A classic!

Well said!  I wonder how much Sigmund Freud understood it...

Indeed, this is a double-edged sword. We should not fear bad ideas as long as we have the opportunity to counter them with facts.

For the most part, this is the way humanity advances.

That's not to say the costs of freedom are cheap — far from it!  But it appears that the costs of oppression are ever recurring and increasing with interest, while the costs of freedom may be high at first, but the benefits far outweigh the maintenance costs. 😉

How about an informed people that are brought up knowing their rights and the foundations upon which America was founded?  That would promote true patriotism.  I obviously got a different education than most... and it was mostly due to my own desire to understand how things REALLY work.

Yes, actions speak louder than words.  Reagan often said the right thing, but the State carried right along nevertheless...

Indeed, that's all We the People need do — stop any minor encroachments to our liberty immediately.  Once the dam breaks, it's too late to stop the flood.

In the context of forcing one's will upon another, the 'remedy' will be temporal.  Better to inspire others, acquire agreement, and act in good faith — that's a 'force' to be reckoned with.

Sort of like 'my values' or 'my truth'...  The truth is the truth!  I dislike today's current jargon masking hypocrisy, justifying evil, promoting lawlessness (not statutory but natural law).  The 'narrative' is just that, a narrative — it is not real.

Good point!  Therefore we are all responsible for the usurpations of power in our governments.  We benefit when our governments cause coup d'etats in other nations.  Every oppression our governments impose, we are responsible to stop.  Every lie we allow to go unopposed, funnels more money and power to the illegitimate.  As we sow, so shall we reap!

That's called putting your money where your mouth is!  Love it!

I agree with Mike.  As Dylan sings, "You can serve the devil or you can serve the Lord, but you're gonna have to serve somebody." ;-)

Speaking as one who could never understand the desire to control people, I have faced this social pressure from my youth onwards.  I have mostly wanted to be left alone to seek to understand the world organically, not to be herded like cattle into programmed settings I am compelled to follow.  Those that have never tried, don't know the hidden hand.  Those that have are told to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.  Indeed, the truth shall make one free.

Mike makes a good point.

I suppose JFK meant well, but he was deceived and paid the price.  The Deep State has been running things ever since.  I only wish the American people were as willing to take a stand "to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

Indeed!  The real enemy is not an over-reaching government, but a citizenry that does not value freedom in their hearts.  Without a citizenry that loves freedom, their representatives will further their dependency until they are nothing more than the subjects of the crown from which the American Revolution liberated them.  That's another reason to stop trying to be more like Britain and Europe — they do not know freedom and have little to no respect for it.

Boy, how times have changed — we've come along way, baby.

Now, the "sons" of former slave owners (and even those that weren't) demand special treatment and dispensations — and are getting them, and still aren't satisfied. 

Just goes to show, give them an inch and they'll take a mile.  The liberals are liberal no more, they are fascist by any truthful definition.

History repeats because the same strategies are being used by the socialists that have been used successfully for centuries to corrupt the principles for a free nation. 

So-called democracy guarantees that the ignorant majority will always vote away the rights of their 'opposition.'  First take over state education and promote secular progressive social justice rather than teaching a people how to stay free and independent.  Then import more uneducated people from failed socialist states without teaching them about the republican principles that freed a people from authoritarian feudalism.  Debauch the currency, impoverish the middle class, and trick the people out of their inheritance. 

Same old playbook, works every time.  The Western world has been conned into servitude to the state once again.  Without a true spiritual foundation, the result is all but preordained.

Rather than 'psychological' or 'religious' I would say 'spiritual'.  Spiritual liberty is the very basis of political liberty.  Freedom to think, to know, to reason, to love, and to express that is the foundation of all liberty. 

The battle is and always has been for 'hearts and minds' which I would call the spiritual understanding of reality.  The false narrative started with the lying serpent and continues to shackle mankind.  Thus knowing the truth makes one free.  This is spiritual, not limited by psychological or religious dogma (i.e., the knowledge of good and evil).  

Thanks, Mike.  I often wonder if Buddhists or Hindus or Native Americans that observe the Golden Rule and practice love, charity, mercy, honor for their own sake can be considered 'Christian' the adverb, not the noun.  "Blessed are the peacekeepers" — is not that true no matter what religion you were born into?  'As you sow, so shall you reap' — isn't that true?  Again, I say the truth is the truth is the truth, and whenever the truth is spoken is not God speaking? ;-)

Indeed!

I get it, and agree!

What part of the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness do you not understand, Waffler?  How about the Bill of Rights?  Our 'rights' are antecedent to government decrees abridging them — such decrees being invalid on their face.  Sheesh, talk about the "devil's advocate"...

That's a great distinction to make, Mike.  It's the difference between a statist and a republican form of government.  'We the People' formed a representative republican form of government, not a democracy.  Lincoln is a most misunderstood character — the last true 'wartime' president defending the nation from within and without, part statist, part republican.  We'll never know how things might have ended up if he hadn't been assassinated.