Article by Colonel Nogov Jan. 4, 2015
We need more hands raised in the classroom
I state that as a metaphor for the general need for more freedom fighters. In a classroom setting, people are often reluctant or afraid to raise their hands in support of what they believe when they are a minority opinion or believe they might be the minority opinion. They do this for the fear of ridicule or the fear of not fitting in with their peers.
In the real world, for people who believe in freedom, and speak out, there is also fear of the real threat of violence from government agents attempting to silence dissidents. The freedom fighters today are not engaged in a shooting war with oppressive government agents; although that time may come, it’s currently a war of words. It’s a war to break through to the minds of the indoctrinated masses.
The indoctrinated masses have been inundated with propaganda their entire lives. It’s not a simple matter to show them the truth and expect them to awaken from their stupor. They won’t believe you when you do because this goes against everything they’ve been told their whole lives. Their minds will resist truth when it is contradictory to what they’ve believed their entire lives. Those of you who have broken free of the indoctrination likely know how painful it is emotionally to have been one of the indoctrinated masses and broken free. The shame, guilt, and anger are very real; it often takes years for a freed mind to work through those emotions. I know it did for me, but once I’d worked through those emotions, the profound sense of peace was even stronger than those negative emotions. The feeling of maturity, self determination, and the knowledge that no other human being had the right to rule me empowered my life; I hope it did yours as well.
Freeing people’s minds is often a slow, painful process, but it is also worthy. To speed up the process we need more hands raised in the classroom. What I mean by that is those of us who have freed our minds can not sit idly by. When the masses see only a few hands raised in the classroom, they will not notice or will assume those people are wrong or nuts or whatever. Their minds will reject the minority view and remain comfortably in the haze of the indoctrinated majority regardless of truth or reality. They have to see the hands. Even though our minds are free, if we don’t raise our hands they won’t be seen. What that translates to in the world wide classroom is that we ALL need websites, we ALL need to speak up, we ALL need to hang anarcho-capitalist, or voluntaryist, or anarchist flags from our houses like the statists do with their flags. It doesn’t matter if you are adding a new concept or idea or just rehashing standard freedom minded, anarchist ideas. When a choir is singing the same lyrics, it’s much louder than a single voice.
We, who have thus far been sitting on the sidelines, need to join in. We cannot wait for the masses to find the current educators; you know who they are. We need to add our voices as well and raise our hands in the classroom. It doesn’t matter how big or small our contributions are as long as we add them.
This website is me raising my hand in the classroom and confidently saying, “I am a freedom fighter!”