A Global Referendum on Freedom
-by Julius Ruechel-
To all the silent good people watching our society tear itself in two, this essay is for you.
This is a war about the role of government. It is about your freedom to think, to speak, and to ask questions, and about whether your individual autonomy is downgraded to a conditional privilege or whether it remains a right. It is a war about whether you are to remain a citizen or become a subject. It is about who owns you; you or the state.
The question at the forefront of this psychological battle is about whether we will remain a society based on legal equality and inalienable rights or whether, in the name of safety, equity, and political correctness, we will allow ourselves to be reduced to a society of masters and servants. This was the norm throughout much of human history, with the masters granting or withdrawing conditional privileges to pursue whatever they perceive as the greater good.
In a free and open society, freedom is the greater good. So, in a sense, what is playing out on a grand scale is a global referendum on freedom. The consequences of this referendum will be with us long after the virus fades away. In this referendum, you don’t get to cast your vote at the polls. Your choice to speak out or stay silent in the face of the naked emperor is your vote.
Both options come with terrible risks: the consequences of being bulldozed by the regime if you speak out versus the servile future that is waiting for you if you don’t. There is no option to simply sit on the sidelines of this referendum. Those who choose silence are, in effect, signalling that their freedom is worth less to them than the discomfort of speaking out and facing the consequences. They are, in effect, legitimizing the regime’s use of intimidation by showing that it works.
There is no knight in shining armour that can ride to our rescue. We have to do this ourselves — together. The magic ingredient in this war is the courage to allow yourself to be counted among the counter chorus. It really is that simple. You are either swept along by the stampede or you dig your heels in. These are your two choices. Freedom on one side, servitude on the other.
A right comes with the responsibility to exercise that right when your or anyone else’s rights are under attack. Rights derive their legitimacy only through the willingness of citizens to defend them, for themselves and for each other. If the willingness to speak your mind in public is missing, you have no rights.
“If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”
-Winston S. Churchill
Read the full article here – https://www.juliusruechel.com/2021/07/the-emperor-has-no-clothes-finding.html
The Emperor Has No Clothes: Finding the Courage to Break the Spell
Who Is Julius Ruechel?
“The less you know about me, the less reason you will have to trust me. Which means you will be forced to consider the quality of the evidence I lay on the table based solely on its own merits. And you will have nothing but my thought processes to help you judge whether the conclusions I reach are justified. And in that, both science and democracy will be well served.”
https://www.juliusruechel.com/p/about-me.html