September 8, 2008
The Awesome Power of the Individual,
Under Freedom!
by Ron Ewart, President
National Association of Rural Landowners
Copyright September 6, 2008- All Rights Reserved
 
In spite of all of our individual and collective faults, there is a "great good" that exists in a very large number of us. That good is personified in a wide range of human traits and behavior, including private and public achievements, sacrifice, industry, creativity, empathy, generosity, spontaneous volunteerism and our can-do spirit. Unfortunately, due to the "distorted window" through which we view our information, that "great good" in us seems to be eclipsed by an over-zealous emphasis on that which appears to be "bad" within us. That over-zealous emphasis on what is apparently bad within us, is then used against us to tear us down and destroy our individual pride and spirit.

In all of life's creatures, nothing is as awesome as the goodness, beauty, strength, power, creativity, spontaneous generosity and spirit of the human individual, man, woman or child. That beauty, strength, power, creativity, generosity and spirit is manifested best, when they are allowed to flourish under the umbrella of freedom. Sure there is evil, but the goodness in man triumphs over that evil, time and time again.

To see the joy, exuberance and innocence of a little child, or watch the excitement in their eyes when they discover new things, is a wondrous sight to behold indeed. To experience the first love of a man and a woman as they grow into adulthood, that brings with that love, the gift of new life, new excitement, new achievements, new promise and new possibilities, is almost impossible to describe.

But those faces of joy and wonder turn to frowns, despondency and the loss of hope and their bodies shrivel up and become emaciated, when they are subjected to the Hell that is slavery, war, poverty or famine, or worse, a mindless collective.

Individuals, working either individually or collectively with other individuals, have been, are and always will be the movers and molders of a society, for good or evil. They are ultimately the decision makers and the risk takers, whether those decisions and risks be of the small variety covering our daily lives or the ultimately large decisions and risks that set the direction of cultures, countries, or hemispheres. Such individuals can either do so for sound, common sense motives, or for totally self-serving ones.

Most positive human achievement comes as a result of efforts of and by an individual, not a society or a culture. As a matter of fact, societies, cultures, religions and groups have generally stood in the way of most human achievements. Scientific discoveries, improvement in the human condition, or positive advances of government, come about from individuals working either by themselves or with a few others. A collective or a community didn't invent the light bulb. Thomas Edison, an individual, did. It is extremely unusual for large groups to accomplish anything. One only need look at our local, state and federal legislatures to see the truth in this statement.

If we must emulate someone, let us emulate the individual achievers. If we must follow, then let us follow in the footsteps of those that pioneer and forge ahead no matter what the odds or what peril lays in front of them. Intelligent, wise men and woman of vision forged the constitution of the United States. Courageous, individual pioneers settled the West against all odds. Now today, the individual spirit of thousands of entrepreneurs commence new businesses every day, risking their relationships with each other and their personal fortunes, no matter how large or small. They put up with every conceivable obstacle thrown in their path, not only from market forces but also by government regulation and edict.

Nevertheless, individualism is the engine that keeps the wheels of a free economy turning. Sixty to seventy percent of all jobs in the United States are created by individuals running their own businesses. What a country we live in. What a tribute to its resilient peoples. We are people of guts, courage, intellect, enterprise, fortitude and compassion. We are individuals in a sea of individuals and there is no strength on Earth that can match ours, in spite of our perceived troubles. That strength and power is a direct result of individuals and individual expression, living free.

But individual achievement in the United States today is getting a bad rap. As we move towards the collective, we either have to be part of some group to get accepted and our individual beliefs, goals and motives must be subjugated to the needs of that group.

The doomsayers will tell us that we are going to run out of power. We are going to run out of oil. We are going to pollute the environment and destroy the Earth with our cars and our industry. Our automobiles are going to quit running and our airplanes will quit flying and our ships will no longer ply the open seas. They con us into believing that it "takes a village" to raise a child. Poppy cock! These are the words of the quitters, the losers and the fear mongers. These are the words of those who wish to dominate the individual and break his spirit.

Ever since man first burned himself with fire and realized he could use it to his advantage, or transported some object by rolling a log and converted that idea to the wheel, he has been forever driven towards more knowledge, more understanding and a wider, larger, broader world in which he can explore. To do that he simply must go faster and he must develop the machines to achieve the ever-increasing speeds he will need to reach his goals. Man is driven by the one unique human trait that apparently does not exist in other creatures that share this planet with us. He is driven by that all-present, individual, joy of wonder and to go where no man has gone before. We are going to the stars one day and nothing anybody can do will get in our way. No amount of fear of the unknown, or nay saying about financing will stop us. The strength, power, creativity and spirit of the incomparable individual will carry us there.

