The Caledonian Example

The other day I started re-reading History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I read the abridged version last year, but this is a very difficult book, and I probably missed some information. Besides, there are many chapters that were cut out of the abridged version; I wonder why they chose to cut out some of the chapters, like the sack of Rome. Wouldn’t that be an important chapter?

I learned how to highlight in my Kindle for iPad (yay!) and I ran into a paragraph that was worth thinking about:

The native Caledonians preserved, in the northern extremity of the island, their wild independence, for which they were not less indebted to their poverty than to their valor.

Right before Rome started to decline, they had enlarged their territory about as far as they were going to go, with the exception of Britain. This area of the world was full of tribes that loved freedom. Gibbon said that they had “the love of freedom without the spirit of union.” Rome eventually overtook most of these tribes, with the exception of Caledonia. These people preserved their freedom.

We face dark days in America today. Many of us love freedom; but how much do we love freedom? Do we love freedom so much that we are willing to suffer the consequences of our own actions? Do we expect someone else to come to the rescue when our exercise of freedom doesn’t work out as we expect? If we truly want to keep our freedom, we need to be in the position to be free. Over the next few years, when the government will inevitably make spending cuts, we need to take this time to exert our freedom. We need to have an attitude of “okay, I see that you can’t afford to give unemployment benefits for more than a month; but I’m going to do my part to save so that I don’t get caught in too much of a jam.” “I know that the government has to cut back on food stamps for the poor, but I’m going to help out and give to my local food pantry so that these people don’t go hungry.” “I realize that the government can’t afford to send rescue helicopters out to the mountains to find me if I get lost while hiking in the mountains, but I either bought some insurance or I’m willing to take the risk.”

The Caledonians were not wealthy, but they were brave. They were willing to fight for their freedom. They weren’t willing to roll over and make compromises. When the enemy arrived, they fought back.

Whenever Americans say things like “oh, I know that on average, more people drown in bathtubs than die from terrorist attacks (a fact), but I still think that it’s okay to be photographed naked or have someone feel me up; it’s for safety” or “I have to fly and do what they tell me to; it’s for my job” then we lose freedoms. When people sue a company because they were too stupid to watch their step and slip on the floor, they’re helping us lose our freedoms. When people put their financial interests ahead of the interests of freedom, we’re forging our own chains. It’s time to start standing up for our freedoms like the Caledonians.