This Is Always Smart.

I'm not going to bother paying attention to it. I just don't care about it. At the insistence of a friend (and if it turns out well) I'll send an essay on the subject to a certain someone for publication, and if it doesn't get published, I'll send it to someone else...I think I've said my piece.

I too have wavered in my position of apoliticalness.

I've never voted, yet due to being involved with a movement that has it's political/apolitical sides I have helped create graphics, videos and offered help to those that do vote.

However, lately I've re-realized that efforts put in the political direction are more than not very productive, they squander a valuable resource ie. people's hopes and enthusiasm.

The latest reminder was the request to create a video for the Free State Project. As I arrived for the meeting I was scheduled to tape, one of the group who was "open carrying" was detained by the police, I caught the incident on tape and posted a dramatic/popular video Open Carry Legal in New Hampshire?.

Anyway, due to the success of these videos I was requested to tape the next meeting which involved the Mayor addressing the group. Well I decided to not do it and the main reason was the "republicans" that thought it was wrong for the "open carry" person to not cooperate with the police. And as it turned out (duh) the Mayor's speech was a bunch of fluff and the political folks still thought it was great that he addressed the group.

Instead of just saying your headed in the wrong direction I've been trying to figure out how to set the stage to not lose the "valuable resource" after the failure of the latest political efforts. We've probably all seen and experienced the letdown and burn-out that results from these disappointments. Some of us are just further along/ahead of the curve in this process.

Just searching for a way to not alienate folks with good intentions, yet their efforts are (I feel) more than a waste of time.

And then there's this gem:

...John Edwards said on Sunday that his universal health care proposal would require that Americans go to the doctor for preventive care.
"It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care," he told a crowd sitting in lawn chairs in front of the Cedar County Courthouse. "If you are going to be in the system, you can't choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK."

Entire article here: John Edward's Idea

I'm guessing embedded bio-tracking chips?

W.D., to the degree that others—those who aren’t yet in The Family—are being introduced to the freedom philosophy via RP’s candidacy, I can see some value in some of their actions. However, I fervently hope—because I fear that it might not be happening on a large scale—that those pro-freedom individuals working to promote him are clearly communicating that RP’s claimed ideas/positions are part of an extant, informed perspective, rather than being a reactionary arm of the electoral political monster.

Because I view electoral political action as simply deciding the fashion details of one’s chains, I am trying hard to devote my energies elsewhere, and in ways that might help others discover, or deepen their grokking of, the freedom philosophy. And I count on that wise saying: When the student is ready, the master will appear, knowing that I am both student and master.

Peregrine, I had heard of Edwards’ proposal, but I thought it was an unattributed Onion piece. Thank you (I think) for setting me straight. I doubt that, despite him saying [emphasis mine], “If you are going to be in the system...” that those of us who want out of it can see a glimmer of light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel. And you are right: the technology exists to make his idea compulsory.

Sunni,

When you get a chance to read the story I sent to you - 'H.A.D.' - I think you'll see that it fits neatly into this discussion stream (unfortunately...)