We’re at war with the most
dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to
the stars, and it’s been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this
way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that
those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening. Well I
think it’s time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were
intended for us by the Founding Fathers.

Not too long ago, two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a
businessman who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst of his story one of
my friends turned to the other and said, “We don’t know how lucky we
are.” And the Cuban stopped and said, “How lucky you are? I had
someplace to escape to.” And in that sentence he told us the entire story.
If we lose freedom here, there’s no place to escape to. This is the last stand
on earth.

And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other
source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and the most
unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man.

This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for
self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution
and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan
our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I’d like to suggest there is no such thing as
a left or right. There’s only an up or down—up, to man’s age-old dream, the
ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the
ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their
humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have
embarked on this downward course. 

— Ronald Reagan, speech to the Republican National Convention, Oct 27, 1964. Emphasis and corrections mine.

It’s easy to call America’s government totalitarian today, if you’re American. Sometimes a sense of perspective is useful. I’ve lived under authoritarian regimes before, so I have a rather better idea than almost any American of what it’s like to live in a country where freedom of speech is prohibited, where private ownership of guns is considered idiotic and is prohibited outright, and where government is viewed as the source of all blessings instead of the root of all evil.

And I tell you now: if you are American, and you love the freedoms that you thought were yours from birth, you are screwed. And it’s your bloody fault. You were given a gift of immeasurable value, and you destroyed it.

America is still, even now, one of the freest nations on Earth. You are still relatively unmolested by your government. You are still able to move between different parts of the country without having to present papers at every border checkpoint. Your natural right to self-defence is still left intact, at least in some parts of the country. You are still taxed less than your cousins in Europe and parts of Asia. Do not for one moment think that this will last.

Those freedoms are disappearing rapidly, shredded systematically one by one by a government that knows no bounds on its power and its evil. And the worst part is that you did this to yourselves. You voted to give it powers over you that were yours to wield, that should never have been ceded. You voted for security, and welfare, and war. You voted for Equality, and cheap housing, and lowest-common-denominator public schooling. You voted for politicians who promised to keep you safe by stripping away your right to self-defence while simultaneously funding military-style training and tactics within your law enforcement units. You insisted on universal suffrage, never bothering to pay attention to the fact that the vote was historically restricted only to those who understood that to vote is to exercise naked force through the apparatus of the State. You asked for politicians to give you Free Stuff, and they obliged, and now you are bound and broken by your own folly. You destroyed the promise that this country held. And you will continue to vote to pass the bill for your own monumental stupidity on to your children.

I do not reserve my scorn merely for the Baby Boomer generation. The generations that followed are no better in their narcissism and their lack of problem-solving ability; indeed, in many ways Gen-X and Gen-Y are far worse. Neither generation is capable of grasping the problems facing their children. Both have been told all their lives that they are “special”, that “trying” is sufficient- never mind achievement, never mind competition. People who have been told that they are special all their lives, without ever having to prove it, end up congenitally incapable of solving problems and usually break down completely when confronted with actual problems to solve- I’ve seen this time and again in the workplace, and it’s not a pretty sight.

It is too late to save America. That time came and went a few decades ago; perhaps the best opportunity was with the election of the man whose speech I have quoted from above. I have seen what happens when a nation slides from order to anarchy as an authoritarian government finally becomes unable to maintain the soft and easy lies that sustained it, unable to bribe the people any more with wealth stolen from future generations. My people have seen how a democratically elected government can become a tyrannical one through simple passage of “emergency measures”. You did this to yourselves, and for that reason I maintain that no civilisation in history has so richly merited destruction as the decadent imperial civilisation of the modern West. That destruction will not come through conquest by a foreign power; it will come as the nation destroys itself from within, consumed by its own greed and stupidity.

Lest anyone get the wrong idea, let’s be clear here: I love this country, and I will never condone aggression initiated against its people. Or rather, I love what this country once represented. That dream, that idea, is gone, possibly forever. There is no guarantee that what comes after America will be any better. I have good reason to believe that it will be far worse. So I urge all young men under 30: prepare yourselves. The coming destruction of America will be a tragedy beyond reckoning. Understand this. Prepare for it. Learn how to defend yourself. Learn the realities of economics. Learn game. Learn to see through the lies of those who believe themselves to be your masters instead of your servants.