Welcome to my low budget website. Most sites have 3 w's (www.) but we could only afford one. That's why the URL is w.eternalvigilance.org
The most fun part for now is the Martial Arts section
'Eternal Vigilance' has been a phrase quoted for at least two centuries. It has been attributed to various people, including Thomas Jefferson, Philpot Curran, Wendell Phillips, Elmer Davis. It would seem that the orginal most famous coining of the phrase was by Philpot Curran, an Irish politician from the late 18th century.
It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.
-John Philpot Curran: Speech upon the Right of Election, 1790. (Speeches. Dublin, 1808.)
The most common paraphrase of this quotation heard today is that "Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom"
In recent times, many Penguinista minded people have used this phrase. It would not be uncommon to see it on a web site like OSOpinion.
Throughout our history, humans have taken issues with anything that threatens our liberty in a new way. From leading the Israelite slaves out of Egypt to overthrowing the czars in Russia. From teaching commoners to read, allowing the mass printing of books, allowing people without noble birthright to carry a sword. From regulating the telephone industry to allow affordable access to communication to everyone in the land, to removing the monopoly that forces a singular view of what a computer is.
Eternal vigilance is inherently a personal matter. We fight these fights not as mercenaries, but in order to preserve our way of life. It is not a difficult thing to understand, then that the battleground is not limited to confronting others.
We battle in legal, moral, and physical conditions. We also battle with ourselves to become better for the next fight, or simply because we cannot live with the consequences of not becoming better than we are. So it is this endless pursuit that can drive us in our own way to become smarter, more agreeable, more efficient machines, and more harmonious with the rest of the world.
We may start by training to become phyiscally stronger. We may start training to become smarter. Or we may look for a balance of mind and body, a physical conditioning that strengthens the spirit. This is the world of martial arts training, which is neither entirely physical, nor entirely mental, but which requires concentration of both.
The question then is what is important enough to you to make you vigilant?
Every person will choose his or her own cause. Every person will choose how to serve that cause. Eternal vigilance will drive that person to continue and only complacency will allow them to give up.
The objective of Eternal Vigilance is not simply to pick a pet charity.
The objective of Eternal Vigilance is to encourage people to
This website hopes to provide some forum for the vigilant ones to discuss their battles.
contact: scott@rainyday.ca.