How many would it take today?

Posted on March 15, 2007
Filed Under Deep Thought, Movies, Politics, Rants |

In the early years of the 5th century B.C., 300 brave souls stood against seemingly insurmoutable odds and brought an army reputed to number in the millions to a halt. The story of King Leonidas and his men is enough to give even the most cynical of people hope that freedom will prevail.

The 300 Spartans fought not for wealth, not for glory, and not because they were forced to, they did not fight for themselves but for all those who would be free. Free from oppression, slavery, fear and despair. Their sacrifice was enough to give Xerxes pause and to inspire the rest of Greece to take up arms and, a year later on the battlefield at Plataea, crush the Persian army once and for all. Ending the Greco-Persian wars and the Persian’s advance into Europe.

There were more than Just 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, they were accompanied by various allied forces from the rest of Greece, but they still numbered approximately only 4000. The actual number of Persian troops is diputed with estimates ranging from 200,000 to 2 million. The major difference between the two armies was that while the Greeks were free men, there by their own choice, the majority of the Persian army were conscripts and slaves. The Persians were not fighting for any higher reason than the fact that they were dead if they didn’t fight, whereas if they fought there was a chance they might survive.

There were many tactical and geographical reasons why the Greeks managed to survive for so long against what must have been a flood of Persian adversaries, but the main reason was because they were fighting for something they believed in, against an enemy which embodied its opposite. The fact remains that every last Greek died at Thermopylae. The 300 Spartans gave their lives in the name of something greater than themselves, they payed for Greek liberty with their blood. My question is this: If it came down to it today, how many lives would it take, how many would be freely given, to protect that most precious and fragile of things, our liberty?

Our leaders throw the word freedom around like it is something that only they can bestow upon us and everyone else on the planet. They force it upon nations far from our own at gun point and retract it from those who don’t want their brand of freedom. The word freedom has lost its potency. We are taught that only the state can give you freedom, only the state can protect that freedom, and in order to protect it they must dilute it and restrict it. This is not so. Freedom cannot be bestowed upon us from outside ourselves, if we are reliant upon others to guarantee our freedom then we are not free. We are beholden to those who, in their wisdom and compassion, ration out our freedom to us like treats to children who behave.

Would 300 be enough? 3000? 3 million? Enough to sway an election? Or are elections another method by which our freedom is restricted? Are there enough people in the so-called free world who care enough to stand up and say “No more. Our freedom is not yours to give. You have no right to tell us what to do. Maybe if you asked us nicely we would say yes, but we will no longer be coerced, bribed, tricked or forced into co-operation with you. You have no power over us.” How many would it take before our leaders, who are there only at our sufferance, realised that their easy ride was over and that they would have to earn their place from now on.

Today more than ever we should remember the 300, what they stood for, why they fought and why they died. Freedom is anything but free, more often than not it must be bought with the blood of heroes. I sincerely hope it doesn’t come to that but am ready to stand up if and when the day of our Thermopylae dawns.

[As you can probably tell I've just seen 300, the new film based on Frank Millers graphic novel re-telling of the Battle of Thermopylae. I can heartily reccomend it. A more stylish and visceral call to arms I have never seen]

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