The Price of Freedom

2011 September 4
by justrand


We have a cabin that sits on about 1.5 acres up in the “middle of nowhere”. Sometime in the next year I will build a fence around the entire thing. The “fence” will be split-rail type, and only about 2 feet tall. It won’t keep anyone out…it won’t be intended to. But anyone stepping over it will know that they have crossed a boundary. Whether they appreciate it or not, they will know that they are on someone else’s land…and if they have not been invited then they may or may not be “welcome” to be there.

The fence around the house I’m sitting in at the moment is higher (6 feet)…but is also not intended to be impregnable (hence the lack of barbed wire and guard-towers). Being 6 feet tall, however, means that someone scaling it KNOWS they don’t belong (or they would have used the gate), and if they didn’t use the gate then I KNOW they don’t belong either. Scaling a 6 or 8 foot fence is vastly different from stepping over a 2 foot one…and the consequences may be vastly different as well. The gate is easy to open, and squeaks when you do. If you’re not willing to open my squeaky gate, but prefer to scale my fence in secret…then you have declared, at best, a lack of respect for my property…at best.

Yesterday Rick Perry once again proclaimed his opposition to a fence along the Mexican border. He used the old dodge of “a 30 foot fence will only boost sales of 35 foot ladders”.

And?

We have “gates” into the United States…real easy and obvious “gates”. Anyone choosing to eschew the gates and use a ladder (of whatever height) to scale the fence instead will, by that act, have declared, at best, their lack of respect for our land and laws…at best. Right now there isn’t even a 2 foot tall split-rail fence to announce a boundary in most places…and the message its absence sends is clear: “We don’t care about our land…why should you?” Of course, “We” in that sentence is the Federal Government…not “We The People”.

Rick Perry and the other politicians intent on diminishing or eliminating our sovereignty had best remember that We The People DO CARE.

Rimming the perimeter of our 1.5 acres with a 2 foot split-rail fence will announce to those who see it that we DO care about our property…and they need to respect that if they choose to step over it. It will cost us a few hundred dollars, and a lot of sweat to build. But for that price we get a little more pride, a little more piece of mind…and a little more freedom.

© BeJohnGalt.com