Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Freedom



Miners used to take Canary birds down into mines as they were very sensitive to methane and carbon monoxide, which made them ideal for detecting any dangerous gas build-ups. As long as the canary in a coal mine kept singing, the miners knew their air supply was safe. A dead canary in a coal mine signalled an immediate evacuation.


Imagine you were a miner who found the whistling irritating. When it stopped whistling and fell off its perch, would you say "Peace at last"? No, you would realise things were getting dangerous.

Freedom is like that. There may be a group in society that you don't exactly like and if you heard they had been proscribed by authorities, think 'good job'. The point is if that group wasn't doing anything wrong but had fallen out of favour with the authorities for some reason, alarm bells should ring. Be sure that other restrictions of freedom will follow, perhaps some you are not happy about.

So when freedoms are too easily brushed aside for some in your community, see it as the canary falling off its perch. Things could be getting dangerous.

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