Live Free or Die Hard

Live Free or Die Hard. Yes as in the movie and I am not talking about the one with Bruce Willis but the one with the Jews in a little fortress town called Masada. Masada was the last holdout for the Jews when the Romans came and leveled Jerusalem. It took the Romans 2 years to even get close to taking over the fortress due to how hard it was to get to the fortress. It was located on a plateau that could only be accessed by a single path that zigzagged its way up the mountain to the plateau and the terrain was such that siege engines could only be placed in one spot. According to a Jewish historian, Josephus, when the Jews saw that the Roman general Titus had found the one weakness in the defenses their commander, Eleazar, gave an impassioned speech to the defenders. He spoke to them about how it would be better to take their own lives than to be taken into slavery by the Romans because slavery was what they went to Masada to escape. And the Jews ended up killing themselves and their families before the Romans breached the walls because of Eleazar’s speech.

This story reminds me of a song by one of my favorite bands, Rise Against, called Survivors Guilt and they use a quote from a movie Catch22: "It’s better to die on your feet than to live on your knees." This is almost exactly the idea that Eleazar was talking about that is would be better for the Jews to kill themselves than to live in slavery to the Romans. They died in defense of their beliefs on their feet rather than be taken by the Romans and live the rest of their lives on their knees in slavery. I think that if you believe in something so strongly that you are willing to face down the Roman army for two years then kill yourself when you face the end result of slavery to the Romans you really are dying hard for your beliefs. You aren’t being killed in battle and are called honorable by most and you aren’t surrendering to the overwhelming force that most would say would be the noble thing to do. You are taking your own life for your beliefs which wins you respect because of how strongly you believe. I really don’t think you can get more hardcore than that.

Yippee-ki-yay!!

-Austain