Tyranny of the Mind

Chivalry-Now asks us to think for ourselves, and not allow others to force their opinions on us. Once we do that, we see things differently than others, and are in a position to shape the issues better.
    For example, the debate on affordable healthcare in the United States has been so ill-defined by politics that the American people have lost touch with what it is really all about.
    The question people should consider (which no one seems to ask despite the uproar) comes down to this: Will universal healthcare take away our freedom? Or enhance it?
    Are we more free when we healthy? I think that anyone suffering from illness would say yes. Are we more free when we don't have to worry about losing our home through catastrophic illness? Are we a greater and freer nation when our citizens live happier and healthier lives due to early treatment and preventative medicine? How could we not?
    Freedom is always a give and take. Are we more free when our government builds roads and highways to promote commerce and personal travel? Of course we are. This is why we have a government designed to be of, by and for the people. To equate it with tyranny, as if we were being ruled by a foreign potentate without any representation, is just false.
    Too many of us have assumed the role of speaking the taglines of partisanship. In this, we fail to be good citizens. We fail freedom because we stop thinking for ourselves. There is no tyranny in the USA other than the tyranny of the mind to which many of us willingly surrender. Who then, you might ask, are the tyrants? Listen for the loudest voices, the most impassioned pleas and outrageous claims. They are the ones trying to shape your thoughts and values. Tyranny of the mind does not come from on top in the form of imperial commands. It comes from ideologies that seek to control us.
    We must not be so lazy, so gullible, so easily swayed by the opinions of others that we relinquish our demands for truth. Without truth, freedom becomes an empty word.

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