where is it you don't wanna' go...

The problem with having a big hole in your leg is the buggers won't let you heal.

Here I was, several weeks after the thing was excised out of me, having put up with "nurses" (occasionally even my wife) stuffing the strangest of stuff into the abyss, when the hole decided to start to heal, that is, grow smaller, as in it's about time i started to close this hole because i am sick and tired of things being poked into me/myself/i... anyway, THE DECISION was made (not by me) that, perhaps, it would be better if the hole was made larger again, so MORE stuff could be packed in.

Forget any thought of personal independence on this one. Off to the cackling Doctor I went, who cheerfully cut an incision with a razor blade, and used scissors to trim the skin around the hole - to prevent any quick healing, so as to promote more pain when more stuff was packed in. At least he numbed the area with 2 shots of whatever numbing agent it is that "they", in the medical profession, use before inflicting the fore-mentioned procedure. Personally, a quart of booze ingested over ice and mixed with tonic water would have been a more patient-friendly numbing agent, but what do I know...

Democracy is NOT LIBERTY

Now, before I, or anyone else for that matter, gets too hung up on the idea of "democracy", it must be noted that democracy is not the same thing as "liberty". Democracy, in its simplest terms, is the will of the majority. Perhaps the most startling example of this is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Was the decision to do so not based on the (some would say misguided) will of the majority? In that context was not the liberty of Jesus curtailed by democracy? Indeed, is not personal liberty at ALL TIMES, in Western Society (being understood as "democratic"), curtailed by the very notion of "democracy" in action?

The American Patrick Henry on March 23, 1775 ended a rousing speech with the famous line; " I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/patrick.asp

(As perhaps an interesting aside, the word "democracy" does not appear in the Bible. The word "liberty" appears 25 times, though there are several underlying meanings translated to the single word "liberty".)

Nevertheless, liberty must also have constraints! Another American, Dean Russell, said: "... personal freedom cannot exist without individual responsibility."
http://dev.thefreemanonline.org/columns/a-page-on-freedom-number-14/

There's that "r" word again - responsibility! The bigger question remains - responsible to whom? Polonious belched out "This above all: To thine own self be true." (Hamlet, Act 1 scene iii) http://www.online-literature.com/shakespeare/hamlet/4/

Chew on those quotes for a while - my next blog will look at some thoughts regarding true liberty, the topic for consideration will be: true liberty is living as we should not as we please.