Sally Thatcher sat thumbing through the book she had strangely chanced upon.
She had never darkened the door of a library in her life.
But something about the vaguely-intellectual old whiskey-guzzler had stuck inside her.
A book of quotes from Saul and other friends of his; an odd choice.
Not very marketable.
Sally wondered if she was the first person who had ever so much as given the book a second glance.
Sally slowly thumbed her way across the lines.
Her cautious Southern drawl painstakingly traced out the lineaments of Saul’s robust and ebullient meditations.
***
Those who fight for freedom on the outside while remaining slaves on the inside, are condemned to be slaves forever.
Little amuses the innocent, and even less the not-so-innocent.
My interests, not the national interest! My good, not the good of Humanity! And what you wish for yourself, you wish for others too!
People need to stop serving “Humanity” and start working to help individual human beings instead.
I would never sacrifice so much as a single armpit-hair for Humanity. But I would shed my blood 1000 times over for individual liberty.
I want doesn’t get. My rights doesn’t get. And my choice is certainly to no avail.
‘Choice’ is actually not a liberal notion at all. It is part of the postmodernist revaluation of all values. Individual liberty considers all stakeholders; choice erects one agent of liberty above all.
Individualism is not egotism. There is no greater egotist on the earth than the collectivist.
It is well said that the Devil’s greatest trick was convincing you he never existed. But his second best trick was telling you he was God Almighty himself. And if there is a third one, it is perhaps distracting you with such false ideals and high-minded principles, that you cannot devote a single second of earnestly dispassionate meditation to just how far you have fallen.
I want to see you and your fellow liberals talking less about tolerance, and more about liberty. Freedom cannot be tolerant of unfreedom!
Choice centers the individual making the decision, while decentring and de-emphasizing the objective value of the decision.
To all you humanitarian interventionist traitors I ask:
When I am standing for peace & non-violence & ahimsa…
What are you doing?!
Choosing between nationalism and globalism is like choosing between being drowned or strangled. You know you’re better than that…
And for my part, I know I’m better than that too.
***
Jim waddled over and tugged her sleeve.
She looked into his tear-strewn eyes.
This time there was no flippant smirk or caustic remark.
This time, Jim didn’t need to mention the horrible nightmare he’d just had.
Jim buried his head in Sally’s breast.
They sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.
Just this once, it was together.
…
The shadows fell, regardless.