I think of the monkey born in the zoo. The poor creature has never known freedom. It is fed every day, and its offspring are sold to other zoos. The poor beast is docile in its cage and does tricks for the zookeeper.
What if we have never known freedom and have been taught to embrace our bondage, to fight for it, even to worship it. What if we accept our cage as freedom?
What if our minds have been captured and molded as a child molds clay so that our minds conform to the requirements of the New American Slave?
What if our minds have become the property of the power structure that has become our master, that television has become its voice, that the voice sets out our goals, our needs, and establishes our worth depending on the products we have acquired as the loyal American consumer?
What if we have been taught a new religion called free enterprise, that teaches us that to question it as a way of life is heresy, that the moneyed class is free to extract yet more money from those least able to protect themselves? What if the state’s religion is the religion of the dollar?
What if, indeed, we are not free, but instead are taught the myth of freedom, and worship the myth as Muslims and Christians and Buddhists are taught their faith?
Please tell me—What If?
Gerry Spence's Blog 
I believe that the corporation or enterprise expects total loyalty and complete trust from their employees while at the same time, the enterprise looks for ways to do without them. (And here I think I am paraphrasing from your book “Give Me Liberty.”)
We are to have faith, as employees, that as the enterprise grows we will be rewarded. Faith that the corporation will see our efforts and reward us. Faith in the products of the corporation our company produces. Faith I have been taught is the belief or knowledge of things unseen. Faith is an appropriate word because I do not see this.
I see the CEOs and top corporate executives taking the lion’s share of the profits like they need or deserve this reward. I sometimes wonder what goes through the CEOs minds when they reap these great rewards. Do they feel deserving? Do they feel that the reward they given themselves is enough and well justified?
Then I will have been proven right!
Re this post and the comment from Hans: to get a better perspective, read “Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work” and learn about how these individuals perceive themselves and their world. Knowledge is power, at least a bit of it.
We are all slaves. Think of those who are giving of themselves to the United States’ armed forces in Iraq. They are being told that they are doing it for their “freedom” and their country’s, yes our, “freedom”. Are they? If one questions, they are outcasts – the damned unpatriotic.
We are brought up to get that good job. Work for the corporate master and he will feed and house you, allow a little money for pleasure. But you must dance to his tune and play when he commands. In return though, you have the freedom to quit the master. You are not his slave. You can quit and go to another good job, another corporate master who will hold the carrot in front of you so long as you don’t rock his boat. Remember, though, you are not his salve either, and have the frredom to choose another master. Is that the freedom we really have?
I uess in all human endevors we create our own notion of what freedom is…there is the physical freedom of movement, where we can go where we want, but this has limits, you cannot enter anywhere, such as a bank vault or most locked doors, gated communities etc. On the other hand there are stories of some who are locked up physically but do not surrender their minds and their thoughts. I think this is the true freedom, the ability to think for oneself and have creative ideas.
Mr Spence,
A nice post, but everything you mention concerns ideas. A lot of people are getting past ideas now, and want to see some action. What do you suggest we should do?
Re: what we should do?
Act! Take the TV and toss it out the window. Speak out to others about what’s going on. Act against those who would control you where it hurts them most: their wallet. The worst thing you can do to a faith is to destroy their god. In this case, consumerism, the dollar, and the slavery it puts people under. They keep the populace subverted through telling them what to think, see, and buy over the media, so turn it off. Refuse to buy from companies who support this. You know who they are. Become self-sufficient. Use logic and common sense in your decisions: is a mass-produced product really better than a crafted one?
In this day, thanks to the internet, we have a way of making our voices heard, our alternatives known. There are companies that support openness and freedom: support them. There are groups that work against the government establishment through the process of law, such as Mr. Spence’s group: use them. You see a case, action or article that rubs your free soul the wrong way, speak out against it. Don’t be one of the silent cattle grazing on the cud of slavery. Be the wolf, lean at times, but smarter, more cunning, and admired for its freedom even as it’s hunted for refusing to be like the tamed lapdog cousin guarding the herd.
This is where we start. Of course, they will fight this. We are not, however, defenseless ourselves. Like the wolf, we have teeth.
“A little revolution every once in a while is a good thing…”
-Thomas Jefferson
Dear Gerry:
I have had the pleasure of being in your company on a couple of occasions and heard you speak before.
The question is no longer “what if [we continue forward]” but is what if we look back to see what we once had. Your question was obvious, but the “how” is not obvious.
