POLITICS - Mic McPherson's Thoughts on Freedom

[1886]

A FEW RAMBLING THOUGHTS
ON THE HISTORY OF FREEDOM

M. L. McPherson



Why do we now have personal freedom? This is much more than an interesting academic question.

As we look back along the faint tendrils of recorded history, we note the conspicuous absence of one thing — in those thousands of years and throughout those hundreds of “civilizations,” we see mirrored practically every good and bad aspect of modern life. We see war, famine, oppression, strife, and grief. We see advances and setbacks. We see literary, engineering, artistic, and scientific marvels. We see the continuing inevitable overall advancement of knowledge.

What we do not see is the existence of personal freedom for the common folk. Throughout recorded history and throughout the world, until about 300 years ago: Individual Freedom, as a feature of human existence, was never seen, not anywhere — even in the most “democratic” of those societies only the powerful had the freedom to do as they pleased.

Certainly, one could argue that personal freedom is overrated, and some would seem to want to do so, but that debate does not interests me and I do not want to pursue it here. (Technically, that point is moot.) For the purposes of this treatise, I will hold that nothing could be more precious to a human being. Those who do not agree have a different battle to fight.

What was the magic potion that changed the course of history, so that, about 300 years ago, we began to see individuals who were able to claim and to enforce their God-given right to personal freedom? The answer would astound many modern scholars, if only those folks would bother to study history in the cold, hard light of fact. That magic potion was in the form of cold, hard steel.

At that time, for the first time in “civilized” history, the average individual could afford a means of defeating armor, and therefore the hired and trained mercenaries, of the wealthy few. How so, you might ask? The answer: The Affordable Gun!

In that era, the advent of the steam-powered external combustion “steam engine,” provided the first effective means of ridding mines of water. That little detail was crucial to the inchoate industrial revolution. With the advent of that revolution, the price of guns and ammunition components plummeted.

As a result, for the first time ever, the average person could afford a weapon that was capable of defeating armor. Of course, then as now, the ruling elite fought tooth and nail to prevent the average subject from owning such a weapon — in that era, the reasons for that legalistic oppression were somewhat more obvious to the average person than are the reasons today; nevertheless, those reasons are identical!

It is a fact that, without the affordable gun, freedom for the masses would never have happened. It is equally a fact that as soon as the masses lose that means of preserving their God-given rights, freedom will perish, as has repeatedly been proven throughout this modern world’s brief history.

In the past 120 or so years, at least 100,000,000 innocent “citizens” have been disarmed by their own governments and then summarily executed by one means of another. That is a fact of history, not the rhetoric of politicians — the same sort of rhetoric that brought those disarmaments and genocides!

Those who gnash their teeth, bewailing the supposed carnage brought about by the “evil gun” continuously ignore the vastly more damaging facets of human nature that are necessarily rampant in any free society. But I shall not argue that point, as I find it an exercise in banality. The point I will argue is the undeniable fact that we have a choice: We can choose to live in freedom and accept that such liberty necessarily must include a certain admixture of evil and bad; else, we can choose to live in a Police State, for there is no enduring intermediate condition.

In this regard, it is obvious, as I often state: "A price exists for freedom. Any society is either willing to pay that price or it is destined to suffer under the inevitable consequences of the alternative — a Police State, or worse!"


Mic sent this to me. I thought some of you might enjoy reading his thoughts. Regards. 1886.

[Old Savage]

Actually, the battle of Crecy, 1325? was the first defeat of armor by the long bow. And, a liberal student told me in 1993 that the history of the safe city was only 120 years old - hmm? - wonder what that correlates to???