"..Of course, the thing about the Internet is that it is anonymous. People can express their opinions about anything they want without anybody knowing who they are. They all use pseudonyms or nicknames. It's the perfect environment for cowards, for shirkers. They can shoot their mouths off and act like real men without being called to account. And like shirkers everywhere, they would like for everyone else to be a shirker too, so they are not shown up for what they are. They would like for their cowardice and irresponsibility to be regarded as prudence. They want to thought of as smart guys instead of as shirkers.

But really, how smart is it never to accept any personal responsibility? What that amounts to is opting to be a spectator in life instead of a participant. Life is interesting. Life can be fun. There are many fascinating things to observe, to talk about. And I guess these smart guys figure that they will watch it all first. They will talk about it all with their friends first. Then when they know everything they can go back and make smart choices about what to become involved in. They won't make any mistakes.

But you know, it doesn't work that way. You don't get to go back and start over after you've watched it all and got it all figured out. You only get one shot at life, and you've got to make the most of it. You've got to figure it out as you go, even if that means accepting some risk and making some mistakes. There's no going back. If you just watch it all the way to the end, telling everyone how smart you are because you're not making any commitments or taking any chances, you've missed your chance to live. And that chance never will come again. The people who live are the people who participate in life, not the spectators who just watch it go by.

I guess that in this television age, when kids grow up spending much more time watching things happen on the TV screen than actually doing things, people who are naturally weak and passive will slip into the spectator mode and stay there all their lives. And at this point there's not much we can do for them. They've just missed it. But I know that there are many men and women out there who still are capable of reaching out and taking hold of life and living. Those are the ones I'm talking to. And I apologize if what I'm saying sounds painfully obvious, painfully self-evident -- but it is so extremely important that I must say it.

This wonderful gift of life that we have, what does it mean? What is its real value? Is it simply a collection of sensations, of feelings, that we get as spectators? I'm sure that for many people that's what life is. The more pleasurable their collection of sensations, the more pleasant their feelings, the more enjoyable the things they see as spectators, the better their life is. And that's understandable. That's what life always has been for animals -- and we are animals. We are creatures of instinct, and our instincts tell us to survive, to find food, to seek shelter, to reproduce, to avoid danger. In a prosperous, civilized society the drive to satisfy these basic needs expresses itself as a quest for wealth, for enjoyment, for comfort.

A thousand years ago our ancestors also sought wealth, enjoyment, and comfort. But they didn't believe that these things were quite as important as most people today think they are. In that age before television people were perhaps a little closer to the earth, and they were a little more aware of just how temporary an individual's life is, and they reached out for things with a little more permanence, things beyond wealth and comfort and pleasure, things which to them seemed to have more real meaning. I remember a few lines of poetry which expressed this feeling among our ancestors in Scandinavia -- and more generally in the Germanic parts of Europe -- back during the Viking age. Those lines are:

Cattle die, and kinsmen die,
and so must one die oneself.
But there is one thing I know which never dies,
and that is the fame of a dead man's deeds.

For our ancestors a thousand years ago, of course, cattle were wealth, and kinsmen were power, and though they sought these things just as we do today, they understood that they were transitory; the value of these things was not permanent. The only thing that is permanent is the mark that one makes on the world with one's deeds. Everyone wants to live well, of course, but it is better to live effectively: to live so that one is remembered for what one has accomplished.

Anyway, it's always better to be a participant than a spectator, and never more than now. It is time, my fellow White men and women, for us to stop worrying about anything except doing what is right. It is time for us to accept our responsibilities."

- Dr. William Luther Pierce, circa 1999

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