Your question reminds me of a pastor who tells us we are on the road to perdition. He scares us, as intended, but now without realistic solutions. We are left in a state of despair.
Most of us do not have your incredible intelligence, so we need a little more help. I know that your mind is far ahead of “what if.” Some explanation or answer will be more valuable to the vast majority of us who cannot move past “what if.” The “carrot” of “what if” will never be savored without ever catching a taste of it.
I might add, it was a sad day for me when the Fieger jury acquitted Mr. Fieger because it was the passing of the old guard.
Bob Allen could be today’s Thomas Paine. Perhaps we are on the brink of what Jefferson called for: “A little revolution every once in a while…”
Bob’s view of things are mostly real and could bring about great change.
Sadly, both growth and revolutions come only when there is sufficient pain. Perhaps that time is closer than we would wish.
jonathan riley: Thanks for your comment. Please read my next post which was, in part,
inspired by your call to action. Thanks. Gerry
Morpheus: I know *exactly* what you mean. Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I’m talking about?
Neo: The Matrix.
Morpheus: Do you want to know what it is?
Neo: Yes.
Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work… when you go to church… when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.
Morpheus: What is the Matrix? Control. The Matrix is a computer-generated dream world built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this.
[holds up a Duracell battery]
Neo: No, I don’t believe it. It’s not possible.
Morpheus: I didn’t say it would be easy, Neo. I just said it would be the truth.
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What if our free will were an illusion, and everything that we ever chose was predetermined at the instant of the creation?
There would be value in the illusion of freedom, because people clearly prefer believing that they are free over believing that they are not.
There would also be value in the freedom to act in accordance with our choices — to play starring roles in our own movies — even if we weren’t free to choose or to prefer or to otherwise write our own scripts.
We would agree to behave and treat each other as though we had the freedom to prefer, to choose, and to act, and the world would be exactly as it is.
Gerry,
As you know, we are in the perfect storm of failed leadership and failed institutions at all levels: government, military, corporations, and communities. Our legacy is consumed. We and our children are starting to pay the eternal price. As you said about the invasion of Iraq, “We have hatched the terrible egg.”
Nevertheless, we must depend on people and institutions or we are going to live in a mud hut without any freedom or power. I remember the homeless man we met in Moab. You invited him to breakfast. Otherwise he was eating the food the owner was giving him for his dogs. He had complete freedom, but powerless to accomplish anything other than through his example, which I respect. He was educated and accomplished, but he chose zero structure. He didn’t depend on anyone, was free, but essentially powerless to do either good or evil.
We all depend on a machine operator working in a multibillion dollar foundry making silicon chips, a teacher helping broken autistic children, an architect undertaking a enormous public works project in boutique via the Internet, a wellness doctor working alone to save a diabetic’s foot from amputation, an artist exploring with his friends, a doctor working in a large team in the Center for Disease Control, an attorney working in a small firm, and a janitor picking up gum wrappers the kid threw on the floor. We like to think we are making contributions, putting up with the crap and are not slaves.
In our country, many have choices. Many do not which is unfair. If we have a profession which allows us to work alone or with a small number of people we enjoy we are lucky. However, if graphic designers choose to work alone, in boutique on the Internet, or in a large corporation, it is their choice. However, if you want to advance science and explore the standard model in physics using a super collider, you are in a large team with billions of dollars in investments and must devote some of your time to leadership: keep the team, the culture and the system working.
When the graphic designer chooses to work in a large corporation, perhaps they are seeking power, ducking the day-to-day risks of being in business for them or enjoy working with others in a culture which is right for them at their point of development. Whatever, it is there choice and not for us to judge-either way.
As you know, when the institutions, tribal or advanced, are working, we enjoy freedom and power. Freedom from poverty, disease, insecurity and oppression at one end of the scale; power to choose our roles, enrich others lives and act for good for the future at the other end.
Freedom demands sacrifice and personal accountability. Otherwise the mantra is do what you want and the hell with the consequences and everyone else. If you want to crap next to the creek, go ahead. But as Robert Fulgum said of consequences, “When it rains the earth gets wet.”
Whatever our life style, whatever our job, whatever our culture for good or bad we depend on the responsible behavior, contributions, personally integrity and sacrifice of others to make living together work. The issue is how to encourage these attributes.
The problem is not the mindless, everlasting, institutions and corporations; it is the corrupt leadership and their self serving institutions which they create: oppressive and stifling corporations, firms and sole proprietorships driven by greed, lust and power.
