Why fear "falling" when you can fly?

(Previously published in The Libertarian Enterprise, May 19, 2013)

Sitting outside, watching some birds swooping around in the sky, gave me some insight recently.

I try to put myself in their place- high above the ground with nothing but air holding me up- but I get vertigo just thinking about it.  I try to imagine what it would be like to naturally exist in that environment- without fear.  It's hard for me to do.

Yet the birds are no more afraid of heights than I am of horizontal distances. That is because they have the inborn ability to navigate that vertical space. They are in no more danger of falling than I am of "falling" across a field and bumping into the side of a house.

You don't fear that which you naturally navigate.

Which birthed a revelation: Statists are afraid of liberty because they haven't discovered their natural abilities. On the other hand, I'm not afraid of liberty because I can navigate it with confidence- I can't "fall".

Sure, someone can shoot down a bird, and sometimes circumstances shoot down a libertarian, too.  That's no reason to sit hunkered over in fear.  It's a reason to stay alert and learn to swerve and swoop.  And accept that sometimes bad stuff will happen anyway.

Everyone has the potential to "fly" in liberty just as well as you and I do.  They just have to try their wings. When you see a statist trying to convince you that you can't fly in liberty, or that he can't, or that too few people could for it to "work", have pity on him.  He's just scared, more than anything, of his own untested abilities.

Don't let him convince you that it is impossible to do what you have been doing all along.

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