Lars Walker's Problem On Display

The very issue that I had wanted to discuss, in Lars Walker's Hailstone Mountain, is on display today in TIME Magazine.

It's an attractive view. An educated and thoughtful man wrote it.
The little girl smiled. "Nobody hurts anybody anymore."

There are worse things than this in the world, I thought.
There are, aren't there?

6 comments:

  1. I guess the author's position is that it is better to live a slave than die a free man. Lucky for me, he doesn't get to make that decision for me.

    But I did note one line in there:
    "but last week, an Elvis impersonator trying to poison the President didn’t even make the front page."

    Given that the suspect Elvis impersonator was cleared of those charges, isn't that libel?

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  2. Newtown, the Boston Marathon bombing and the explosion in West are the price we pay for living in a free society.

    And he misses the point of the Franklin quote:

    They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

    I'll take my chances with fate over an all-powerful government, thank you very much...

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  3. I caught that, too, Mike... Thought maybe it went to press before that happened.

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  4. DL Sly2:46 PM

    The rights of those he would tie with emotionality were given up when the Big Government he wants to live under refused to uphold it's end of the immigration contract by ensuring that the asylum seekers followed the letter of the law in that they weren't receiving federal assistance, weren't espousing anti-American sentiments, were still under threat of imminent death within their own country of origin (why did the elder brother spend SIX months in Russia last year visiting with his parents - who now, also, apparently, are no longer under such a death threat scenario) and were becoming productive American citizens. That, and the fact that even though the Russian government warned us several times of the potential violence of the Brothers Tsarnav yet our Alphabet Idiots couldn't figure out how to dial any of the other Alphabet Idiots on their free Obamaphones, is a major factor in the why's of how these children lost their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Not because there are still some of us out here who believe in the Constitution as the bedrock document of our nation.

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  5. raven9:26 PM

    I think an over educated fool wrote it. In each case he cites, the extra large government he wants was involved up to it's neck and still failed.

    These folks surround me in the Seattle area- they simply do not know how to think. Any divergent thought is deflected into a memory abyss leaving no trace on their pre-concieved oh so correct world view. Being poorly educated myself it is a trial to put words to it, but Yuri Bezmenov did a great job of describing how indoctrination would lead to the mutton brained behavior of the type.

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  6. To address "my" problem, as described in my novel, I guess I'd describe the dilemma, as I see it, this way.

    Everyone thinks they want freedom, but what most people really want is freedom from hard choices.

    Real freedom always involves hard choices. It involves risk. It demands courage.

    You don't really want freedom unless you want to be brave, and to live with the consequences of courage, which are often devastating.

    Any other kind of "freedom" is just rebranding.

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