There is a quotation ascribed in various forms to Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States of America (although it may in fact have originated with Benjamin Franklin). This runs something like this: A country, or a person, that is prepared to sacrifice a little liberty for greater security will lose both and deserves to have neither.One may well question this on various grounds; how do you define either liberty or security, and what could be meant by deserving something? However, its essential meaning is clear, and is plainly illustrated by modern society. Once state intervention has been allowed to arise, there is no longer such a thing as individual liberty.
The income support handed out by the state is known euphemistically as ‘social security’. Security in this sense and individual liberty are incompatible. You may have one or the other, but you cannot have both.
Thomas Jefferson was one of the Founding Fathers of the USA, some of whom appear to have been Freemasons.
It has been suggested that freemasonry may be a descendant, via medieval military orders such as the Knights Templar, of Gnostic ideas.
Gnostic Christianity, particularly in its secret and persecuted forms, such as Catharism, appears to have had anti-social (or at least asocial) and pro-individualistic ideas. It certainly seems to have been considerably different from the exoteric forms of Christianity as a mass religion with which we are familiar at the present day.
It is possible that Gnostic ideas have had more influence, through the action of esoteric societies such as the Masons, on the development of civilisation than is generally realised.
We appeal for £1m as initial funding for a social science department in my unrecognised and unsupported independent university. This would enable it to publish preliminary analyses of areas in the history of ideas that are currently being ignored because they do not fit with the prevailing ideology.