Just because someone knows a lot about something, doesn’t mean that he agrees with it.\u00a0 Just because someone takes a view different from yours, doesn’t mean that he will ultimately disagree with you.\u00a0 And just because someone is presently an ally of your enemy, doesn’t mean that he … or even your enemy … won’t ally with you in the future.\u00a0 Maybe someone who disagrees with you needs instruction … or horrors … maybe you do.\u00a0 Never judge someone until you know exactly where he stands … we, if we are true to ourselves, should all be searchers throughout life … we, in the final analysis are all children, in need of instruction.\u00a0 People who have not taken the trouble to ask about my views have said:<\/p>\n
“That Ole Lee \u2026 I think he\u2019s a Hitler lover \u2026 he\u2019s such a red neck, he must be a Fascist!!!”<\/p>\n
Well, there is some truth in that, I know a lot about Hitler \u2026 and the Soviet Union \u2026 and Mussolini \u2026 and Mao \u2026 and lots of others \u2026 Marx, Hegel, Lenin, Madison, Jefferson, Adams, Lincoln, Franklin, Saint Simon, Robespierre, Napoleon, George III, Thomas Paine, Cicero, Locke, Adam Smith and on and on.\u00a0 How come?<\/p>\n
When I was first in college, I took a course called \u201cIntroduction to Philosophy.\u201d\u00a0 A couple of subjects in that interlude were \u201cpragmatism\u201d beautifully expounded by William James and Plato\u2019s \u201cRepublic\u201d as described by Socrates. \u00a0\u00a0The \u201cRepublic\u201d put into my mind the idea of a more perfect society.\u00a0 For many years, during periods of casualness, I contemplated and then formulated the \u201cperfect society\u201d in my own mind.\u00a0 After a while, I became, naively, convinced that I had the answer \u2026 the perfect society, the utopia.\u00a0 One day, when a half a dozen of my good friends were visiting me in the old ranch home where I lived, I got out some glasses, mix and a bottle of whiskey and demanded that my friends sit down around the round table with me as I explained to them the perfect society.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2026 After about five minutes, my perfect society was gone, but not the amusement of my friends.\u00a0 You see, my vision of humanity looked good to me for I was the boss \u2026 but it unanimously held no charm for the others, because in one way or the other, they were all serfs.<\/p>\n
After that I set out on an intellectual journey to try to understand the position of man in the world.\u00a0 I knew that we here in America had a great Republic, because everybody told me so.\u00a0 So I began to read about the Communists, the Fascists and all the other totalitarian societies of history.\u00a0 Since the Communists of that time, upon whose greatness we had been propagandized \u00a0when I was in grade school, were threatening to bomb us to dust, they were more known to me than the Nazis or Fascists.\u00a0 So I read a lot about them.\u00a0 Before WWII both Hitler and Mussolini had been \u201cTime\u201d magazine\u2019s \u201cman of the year.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0My dad had told me that he thought that a \u201cbenevolent dictatorship\u201d was probably the most perfect form of government.\u00a0 After much study, I came to consider that Hitler was a benevolent dictator to the German people and one of the most, if not the most, successful politicians of the 20th<\/sup> Century.\u00a0 Because he was a great demagogue, the German people loved and trusted him.\u00a0 The biggest problem was that he was an evil man, the most evil, at the head of an evil regime.\u00a0 He provided the depression struck populace with full employment by spending the largess of the people’s labor through the central government to re-arm the military.\u00a0 After full re-armament, there was nothing left to do but unleash the military \u2026 the rest is history.\u00a0 And so it goes with all totalitarian, of necessity nowadays, socialistic governments, failure or war.<\/p>\n My enlightenment, which has been long understood by people who believe that the true object of divine worth, namely you, he, she and me \u2026 the individual \u2026 is what is important on this Earth; and that the only true purpose of government is to protect that person.<\/p>\n In my experience the most eloquent proponent of Freedom had it all together 150 years ago.\u00a0\u00a0 I suggest that you start where I did … read and enjoy Frederic Bastiat and \u201cThe Law\u201d \u00a0\u2026\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Good Luck !!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Just because someone knows a lot about something, doesn’t mean that he agrees with it.\u00a0 Just because someone takes a view different from yours, doesn’t mean that he will ultimately disagree with you.\u00a0 And just because someone is presently an … Continue reading