Season 4 Podcast 52 Self-Reliance Concept 1 Blind Obedience
At the heart of our democratic republic is the principle of self-reliance. If we do not require self-reliance from our citizens we soon lose our freedom and liberty. Any move toward a democratic republic produces an increase in self-reliance; any move toward totalitarianism produces a decrease in self-reliance. It has company. It is all in concomitant variation. Any movement away from democracy and toward socialism, communism, and totalitarianism is a movement toward
· Bigger government
· Centralized power
· Loss of liberty
· Loss of freedom
· Loss of self-reliance
Elected officials become puppets governed by the strings of those few in power. You do not need to ask how Congress will vote if you already know how the leader of their party will vote.
You do not measure freedom by the number of rights or by free elections or by quarrelling parties. You measure freedom by the percentage of citizens who are self-reliant. If the number of those who are dependent upon big government is larger than the number of those who are self-reliant, then freedom is but a name used to hide the specter of socialism.
As power becomes more centralized, corruption increases by those holding high office. When elected officials become superfluous, many turn their thoughts away from their loss of power in politics and toward personal wealth, self-preservation, and retirement such is our government today. They exempt themselves from their own laws. The left has one vote, not many. There are no dissenters among democratic socialists. Their wealth increases as their power decreases because in wealth they find substitute power. Many enter office poor and leave rich.
If we do not return to self-reliance our democratic republic is doomed. With over a 30 trillion-dollar debt perhaps we have already reached critical mass that will set off the chain reaction of economic collapse.
In this podcast and the others that follow I wish to discuss Self-reliance as seen through the eyes of Ralph Waldo Emerson as discussed in his remarkable essay, Self-reliance. It was written when this nation was in its youth. Emerson captured the spirit of our forefathers. For the full text please read Emerson’s entire discourse. By necessity in these podcasts, I must be selective. Hopefully, however, I can be true to Emerson’s philosophy and accurately define his perspective of self-reliance. I have selected twelve concepts related to Self-Reliance from Emerson’s Essay:
· Concept 1: Blind Obedience
· Concept 2: False Charity
· Concept 3: Truth
· Concept 4: Faith
· Concept 5: Non-Conformist
· Concept 6: To Thine Own Self Be True
· Concept 7: Self-Reliance
· Concept 8: Character
· Concept 9: God
· Concept 10: Solitude
In this Podcast, we shall discuss Concept Number One: Blind Obedience.
“Well, most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, and attached themselves to some one of these communities of opinion. This conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. Their every truth is not quite true. Their two is not the real two, their four not the real four; so that every word they say chagrins us, and we know not where to begin to set them right. Meantime nature is not slow to equip us in the prison-uniform of the party to which we adhere.
