Forge of the Elders

I'll take a little time here to try to help L. Neil Smith sell all of the copies of his book Forge of the Elders. I have just ordered my copy. He is willing to make a deal with his fans. Let's take him up on it.

Do the Right Thing

"Always do the right thing" ..... It seems an easy enough idea. There are times, though, that "the right thing" is a little more elusive. Especially when dealing with people who are scared of life. How can you free them, which is the right thing to do, when they hang on to their chains so tightly?

People, at least some of them, are frightened by "terrorists". They truly want someone else to take the responsibility to keep them safe. They do not realize that the risks have been greatly exaggerated by a government desperate to keep them frightened into submission. Some others think that without the government; federal, state or local; educating their children we will become a nation of imbeciles. Look around you and decide for yourself how effective state education has been. There is also a fear that without the safety net of welfare; call it Social Security or some other euphemism if you wish, we will all drown in a sea of poverty. How can it be wrong to control your own financial destiny instead of letting professional thieves do it?

I know that I would be better off if government were smaller and weaker, and I strongly suspect that you would be too. Yet there is so much uncertainty and fear. How do you do the right thing when so many are truly afraid of freedom? How can we reassure people that doom is not the result of getting government out of their lives, but the result of allowing it to control them?