Sometimes when I write about freeing ourselves rather than joining mass movements or flinging ourselves into political campaigns, somebody will accuse me of being nihilistic or advocating me-me-me values.<\/p>\n
If you’ve been around long enough, you know that’s not the point. The point is, of course, that true freedom can only arise from within the individual and spread from there. All “political” solutions are just band-aids on a wound if we’re not prepared to live free, to accord equal rights of freedom to our neighbors, and to personally oppose tyranny.<\/p>\n
Still, it’s understandable that people who’ve always thought of freedom only in terms of mass action miss that point. After the recent blog, “Occupy Your Ownself,”<\/a> that notion came up again.<\/p>\n I hate repeating myself, though after 15 years of doing what I do, I understand it’s a necessity. In this case, though, I stumbled upon an old Backwoods Home<\/i> article that says some things that bear repeating. <\/p>\n I found it in one of the ancient issues of BHM that came with the house I bought last year. It wasn’t online and I had long ago lost any e-copy on my computer. Fortunately, webmaster Oliver keeps everything<\/i>. And he kindly put it online for me a couple of days ago. He even took the initiative to add a good collection of links (thank you, Oliver).<\/p>\n So here is the first article I wrote for BHM after 9-11: “Freedom Tomorrow.”<\/a><\/p>\n It’s dated now, of course. But it’s still a pretty good statement on how the act of living<\/i> free can build freedom in the broader sense.<\/p>\n —–<\/p>\n I’m going to take the next day or two off from work-work and blogging. I’ll be doing some projects around the house and hopefully also finishing J.D. Tuccille’s new novel High Desert Barbecue<\/i><\/a>, which he was kind enough to send me in a really beautiful trade paperback form. It’s a terrific read so far and I’ll have more to say once I can finally make time to finish it.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sometimes when I write about freeing ourselves rather than joining mass movements or flinging ourselves into political campaigns, somebody will accuse me of being nihilistic or advocating me-me-me values. If you’ve been around long enough, you know that’s not the point. The point is, of course, that true freedom can only arise from within the individual and spread from there. All “political” solutions are just band-aids on a wound if we’re not prepared to live free, to accord equal rights of freedom to our neighbors, and to personally oppose tyranny. Still, it’s understandable that people who’ve always thought of freedom…<\/p>\n