Seeing Systems for Fun and Profit...

Very few of you who read the comic probily know me personally. I am rather sure of this because my readership is quickly approaching the 250 daily reader mark (actually it's surpassed it, but my return reader base floats between 220-230 on any given day with spikes depending on just how much buzz a strip gets). Given that I think I only know about a dozen people PERSONALLY, that is to say, know what they most likely had for breakfast on any given day, there is a certain amount of inpersonality towards my readership and myself.

This, I feel is a good thing. My strip is a story. It's not a daily rant, it's not a personal opinion (although my personal opinions are reflected within the strip). It's a story. One that I want to tell.

Now then, what does any of this have to do with this post beyond mindless rambeling.

Well.

If you know me personally you'll know I have this fascination with patterns and systems. Namely, systems PREDICT and EXPLAIN patterns.

And I love systems, traffic flow systems, water systems, philosophical systems, mathematical systems. Systems WORK at explaining the laws of the universe.

I've recently started reading essays from the Ayn Rand institute, and I must say, I rather kick myself for not reading them earlier because they begin to explain the systems in which my government, and in fact all forms of government, operate.

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer

Now what I personally believe in is CHOICE. We all have the ability to chose our actions, for good or for ill we ALL have the ability to chose our paths in life.

Recently there have been actions in government that greatly disturb me. The most disturbing one is the decision by the Supreme Court which effectivly establishes that ALL private property belongs to the government, and that government, if it so choses, can claim private property to use as it sees fit.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/06/23/scotus.property.ap/

This effectivly means that the government owns all private property, it is simply a matter of the Governments benovelance that enables the individual to use it. If the Government deems that there can be a better use for the property, it may be confescated.

Why does this concern me so? I mean I'm certain that the people of the communitys that tear down old buildings to make way for newer, more lucrative commercial developments, must recive a great benifit from these efforts.

Why this bothers me, is that we have turned from a PRIVATELY based country. A country where the INDIVIDUAL was his own, personal king, and become a MONARCHY where the STATE hold Kinghood. To some, they may see no problem with it. Where as a true monarchy establishes their ruler through lineage, we are given the ability to chose our rulers. If our rulers offend us, we can remove them through a simple vote.

But it's a FLASE security. To misquote Thomas Jefferson, "Tyranny is when an individual lives in fear of it's government, Liberty is when a government lives in fear of it's people."

Liberty is an AMAZINGLY frightening thing. It is freedom absolute. Not anarchaic freedom, a complete lawlessness which any many is unrestraind to follow whatever his base desire whisper to him. Rather it is the understanding that you are FREE to do whatever it is that you desire, that doesn't affect another man to do what he so desires. Liberty means that you CAN fail...but you can also SUCEED beyond your wildest dreams. Nothing in life comes without a price. And the price for being truely free, truely able to do what you desire to do with your life, means that you run the risk of being completly ruined.

Those who chose security over liberty deserve neither liberty or security.

We, as human beings, must come to the realization that life is a gamble. That there IS no gurantee for sucess. We must recognize that our price for sucess is the inherent risk of failure. If we are to sacrifice that risk of failure, we will NEVER acheive sucess. For it is only when mankind realizes that he has no CHOICE but to suceed, will he be motivated to suceed. Failure is a system upon itself. It teachesw us what works and what doesn't. The smart individual understands that each failure is a lesson. That every failure is a path to sucess by ELIMINATING the path that does not work. The fool sees failure as an ultimate, the final path.

We must begin to chose liberty. We MUST begin to accept that our choices cary with them the weight of failure. We must realize that in order to be free we will never be secure, in ANY form of the word. We must understand that the best system is not one of mob rule, but of enabling the INDIVIDUAL to make the best decisions for themselves, and a system that enables the poliecing of those individuals who would take the ability to chose from the individual.

Begin to see the systems, and you'll understand how they're suppost to work. You'll see how they've been worked in and around to pervert their original intent, and you'll begin to see why it's so important for them to be in place, and why we should ALWAYS fight to keep them in place.

Read Ayn Rand. Read Thomas Jefferson. Begin to understand the system that is America, and then fight for her.