Eternal Vigilance is 5 years old. 🙂
According to the meaning of numbers in the Bible, the number 5 symbolises God’s grace, goodness and favour toward mankind.
The name of this blog is from a speech by John Philpot Curran, given in Dublin in 1790.
The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance
said Curran. The shorter form of the original quote is variously attributed to the likes of Wendell Phillips and Thomas Jefferson, but no one really knows who first came up with the exact phrase. Here it is in the Virginia Free Press and Farmers’ Repository, May 2, 1833.
Sadly, the sentinels on the watch-tower slumbered long ago. We’re still not free, we never have been, and likely never will be. Eternal vigilance is a big ask.
Just as well we’re not commies and we never had a first five-year plan!
So what’s the good news?
One issue close to the hearts of libertarians in general and at least two Eternal Vigilance bloggers is cannabis law reform. I’d like to take this opportunity to review the dramatic progress made towards sane, sensible and just cannabis laws in the last 5 years. Not here in New Zealand (not yet), but in the original land of the free, the United States of America.
That’s 4 states plus the District of Columbia since 5 years ago, 46 more states to go. And an unprecedented number of states will vote on marijuana this fall.
But it’s not all good news.
For example, in Colorado, fatalities and injuries on the road attributed to DUI dropped after legalisation but are trending up again. And, although arrests are down, the racial disparity in marijuana-related arrests hasn’t changed.
These things have occurred. And it is a true adage that, “what has happened once, may happen again.”
“When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.” (NIV)
I wonder and worry about what frightful bureaucracies may supplant cannabis prohibition in New Zealand once it is finally driven out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkness_Visible_(memoir)
and you’re playing What’s The Connection today’s answer is i really don’t know if there is one can you find it?
They have been 5 great years of Blogging Richard, and I am grateful for your invitation to contribute here.
I must say you could not have come up with a better name for a blog.
Eternal vigilance has been an platform for me to ‘think out loud’…. thoughts that otherwise would I would never have otherwise put into the public forum … to be exposed to the light of day…. Thank you…. and I sincerely hope Eternal Vigilance Blog will still be active in another 5 years time.
Tim Wikiriwhi.
Fellow Vigilante
Well done on five years blogging Richard.
And on the cannabis protest outside police stations over weekend. I think the message is starting to get through.