Both the Republican and Democratic parties are enormous organizations with unbreakable chains to the lobbyist, corporations, criminal and legacy rich. They endorse candidates they can manipulate for their selfish interests. They are both equally bad, but the only choice we have is to work to make them better. That is what Obama is doing.
Obama was not the party choice. Obama is the people’s choice. We gave him hundreds of millions in $20 contributions to fight Hillary. But Obama had to work with the Democratic party and hope of changing the rules on lobbyist, corporate power, legacy rich, etc.
We cannot tear down all the institutions. All corporations are not evil. Many people don’t see themselves as slaves.
In my opinion your brush is too broad.
Menel: Your comments seek reason and balance. In face of injustice I do not wish to be reasonable or in balance.
I do not want to tear down all institutions, although many need to be discarded as evil.
I do not believe all corporations are evil. I think the corporate form induces evil because it does not attach human responsibility to the corporations’ immense power.
I believe most corporations are capable of evil since corporations have no conscious and most are profit driven. The search for profit is too often soulless.
Many people do not see themselves as slaves. I agree. That is the danger. Unless we recognize our servitude we cannot escape it.
I appreciate your comments. They are intelligent and insightful.
This is a very thought provoking conversation. The truth is we are all in bondage. Servants to each other in one form or another. Most do not realize this though. Even the CEO of these large corporations are also in bondage to serve whether the CEO knows it or not.
We hope that those in power will not abuse their powers by preying on the poor. Yet there are those that do. The poor are those with the least ability to defend themselves. The poor cannot afford legal help when the mortgage company tricked them into signing a mortgage they cannot afford or papers the mortgagor created after initial signatures were obtained. Then there is the poor soul that works at the corporate store etc.. He/She does not survive from paycheck to paycheck, they merely exist. These are the people that are to busy trying survive each day. In the scheme of life they have no clue of the bondage they are in. The average worker is depending on the greater persons of our society to have integrity and insight to defend and protect them.
The balancing act of a society based on so called capitalism has fallen by greed and self serving individuals therefore you are now seeing the results as the middle class is in the financial crisis of the day.
Many of our elected and appointed officials have been overcome so for those of us lving in our small cages in this life have been fed guile. With those in brought into power through deceptive means still hoping and relying on the poverty to squash any means of rebellion. Riches cannot by freedom even though some may appear to be free they only live by perceptions taught by a world living on dreams of flesh.
The only true freedom is a that of the spirit and the knowledge flesh is only a temporary state. The battle as you know is by word. Words can develop freedoms that build dreams for those of us who are still dreamers. I dream one day of seeing new parts of this creation. Whether in person or via a television program. I dream one day no child shall go hungry. I dream one day that each will now and understand what freedom truly is.
Well said, Rebecca. I am grateful that a few slaves are free enough to feel their bondage and to struggle against it. We have a choice: To live peacefully in the harness, like old Pete and Jim, my grandfather’s mules, or to pound and charge against the chains. In either event there is some freedom experienced when we know which choice we are making and that we have become free enough to make that choice.
Gerry
Dear Gerry and Others,
I am so relieved to read all that is on here. Speaking truth to power is so essential right now. And so is realizing that there is no leadership in our so called leaders. We must become the new leadership, one mind, one heart at a time.
So much more runs through my mind right now. I would love to make an eloquent and reasoned thesis about all my thoughts, but my mind is occupied with the grief of my father’s death (he was George Carlin). But know that I will come back here, read more, dive in, and eventually have lots more to say.
Thank you all for holding a torch that my father held with every fiber of his being, and one that I plan on running with for the rest of my life.
Blessings.
Thank you Kelly.
We speak mostly into the wind, but the wind blows across the land.
I join you in grieving the death of your brave and insightful father. He told the truth. Many heard him.
Gerry
Dear Mr. Spence
It has been years since I last wrote, and yes I read your book in which you cited my NEA resolution to elect teachers or their representatives to the boards of corporations. The resolution passed, but the association didn’t follow through, unfortunately.
I have a legal question at the end of this letter, but I want to lay the ground work first.
I write because, I am troubled and fearful for our nation, I’m not afraid for myself, I’m too old for that; I fear for the nation. I believe America and Americans are victims of a great crime, a massive pyramid or Ponzi Scheme using debt rather than investments, hidden in plain view, but pernicious none-the less.
