We have all had the experience of someone describing a recent purchase (or holding up the object in question) and proudly asking: “How much do you think I paid?”
Whether it’s the new XYZ-2250 Transmogrifier (with Turbo), a weekend at the Awesomeness Spa, or a new outfit from SoSnooty Clothiers, we are bound to disappoint them if we have absolutely no idea what the general value of the object is question would be. Their coup at obtaining the XYZ-2250 Transmogrifier for only $7,400 is wasted if we look at them and say: “I dunno…50 bucks??”
Knowledge of the value of a thing is necessary in order for us to know how much we would pay, what we would do, or what we would endure to obtain or keep the “thing” in question.
“What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; ’tis dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed, if so celestial an article as Freedom should not be highly rated.” – Thomas Paine
Make no mistake, it is in the interests of those who would get something from you that you NOT understand its value. If they’re offering you a trade then they want you to undervalue what you are trading (e.g., personal choices for health care). Or they may try to convince you that what you have is bad (e.g., the right to bear arms), and thus convince you to throw it away. Or they may just denigrate what you have so that when they steal it from you you don’t feel it’s worth getting upset about or even reporting the crime (e.g., blogging at sites like this one).
Many, indeed most, Americans throw the word “Freedom” around way too casually anyway. As long as they personally aren’t being hassled, prevented from doing something they like to do, or forced to do something they don’t want to…they feel free. It is especially upsetting (ok, infuriating) to be around someone who reacts to OTHER people’s freedoms being taken away with a dismissive: “That’s ok, I don’t _______ anyway”. I have personally had conversations with people where the blank section of that statement above was filled in with:
- Own guns
- Listen to TalkRadio
- Watch FoxNews
- Blog
- Attend Tea Parties
- Vote
I’ve had all 6 of those…including the “Vote” statement…thrown back at me. So the fact that those things may well be suppressed, compromised or outlawed altogether, bothered them not at all.
To many of these people the 4th of July is just the date that keeps the 3rd and 5th of July from slamming together. Oh…and they get a free day off work! Plus there’re fireworks (for some reason they can’t comprehend), and hot dogs (which they may or may not eat). They have no real understanding of what the date signifies, and certainly don’t feel compelled to learn (hey, they’re FREE!).
In fact, a growing portion of our population is getting free-er all the time! Free from taxes, free from having to work, free from having to think! Someone else can work and pay taxes…and the JournOlists (among others) will happily tell them what to think. And what they tell them is that the so-called “Freedoms” those scary Tea Party people are all upset about aren’t really all that important to begin with.
Our incestuous Government/Media portrays ObamaCare and Cap&Tax not as looming massive intrusions into (and restrictions on) our lives, but rather as wonderful things for our health, and the health of the planet. The erosion of the liberties granted us by the Bill of Rights is portrayed as “exaggerated for political purposes”. And, among many other things, we’re told that the massive government expansion, and attendant corruption, is pretty much none of our business!
The people who swallow all that (and much more) are not really free: they’re just controlled in a way that they find pleasant enough…and they’re pretty much left alone for now. But when all that changes, and the freedom they never cared to put a value on, or invest in any way in, disappears, what then?? They’ll whine and wonder “What happened?”
“Freedom” is like Transmogrifier …if you don’t know what it is, what it TRULY is, you don’t know what it is worth. A “Transmogrifier” is a made up construct from a comic strip, of course, but the freedoms our nation was founded with and on are very real…and very much in danger.
As I stated at the top, knowledge of the value of a thing is necessary in order to know how much we would pay, what we would do, or what we would endure to obtain or keep the thing in question. When the “thing” is question is Freedom in all its forms, then the knowledge of the value brings us face to face with the price we will have to pay to retain it. The price, I’m afraid, will be very high…very high indeed.