link to original reddit post by /u/JobDestroyer
It's an old saying, "The truth will set you free". I looked up the origin, and apparently it's biblical in nature. I'm not a religious man, but context is important, so here's the context:
31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
33 They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”
34 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 37 I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word. 38 I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.[b]”
39 “Abraham is our father,” they answered.
“If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would[c] do what Abraham did. 40 As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. 41 You are doing the works of your own father.”
“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.”
42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. 43 Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. 44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! 46 Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? 47 Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”
An interesting section with several interpretations. What if this section was describing modern events? Maybe the Children of God are us libertarians, and the statists are incapable of hearing us because they don't belong. Maybe that's why when we talk about the lies of the state in regards to Covid, they don't hear the truth and instead just assure us that it's totally safe and we'll get herd immunity if we just get the jab. Or maybe it's a very old book that touches on some universal truths of human experience without having anything important to say about the exact situation we're in, though it can point in the general direction of the truth.
But I thought of the saying, "The Truth will set you free" earlier today when discussing with other free-staters about strategery. One person was making the case that some free-stater rhetoric is too strong, and some of our actions are too "edgy" and will result in people being turned off by us. The majority disagreed, and in discussing this I kept returning to this idea. The truth will set you free.
Here's a video of a man courageously telling the truth in front of a crowd who is hostile to the truth he's telling:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD7dnFDdwu0
He told the truth. The crowd was hostile. He could have said, "We should have a limited invasion of Iraq but set deadlines on when we'll leave", but he didn't, he said, "They attack us because we're over there. We've been bombing Iraq for 10 years". He could have said "It makes sense to go after those who attacked us but we should also be more careful to not create more enemies", but he didn't. Instead, he told them all about blowback and the hatred we've incited across the world.
He didn't say, "Sanctions aren't conducive to good foreign relationships", he said, "Sanctions are an act of war".
He didn't say, "We should be careful about the powers that the Federal Reserve has over our monetary supply", he said "End the fed".
He spoke the truth, and it set people free. His courage inspired millions to stop being neocon shills and centrist stooges, and radicalized them for liberty.
But where are the children of the Ron Paul R[evol]ution now? We're still spread out across the country. Some forgot the cause of liberty. Some have been bullied into accepting the paradigm of the enemies of liberty. Some have joined the LP and have run candidates and have focused on their optics and tried to become a constituted party and all that jazz.
Some have re-discovered the secrets that Ron Paul used to propel liberty forward into the hearts of men so quickly and so effectively, even though maybe he himself was unaware of this method.
See, Ron Paul isn't a particularly tall man. He doesn't have a booming voice. He doesn't have the best posture. He often trips over his words. He is even somewhat nasally.
Somehow, despite this, he used his words to change hearts and minds like we've never seen in our lives. The trick was simple and right in front of us the whole time. Just tell the truth.
People have been telling us this our whole lives, so why is it that we have a hard time accepting this reality? We all heard stories about how George Washington chopped down the cherry tree, and how the child pointed out that the emperor had no clothes. So why is it so hard for us to tell the truth?
I have a hypothesis. I think we lie to ourselves.
Sure, it's easy for George Washington to tell his father that he chopped down the cherry tree. It's an obvious and un-nuanced instance of something being very clearly true. There's no way out of it for young George Washington. He either had to lie or be honest.
But that's not so easy if George Washington doesn't believe he chopped down the tree.
If you're in California, and you're a member of the LP, and you think that the Californian LP has a chance of changing the world and fighting back tyranny, and you tell other libertarians that they need to join the California LP and that by doing so they can save California from socialism, you're factually incorrect. That won't happen. I'm not telling you this to be a downer, or to discourage you, I'm just tell you the simple truth. That won't happen.
However, if you believe it to be true, and you tell people it's true, are you a liar?
Most people would say, "No, if someone believes something and they tell someone else, even if they're wrong that doesn't make them a liar. It merely means they were mistaken".
This is true, and we're all mistaken about things, however I would say that a lie has occurred. You have lied to yourself.
I don't think it's the case that there are a wide variety of possibilities, and the exact truth of any given statement is hard to verify due to a limit on how much information we can process. I think the world is simpler than we trick ourselves into believing. Instead, I think it causes us pain to realize that certain things are true, and we don't want them to be true, therefore to deal with reality on reality's terms is extremely difficult on our minds. That doesn't mean that we should stop seeking the real truth. Just like exercising a muscle is painful, and makes you stronger, I believe that telling the truth to yourself is painful, but makes you more honest.
Maybe by exercising the truth and dealing with reality on reality's terms, you can find more freedom than you've had otherwise.
A robin is free. It can fly wherever. The kestrel may fly overhead while the robin pecks the dirt for worms, and the kestrel may attack the robin. It may even succeed in killing the robin. It's up to the robin to decide how to mitigate this. The robin must deal with the reality of the kestrel's existence. The truth of the kestrel sets the robin free.