Some day in the not to distant future, we are going to develop power sources that will literally boggle the mind. Our vision is that each home, each office, each business or building will have its own centralized power unit. And in that unit will have the source of energy to purify our drinking water, destroy our raw sewage and gray water, heat and cool our homes and offices and provide the electrical power for our lights and appliances. All these uses will be provided by one small or large unit within our homes, office buildings, or factories.

Think of it! Those in your twenties, watch how our planet will shrink in your lifetime. In ten to twenty years there will be airplanes or space ships that will leave the United States, rise into the stratosphere or higher, glide at two to five times the speed of sound and land in Russia in a couple of hours. At 3,000 MPH we can go halfway around the world in 4 hours, when a little over 150 years ago, we were limited to one or two horse power.

Personalized transportation will change dramatically. There will be air corridors for small, personal air units, whether they use the principals of helicopters and small aircraft, or some strange new power yet to be discovered. Maybe we will find a way to offset or neutralize gravity.

What an absolutely exciting time we live in.

There is no crisis here. There are just problems to solve and challenges to meet. Challenges are met by enterprising individuals working together with a common purpose, within the framework of sweet liberty.

We, as individuals, have a significant obligation to ourselves and to our children. We have the obligation to defend our freedom and to learn everything we can about everything we can know in our lifetime that we can document and prove beyond a reasonable doubt, and then pass as much of that information on to our offspring. We have an imperative to do no less. We have a responsibility to not abdicate this task to others. We shouldn't let our doctor, our teacher, our lawyer, our priest or clergy, much less our government, make decisions for us. They can be a source of information or counsel, but the ultimate decision maker is us, that is, if we value our freedom as individuals.

What we need to do, more than anything else, is to educate our people in all of the true knowledge we have discovered over the last 5,000 years and to foster unabashed individualism. Knowledge is the great equalizer among men. If all individuals possess the same knowledge, it is much more difficult, if not impossible, to "Lord" over the other, thus muting the necessity of war.

The problem in this country and every other country for that matter and every other people that exist on this earth, is not poverty. It is not the disparity between poverty and wealth. It is not pestilence or flood, famine, earthquake or any of these things. What it is, is the absence of freedom and property rights, pandemic ignorance and by the efforts of a few to break the backs and spirit of the individual. The power of the individual is a dictators worst nightmare.

What we need is a way to get more people motivated to seek that truth and their own "point of reference" and the solid basis of why their particular "point of reference" is relative to them. And we must resist with all of our might, government and special interest group's relentless perversion of the truth for their own ends.

We need to eradicate mysticism, propaganda, lies and distortion and replace them with the truth and universal, provable realities. And then we must teach our children to question even the provable realities and always leave room for a different perspective, a different view, or new information.

There are some real basics here and the hard cold truth of the matter is, we are individuals and no matter what the mechanism for getting here, we come into this world absolutely alone. No other person can live with us inside our bodies. Nobody else can be part of our soul. We are here unequivocally, irreversibly alone. As individuals, we must face all the trials and the joys and the sickness and the sorrow and death absolutely alone. Sure, others can hold our hands and stroke our brow, but nobody will die with us and although we won't say it out loud, most of us know it instinctively. In every sense of the word, we are totally unique individuals and only we occupy our "space" and our "time". But that individuality is the true source of our strength, power and creativity.

The stark reality is that if we destroy our God-given, natural freedom that allows our unique individuality to blossom and be all that we can be, we will descend into the Hell of the collective and it will take a bloody revolution to restore freedom and liberty so that the individual, once again, with all his strength, power, beauty, compassion, spirit and the joy of wonder, will lead man on the never-ending, exciting journey to explore our Universe. The Universe is waiting, if we don't stumble and get in our own way.
 

Ron Ewart, President
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF RURAL LANDOWNERS
A powerful non-profit organization, representing and defending the rights and
interests of the American rural landowner
www.narlo.org

Dedicated to restoriing, maintaining and defending private property rights
and returning this great land called America, to a Constitutional Republic.

P. O. Box 1031, Issaquah, WA  98027
425 222-4742 or 1 800 682-7848
(Fax No. 425 222-4743)
E-Mail: info@narlo.org
 

WE'RE REALLY COUNTING ON YOU TO HELP US CONTINUE THIS FIGHT.
 
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NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF RURAL LANDOWNERS (NARLO)
P. O. Box 1031, Issaquah, WA  98027
425 222-4742 or 1 800 682-7848
(Fax No. 425 222-4743)
E-mail: info@narlo.org
 
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