Editorial - Sunset ... or Dawn?

On August 3 I shall broadcast my last-ever Politically Incorrect Show. It has had many incarnations, beginning as a once-weekly Sunday feature in 1996 & ending as a Monday-Friday noon-2pm affair for the last couple of years. Soon, it will be history. Or will it? Did I manage after all to plant the seeds of freedom here, seeds that will yet germinate & flower into the glorious sunlit future of which I have so publicly dreamed?

Possibly so, possibly not. But at the very least, I shall for ever take comfort in a friend's admonition a year or so ago: "Don't judge your success by the number of Libertarianz in Parliament; judge it rather by the numbers whose lives you've touched." And there have been a few of those. I keep an e-mail file named "Special" for their testimonies. Here are some of them:

"I have to write to say well done for what I can only term reasoned ideas, which are expressed on your site, from your radio show. I am working overseas at the moment, and am disgusted with the direction Lenin Clark is taking us. But thanks to champions such as yourself, our country's potential is reinforced, at least in the minds of like-minded free thinkers. Keep up the good work, and I look forward to more reasoned comment: uncensored and unbridled."

"I listened to Parliament on the radio today (after you of course). What a despicable bunch! All trying to gain votes and at each other's throats. I have never done this before and in my unenlightened state, didn't even know it was possible to tune in to them. I understand your Vesuvian reactions; in my small capacity, it drives me to distraction. That the sheeple can't understand what is going on, is so frustrating. I can fully understand why this happens to you. I can only say that it is because of you that us little people keep this light burning and keep going on the path to freedom. Being true to mine own self has empowered me - you do not realise how much!"

"Linz, the heroic nature of what you represent and the enormity of what you have achieved in the last eight years is the true measure of your worth, for which I hold the greatest respect. You are the living embodiment of the words you end each show with, for 'to thine own self' it would not be possible to be any truer."

"I was prompted to contact you after listening to Brendon's (first time) call to your show this Thursday passed. He spoke of his delight in discovering your Constitution on the Net. Brendon articulated so well my admiration for your untiring efforts to awaken and liberate the sheeple of this country. What struck me most, however, with Brendon's call, was that I sensed your gratification for having won over another convert. Over the past 4 years, I have listened to your frustration, and almost despair, at the pace of change in the mindset of the sheeple, and Brendon was, for you, a triumph. I felt that you must have been thinking, 'Yes, this is all worth while, another victory.' I then felt the guilt of having not called to encourage you to continue your fight for the freedom of the individual. Take heart, dear Lindsay, I am another of the growing numbers like Brendon, and thank you for your courage of conviction and your persistence against all the odds."

"I am presently listening to the Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 2. I have heard the Rach 3 many times now, but it is only the second time that I have heard this concerto as I am still relatively new to the music of the great composers. This concerto is so intensely beautiful that it feels as if every little atom of my being has been set on fire. The notes are crisp and sharp and glowing - like ice. It is, at the same time, almost painful to listen to it. I can't help but think of the wasted, soulless people out there in the world who have no conception of man the hero. What would have become of me had I not been introduced to Rand and romanticism? What if I had never read Rand or Hugo? Never listened to music such as this? I shudder to think. You, Lindsay, set the chain of events rolling which led directly to this moment tonight. I realised that and thought - in the name of the greatest passion for the greatest height - I should write you a wee note to thank you. Here it is. Thank you."

"Hi, Lindsay - In 100 years time when our great-grandchildren living in New Freeland stop and wonder where all of the freedoms they have came from and who started it all off, the name of Perigo will be right up amongst the names of the new pioneers. It is you who have opened our eyes with your magazine - it is you who have opened our ears with your PI show - and it is you who has opened our minds to make us think and focus on changing the way things are being done in NZ."

"Three cheers for your editorials. I particularly appreciated yesterday's one (Spiritual Fuel) as my younger brother (20 years old) attempted suicide last week, fortunately without success. A couple weekends ago, I attended a Forum Landmark course. One of things I wrestled through there was that life has no meaning. Nihilists have trouble with that. 'Despair, despair. No meaning. Woe is me.' But I finally got that it doesn't mean anything that it doesn't mean anything. From there I have a clean slate to construct meaning from reality, as you described in that editorial, recounting Ayn's fundamental choice (life/death) and subsequent book of morality. Great show. Many thanks. Keep it up."

"Hearing your editorial today about the need for a secular and objective philosophy, I am very aware that meeting you and being involved in the Libertarianz and discovering the philosophical base of those politics, has given me tools for living the rest of my life! Your passion for life and your unshakeable philosophy were such an inspiration for me, making me seek what it was that you had knowledge of that had eluded me."

Well, my voice may be still for a while, but my pen will not be. The battle goes on. To all who have joined me in it, let me close with the following, from Tennyson's Ulysses:

"Come, my friends.
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. ….
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'.
We are not now that strength which in old days.
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are - .
One equal temper of heroic hearts, .
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will.
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

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