A comment (edited) I just threw up on one of my own posts. The subject matter is an examination of the practical benefit of compromising liberty and its underlying and derivative ideas in a political or social context:

"Collective politics is a pointless waste of time. Fortunately there’s no need for me to waste my life on it."

Indeed. My own activities, including this blog, are an exercise in
engaging the philosophy, politics, culture and religion of our time for
my own understanding and edification. If that process delivers meaning,
understanding, or clarity to a few others that’s great, and I’m happy
for it.

But compromise can only mean that one is acting under the delusional
belief that his ideas and actions will actually have some real, meaningful and
lasting effect on society — or, dare I say it: civilization — as a whole.

John and John are right. People are not going to be moved to new
ways of thinking unless and until they see some real and tangible
benefit to doing so, which, I might point out, can be negative as well
as positive. That is to say, the day may come where the positive
benefit of thinking rationally is outweighed by the negative consequences of thinking irrationally.

If you boil it all down, one way to look at modern social democracy
is as a massive and complex system for allowing people to escape the just
consequences of their own ideas in practice — indeed, encouraging them to do so. And, where not, then to at least entice them into believing they can have their cake & eat it too.

Until people can’t escape natural justice — and no longer merely believe
they can, either — nothing much is going to change. Indeed, we are
destined so continue sliding downward under the pure force of momentum
until such time as some individual (à la an Einstein or Copernicus) or
event (cataclysmic?) comes along that changes everything "overnight."

I guess I just couldn’t resist having my first entry of 2007 be something that really goes to the core of what this blog has always been about, at root.

When it’s all said and done, at least I can say that I never knowingly compromised on a core idea or principle in order to have someone feel better, or in the vein hope of making my standing in life better. Even in my practical, day-to-day life, my compromise is limited to matters of subjective preference — and someone who’s not willing to compromise in those areas just isn’t fit to live amongst other human beings. But to the extent that I willingly navigate the maze that you voters and your representatives have erected for me and others to traverse, it is merely an act of submission to those with clubs, guns, and jails — who operate under the stolen pretense of authority — in pursuit of the higher value of my own life. It’s nothing more, has never been anything more, and will never be anything more.