Friday, December 1, 2006

Why Do the Words "freedom" or "liberty" Make People Roll their Eyes?




Remember the Name of this National Landmark, Anyone?

I was listening to a Radio Free Liberty podcast in a coffeehouse in a medium sized mid-Michigan college town near where I live earlier today. I had the volume down, but it was still audible beyond the close immediate area near my table. (And no, I wasn't using the earbuds).

It seemed as if every one of the upscale college and professional types who encountered my podcast and who asked me what I was listening to had a greatly diminished opinion thereafter, and usually did the "eye-roll" thing as well, when I told them it was a podcast from “Radio Free Liberty.com”. It seems that the mainstream media has so inculcated these sheep with the idea that anyone or anything that upholds, supports, and advocates for liberty is now viewed as some sort of off-the-wall extremist nutcake.

Have the American people become so cowed and fearful that most of them find the very thing that is best about American culture is now seen as a shameful thing that embarrasses them to even have mentioned?

Well, not completely. About dozen or so scruffy lookin' types (i.e. non-white collar, non-university types, in other words real people) asked for RFL’s web address. They must have been sincere too, because most wrote it down.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Maybe I should rename the podcast "Socialist Government Control-Your-Lives" and go after the academic croud!
-Cato

The Anarchist Flamethrower said...

Hah! That might be a good choice since National Public (government) Radio and Air America are already taken, eh?

Some people thought that the podcast on the Atlanta shooting (057 i think) was NPR or AA. Nobody thought it was Limbaugh or Boortz though. Go figure?

RFL is just as polished and professionally done as those above mentioned, IMHO. But RFL is the best. If we ever win this thing I want to carve you and Cat's faces on Mt. Rushmore. (After we dynamite Lincoln's and TR's faces off first.)

All the best.

David Houser said...

One more indication that Orwell was the great prophet of our age... I know very few people among whom I can use the f- or l- word without getting that eye-roll. It seems to have really taken hold in the Clinton years with all the hubbub about militias. You'll also most likely be seen as a whacko if you mention the Constitution.

James Pyrich said...

That's right, because it's not about the Constitution or freedom or liberty anymore--it's about "the good of the nation" or some such dreck.