despite the work it takes to achieve true and lasting happiness. It's also necessary for us to be happy to produce the results we wish. This must apply doubly to those of us looking for freedom and liberty. How satisfying will it be if we achieved those goals riding on depression, anger and sadness as our primary steeds? That would make for a miserable journey, I think. Somewhere on that journey we must seek out, find and embrace happiness as our method, rather than the "Dark Side". It has to be preferable to depression and anger.

Looking at the last election cycle there is some happiness to be found. Despite the victories of the Socialist Left we saw that those who have chosen not to participate in the farcical electoral process far outweigh those who do. Clearly anarchistic sanity is winning out through default, despite evidence that Eeyore syndrome may be more to blame. The Socialist Right got a black eye, too! There's always a small ray of sunshine to be captured. We just need to keep them and store them up. No-one likes or listens much to the fearful and those saddened beyond recourse.

Those who wish to further the cause of freedom and liberty must work hard to find their "happy place" and work harder still to stay there if they wish to win. As we well know, happy people are much more productive than those beaten down by the blues. And it's a lot easier to make converts if you're smiling, just ask the Mormons next time they knock on your door at some ungodly hour. That should be our goal over the next year. Finding our freedom loving happy place and staying there. Ignore the power grabbers in the political arena, the merchants of misery and those who would hold power over others. Let's take some time to get happy and spread it around. It's hard work but I think the payoff will be much better in the end. Right, Sunni?

"I tell you one thing, though. Wherever we go, whatever we do, we're gonna take this luggage with us! "-Joe Banks

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Libertarian, Happiness, Freedom, Happy Place

The Creationists Cave In

Finally, there is a bit of good news in the War on Rationality. It seems that the Cobb County, Georgia school board has finally given up their nonsensical battle to have stickers decrying evolution placed on books in their school district. Perhaps now the minions of the government school systems can get back to some semblance of teaching science rather than fighting a losing battle to placate the neo-Luddites in Cobb County. It's hard enough for children to get some form of education in these places without adding the misinformation provided by the fundamentalists and the fanatical vanguard in their battle against science and rationality. One blow struck for the separation of Church and State...many more to go. Kudos to the ACLU and others who fought this.

Darwin:1 Creationism:0

Now if we can just win the battle for separation of State and School....we'll be getting somewhere.

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Politics, Creationism, Libertarian

Bob Barr Defects

Well, the Libertarian Party has announced that Bob Barr is now a former Republican and a new member and officer of the Libertarian Party.

(Washington, D.C.) On Tuesday evening, former Congressman Bob Barr, a Life Member of the Libertarian Party, was offered the position of Regional 4 Representative of the Libertarian National Committee.

I can't say that I find this a pleasant happening from my particular point of view. While I admire Mr. Barr's stance on the 2nd Amendment, privacy issues and a few other things he has some major baggage that is blatantly unlibertarian. Since the article states that he is a card carrying, life member I will assume that he has read the Non-Aggression Principle and understands it. Then again there are a great many Neo-Libertarians who have signed it and have no clue as to what it means, so court's out on this one.

Mr. Barr also has not, to the best of my knowledge or anyone else's repudiated his stance on the Drug War. This is the clincher for me. Unless he can stand up and say he is 100% against the War on Drugs and People then he definitely cannot be counted as anything other than a paper libertarian who was courted by the Reformista in a misguided attempt to garner votes in the 2008 election. While many can accept some folks who are 80% libertarian there are, and must be cut off points and the War on Drugs should always be a major one.

Barr is exactly what they have been preaching for as their dream candidate. A defector who has been lured away in order to garner votes but who is not really a libertarian in any true sense of the word. Here's my prediction. The Reformista are going to attempt to run him as the LP candidate in 2008, pushing aside real libertarians with a history in favour of someone they consider more electable. This would pretty much be the final nail in the LP's political coffin and would serve to drive even more people from the Party.

The LP and Bob Barr have a great many questions to answer and they'd best get to answering them quickly. Given the recent events in Portland this is something the LP can ill afford to let slide.

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Libertarian, Bob Barr, Politics

A Venerable Tradition Lives On

While perusing my favourite Gulf Coast newspaper, I was surprised to see that the powers that be in my home state had been busy carrying out raids on local liquor entrepreneurs. In this day and age when it is commonplace to see stories about police raids on growers and users of marijuana and other drugs, it was reassuring to my freedom loving soul to see that the venerable tradition of back woods distilling is still going strong. And it pained me to see that the purveyors of this product are still being persecuted, all in the name of taxation.

I remember hearing about moonshining operations on the Gulf Coast when I was a boy. Unfortunately, I was much too young to support these at the time and I live much to far away to lend my support now, (if I still imbibed), but it warms my heart to know that the very thing that got my great grandfather a stretch in Parchman Prison is still a going concern.

That government Revenuers still go out of their way to destroy stills and imprison these people says a great deal about the state of affairs in this country. 212 years after the crushed Whiskey Rebellion, the government still wants its money and is willing to imprison people and destroy their property to get it. Forget flags with snakes and canon on them, we should be flying a flag with a whiskey still on it in memory and honour of those brave souls who stood against the first tyrant and traitor to the Revolution, George.

Here's hoping that the 'shiners of the Coast keep on making their Jourdan River Dew and avoid the revenuers!

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Libertarian, Moon Shine, Mississippi, Gulf Coast