“The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.”
—-John Philpot Curran
The following are excerpts from Matt Kibbe’s latest book: Don’t Hurt People and Don’t Take Their Stuff: A Libertarian Manifesto.
It’s a must-read.
From Reason.com
In 1977, I bought my first Rush album. I was 13. The title of the disc was 2112, and the foldout jacket had a very cool and ominous red star on the cover. As soon as I got it home from the store, I carefully placed that vinyl record onto the felt-padded turntable of my parents’ old Motorola console stereo.
The moment I dropped that stylus, and that needle caught the groove, I became obsessed with Rush like only thirteen-year-old boys can get obsessed. I turned up the volume as loud as I thought I could get away with, and I rocked.
Mom shut that jam session down real fast. So I turned down the stereo, sat down, and began to read the liner notes inside the album cover jacket instead. The text inside the cover read, “With acknowledgement to the genius of Ayn Rand.” What an odd name, I thought. Who is Ayn Rand?
2112 is a song cycle that tells the story of a futuristic and tyrannical society where individual choice and initiative have been replaced by the top-down control of an autocratic regime. The theme was not unlike the state of the music industry at the time, a predetermined Top 40 collection of one-size-fits-all pop. (Google Captain & Tennille’s “Muskrat Love.” Enough said.) Without the decentralized and liberating forces of the Internet, alternative music was left undiscovered, unheard by consumers, crushed by the silence of ignorance.
As it turns out, in the mid-1970’s, the members of Rush were battling their own record label for control over their artistic direction. The band wanted to pursue its own creative path, even if it didn’t fit with someone else’s conception of “good” music. Mercury Records wanted something more “commercial.” They wanted Rush to sell more records, or else.
If you follow the evolution of any genre of music, or any creative industry for that matter, you’ve already heard this story a thousand times. It is the clash between tradition and innovation, and the creative destruction that drives individuals to challenge the status quo. The establishment always gets squirrely when some difficult-to-manage new talent attempts to deviate from the norm.
Too far. Too individualistic. Too extreme. You just know it’s going to happen, the labels and the name-calling, the defensiveness, when the protectors of the status quo feel threatened by change and principled disruption.
When it comes to innovation, sometimes the customer is always right. But other times an innovator shakes up market perceptions and upsells buyers on a better product—a new idea that you didn’t even know you needed until someone else figured it out for you. This process of creative disruption—standing on the shoulders of your intellectual forefathers all the while challenging them and their best work—seems to be where the good stuff in life comes from.
And it can only happen if people are free. Free to succeed. Free to fail. Free to speak their minds and disagree with the experts. Free to choose. Think about the horseless carriage, handheld computers, or the MP3 files on your iPod that replaced CDs, that replaced cassettes and eight-track tapes, and yes, that even replaced vinyl.
This disruption seems particularly true in music. Music and freedom just seem to go together, just like the word “bacon” belongs in any sentence that includes the phrase “proper meal.” I can’t prove it, but you just know that it’s true.
Back in 1977, such profound insights eluded me. I was wearing black concert tees and wondering who the heck Ayn Rand was, when I stumbled upon a used copy of her novella Anthem at a neighborhood garage sale. I took it home and read it without putting it down once. What an awesome book it was, about a dystopian society where the word “I” had been erased by an oppressive, collective “We.” Despite insurmountable odds, the good guys, the “cursed” ones, the ones who begin to start their sentences with the word “I,” persevere. I connected with the struggle to be free—different, independent, responsible for my own successes and failures.
I immediately set out to find the other works of Ayn Rand. Imagine how long it took me to find a copy of The Fountainhead. Back in the day, you couldn’t just log into your Amazon account and find it, or the multitude of other books related to it. I looked in any bookstore, at every opportunity. It was difficult to find. But, I was obsessed.
Neil Peart, the drummer and lyricist for Rush, was also obsessed with Ayn Rand at the time of his band’s career-defining struggle with their record label. The band had toured relentlessly in support of their last album, Caress of Steel, but the record had been trashed by music critics (a trend that would go on for decades).
……The beautiful chaos and political disintermediation that is enabled by the Internet and social media is empowering individuals, helping them find ideas, each other, and better information about the corrupt cronyism of D.C.’s entrenched political class. That’s real power. It’s the reason why the machinery of government no longer functions entirely behind closed doors, shielded from the light of public attention. Information on last-minute floor votes and arcane congressional floor procedure is tweeted out, posted, shared, streamed live, and otherwise instantaneously distributed to millions of citizens, creating a greater social intelligence.
Knowledge is power, and the diminishing marginal costs of getting good information about Washington’s ways is changing the old, tired political calculus. Politicians can no longer hide from their constituents, telling them one thing back home while voting for business as usual in the nation’s capital. And it’s driving the Old Guard of the political establishment absolutely nuts. They are lashing out.
Many people in Washington, DC, want to stop you, the citizen shareholder. Sometimes they call names, names meant to damage and hurt. Should we let them? Should we back down and take the easier path?
I can only think back to laying on my parent’s plush red wall-to-wall carpeting as I read the inside cover of 2112. The final song on the second side of the album is playing. “You don’t get something for nothing.” I’m listening, reading the lyrics inside the record sleeve, the one with the cool, ominous red star.
“You can’t have freedom for free.”
He’s not kidding about politicians hiding from constituents and lashing out when confronted. They don’t like being held accountable. Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Hoyer, Biden, and the rest of the leftwing effete hate to be called out for their actions. They don’t take criticism of their arrogance and hubris very well. Neither do certain Republicans.
The rights of citizens in this country are eroding at an alarming rate.
If you enjoy your freedoms, protect them.
Reblogged this on Rowan TEA Party Patriots.