They're Rigging the System!

But we're not gonna sit in the dark anymore.

It’s weird how things work out.

This morning, I was having an interesting conversation with someone who desires freedom, but who is significantly more pessimistic about the prospects of achieving it.

Also this morning, I was looking through my folder of song titles for future #FreedomMusicFriday posts. I found “The Dark” by Thrice, but I couldn’t quite remember why I had saved it. So I listened.

As it turns out, the song is pertinent to the conversation.

My interlocutor had a general sense of pessimism—in part because of the difficulty of convincing people of the principles of freedom. Then he told me he’s afraid that unless everyone worldwide has a simultaneous revelation in favor of these principles, freedom is not achievable.

I get the pessimism. I think my interlocutor would call it realism, and I get that too. I feel it. The system is very, very real.

The system is real and a monstrosity—an ongoing morally impermissible act of violence against the human person. If I allowed myself, I could muster up boatloads of rage every day. All I would have to do is read about something the system lords have done, or about one of the ten zillion morally impermissible edicts they have imposed.

But the rage wouldn’t get me anywhere. And the system lords won’t care, no matter how much rage I express. They’ve already chosen the way, and it’s not our way.

You’re rigging the game
You’re part of the system
You’ve chosen the way
But you’ll never listen when I speak

Rage and despair don’t get us anywhere.

Trying to fix the system…well, I am not saying that all such efforts are pointless, exactly. Some progress can be made. And some brave people do help hold the line against things getting worse.

But that effort can spare some of us to try something else. There will always be people trying to reform the system. You can do something else.

We can do something else. We can leave behind the anger, pessimism, and endless despair and try something new.

That is how I read this song, which goes on to say,

I’m not gonna wait
I’ve made my decision

And I’m not
Gonna sit in the dark anymore

Yes, the system is a threat. Yes, it isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. But fighting the system, trying to reform the system, is not the only way.

There is also, for example, the Amish way.

I saw a demographic projection recently that by 2050, the Amish will be 50 percent or higher in a large number of rural counties in the East. (Same with Mormons out West.) That is a huge demographic shift!

How are they doing this? Simply by living their lives, their way, and by having lots of babies.

They aren’t trying to convert anyone. They aren’t trying to force anyone. They’re just keeping their noses to the grindstone, generation after generation. Living and building.

They’re not trying to change the system. They’re trying to outlast and outbreed it.

And they may very well succeed.

They can vote (and they did in larger numbers in 2024). And yes, the system is a threat to them too. But instead of fighting the system—which, let’s face it, makes us a part of the system—they have chosen a different course. They just keep building in the cracks, slowly growing, decade after decade.

There’s a lesson in that.

My interlocutor was definitely wrong about one thing. We do not need to convert the world all at once. We just have to keep building and growing, generation after generation. It works.

Will you and I get to sit in the shade of every tree we plant? Probably not.

But that does not matter. The world will go on, doing what it does. Civilizations will rise and fall. We cannot control all that. But we can control what we build.

And building is what I plan to do, along with all of you who would like to do the same.

We’ve taken our knocks
We’re not gonna take them anymore
We’re not gonna stop
‘Cause we’ve seen the world we’re fighting for
So ready or not
Together we’re kicking down the door

And we’re not
Gonna sit in the dark anymore
No, we’re not
Gonna sit in the dark anymore