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The only sovereign I can allow to rule me is reason. The first law of reason is this: what exists, exists; what is, is. From this irreducible, bedrock principle, all knowledge is built. This is the foundation from which life is embraced. Reason is a choice. Wishes and whims are not facts, nor are they a means to discovering them. Reason is our only way of grasping reality - it's our basic tool of survival. We are free to evade the effort of thinking, to reject reason, but we are not free to avoid the penalty of the abyss we refuse to see.
Life is precious. That's why sacrifice for freedom is rational: it is for life itself and your ability to live it that you act, since life without freedom is the slow, sure death of self-sacrifice to the 'good' of mankind - who is always someone else. Mankind is just a collection of individuals. Why should everyone's life be more important, more precious, more valuable than yours? Mindless mandatory self-sacrifice is insane.
We all have to die, Johnrock - every one of us. It is how we choose to live that matters. After all, it’s the only life each one of us will ever have, so how we live is of paramount importance.
Life is the future, not the past. The past can teach us, through experience, how to accomplish things in the future, comfort us with cherished memories, and provide the foundation of what has already been accomplished. But only the future holds life. To live in the past is to embrace what is dead. To live life to its fullest, each day must be created anew. As rational, thinking beings, we must use our intellect, not a blind devotion to what has come before, to make rational choices.
If you think you're a slave, then you are a slave...
When you are willing to meekly sacrifice your ultimate value, your life, the only one you will ever have, to any thug who on a whim decides to take it from you, then you can't be helped. You may be able to be rescued for one day, but the next day another will come and you will again willingly prostrate yourself before him. You have placed the value of the life of your killer above your own.
When you grant to anyone who demands it the right of life or death over you, you have already become a willing slave in search of any butcher who will have you.
Only you can achieve self-worth for yourself. Any group offering it to you, or demanding it of you, comes bearing chains of slavery.
Evil grants no mercy, and to attempt to appease it is nothing more than a piecemeal surrender to it. Surrender to evil is slavery at best, death at worst. Thus, your unconditional rejection of violence is really nothing more than embracing death as preferable to life. You will achieve what you embrace.
If you are unwilling to defend your right to your own lives, then you are merely like mice trying to argue with owls. You think their ways are wrong. They think you are dinner.
Generosity is fine, if it's by your free choice, but a belief in the primacy of self-sacrifice as a moral requisite is nothing less than the sanctioning of slavery. Those who tell you that it is your responsibility and duty to sacrifice are trying to blind you to the chains they are slipping around your neck.
There is no greater value than life - and that's what you partially recognize by your confused notion of granting mercy. Their conscious, deliberate act of murder takes the irreplaceable value of life from another. A murderer, by his own choice to kill, forfeits the right to his own life. Mercy for such evil is nothing short of excusing it and thus allowing evil to prevail - it codifies the taking of innocent life by not making the murderer forfeit their own guilty life.
In trade between willing parties who share moral values and who deal fairly and honestly with one another, compromise over something like price is legitimate. In matters of morality or truth, there can be no compromise.
Freedom must be won, but then it has to be guarded...
...if the road is easy, you're likely going the wrong way.
...knowledge is dangerous to oppressors. To those who would dominate you, knowledge must be crushed, because people who understand are people who will stand against the unfairness of the elite.
Nothing gained without cost is valued. I was reminded of that fact only today. She was the one we buried. Freedom has a cost, and all will bear it, so that all will value and preserve it.
You acted like children fighting over a cake. You had a chance to share it, but instead chose to try to steal it all from your smaller siblings. If you come to my table, you will have to mind your manners, but you each will have bread.