Metal Reviews

Why do some people prefer to die for "liberty" than live?

What does dying for liberty achieve other than an early grave?

So what if I can't vote or the police arrest those who speak up against the government? I can at least enjoy the simple things in life ala family or friends or food or wine or sex or even the crisp morning air.

I can't enjoy any of those things if I'm dead.

And if the government is dictatorial but provides prosperity to a degree, than dying for freedom is truly pointless unless voting for corrupt scumbags really floats your boat.

And people in Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Vietnam, Palestine, Russia etc etc all know that those people dying for freedom actually died to put in new dictatorships.

Obviously you are a somewhat self-centred person. Also you are one without strong ideals (in this regard). This is not a judgment call, as I would say very much the same of myself.

That is to say, I would not personally die for liberty. But I can understand the people that do. They believe in something bigger than themselves. They believe that just because they cannot enjoy a certain liberty, that does not mean that it is good enough to just accept that future generations will endure the same.

Even if, like me, you are too self-centred to give your life for others, surely you can understand why someone might want their children's children to live freely.

Until you live under a dictatorship you'll understand. Perhaps if your parents (or someone you care for) were murdered without justification by the goverment you would have a different perception of things.

"Mejor morir de pie que vivir de rodillas"

Translation:
It's better to die upon your feet than to live upon your knees!

But I agree that most people in the Media Terra are just trading dictatorships. A national one, for an American-European puppet one. When the flame started, I admit I was very excited about this, a time for changes. But quickly we learned that it was USA behind the scenes... again. Selling weapons and acting as the good guys who free the world...

But I do admire the way they control the people with mass media. Amazing.

I lived in Yugoslavia which was a dictatorship, albeit a very benign one.

All the freedom fighters accomplished were:

1. Complete destruction of the economy.

2. Deaths of tens of thousands of people who did not want war but got it.

3. Displacement of hundreds of thousands.

4. Reawakening of old hatreds.

5. Exchange one bunch of corrupt scumbags with another batch of corrupt scumbags who now alternate depending on whims of pointless democracy.

We would've been better under the existing dictatorship.

There need to be some sacrifice for things to change. I thought you were Australian...

Lived in Australia for a long time but born in Yugoslavia. We actually moved back to Yugoslavia in 1989 just before the war. Got back to Oz in 1991-92 - got a few war stories as such.

If I lived under a state so corrupt and dangerous that my essential liberty was threatened, I like to think I'd help do something about it. I'm with Thrashtildeath - I may not personally have the sheer fanaticism to sacrifice myself for it, but I admire those who do as much as I mourn them.

Any group of dolts can proclaim a mission for idiots that are all too eager to throw their lives away, for 'the greater good' for some unknowable and intangible concept such as that. Human nature as such that revolutions will come and go, yet the very aspect of power is that it corrupts thereby making the cycle engender itself again relentlessly. Revolutions and higher ideals come and go and they're always magically sucking the individual into it, so unless there is a legitimate threat to myself or my family- the greater good can fuck itself.

That's exactly the situation in Libya as well.