Our national money supply, with the exception of coins, is created by private corporations, including the Federal Reserve and the member banks that own it. Our money supply is created out of nothing, as interest laden debt and extended into the economy in the form of government bonds and private loans. The banking system creates only the principal of these bonds and loans; they do not create the interest needed to fulfill the loan contracts. Because the interest must be paid from the existing money supply, leaving insufficient funds to repay the principal, the loans existing as impossible contracts when viewed as a collective whole. The inequality of the contracts can be seen in the following expression:
(Where p represents the principal; and i represents the interest).
Banks must originate new and larger loans or issue new government bonds to make up the short fall, using the new money to service old loans, robbing Peter to pay Paul, so to speak, giving the public the illusion of stability and keeping the system from self-destructing. They create an expanding pyramid of un-repayable debt in the process – a pyramid or Ponzi Scheme. Eventually, the system reaches its mathematical limit as the interest requirements exceed the banks’ ability issue new debt money, this failure resulting in a severe shortage of money in the economy, a growing number of mortgage foreclosures the inevitable consequence of the system’s operation.
When financial strain becomes too great for the system; when it debt structure collapses; when our currency becomes worthless; when the economy fails before our eyes; then the nation may be bankrupted and then destroyed from within. These consequences were predicted by Thomas Jefferson when he refused to renew the charter for the first national bank in 1811.
I don’t want to leave you depressed, so I will outline a simple solution: the US Government must issue the nation’s money in all its forms.
In comparing the powers of the private banking system to those of the US Government we find: The private banking system can create and lend money into the economy; the US Government can also create and lend money into the economy. The private banking system cannot create and spend money directly into the economy; the US Government can create and spend money directly into the economy, make up for the interest short fall and providing money for the natural expansion of the population and the economy. The private banking system cannot fine tune the economy with taxation; the US Government can fine tune the economy with taxation, building and maintaining a stable, sustainable currency as an honest basis for American capitalism.
The side benefits are as follows: the national debt would disappear and the federal budget would be balanced; interest payments on private loans received by the government would pay for programs or reduce taxes, direct spending for programs and public works would create good jobs, improve the infrastructure of the nation and stabilize the currency.
I do have a hypothetical legal question:
In Maryland, the state where I live, pyramid and Ponzi Schemes are illegal. If someone suffers a bank foreclosure on a mortgage, can he file criminal charges against the bank as a random victim of the above Ponzi Scheme.
With deepest respect,
Bill Parks
Thanks,Bill for your good comment. Much there to think about. Much.
Can’t answer your legal question. Ask a lawyer in your state. Tell him I told you to.
Gerry
Dear Mr. Spence,
Freedom is gone. Maybe it never really existed. I know this first hand. I wrote poetry on the internet a few years ago and enjoyed lively discourses on just about every subject under the sun. I was naive to believe that stating an opinion was, just that, an opinion and that I was free to have it and to express it. I’m Canadian and when I expressed opposition to the invasion of Iraq I did not expect the vicious attacks on my life and person that have ensued since. It’s been six years and I am still followed every day, everywhere. There is more but I am learning to ignore the creeps that listen to my conversations to my aged father, that observe my actions and cause problems at work. This is the first ime in several years I have sent a message to anyone but I am reading one of your books right now and I feel as though I have met someone who understands.
Wendyolteanu: I saw a statement on a baseball cap yesterday. It read, “Fight to keep freedom legal.”
Gerry
Dear Mr. Spence,
That’s true, but I really need a break before I break. I’m not a lawyer and I’m uncomfortable with continuous contention. In my heart of hearts I’m a poet, an artist, a mother, a grower, a soul searcher, a painter with words and color and I need to find myself again.
That’s my plan, at least for the next little while. The battles will always be there.
Wendy
Sounds like you have a plan, Wendy. Gerry
I just (re)read “How to Argue and Win Every Time”, and was moved. Thank-you. As to the “What If”, my thought is that we are living and spreading ‘the word’ very successfully.
A number of books I’ve recently read, from “Nonviolent Communication” to “Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together”, to “The Voice of Knowledge”, to “King, Warrier Magician, Lover”, to “Don’t be nice, be real”, to “Why Good People do Bad Things”, to “The Lucifer Effect”, (I could go on and on…) are answering your question. In my stories, we (“Western Culture”) have been conditioned to “Rational Lies” and thus “Social Lies” emerge – the defective (or is it effective?) seeds produce fertile crops when fed the right nutrients!
You have given me faith that there are at least a few praticing lawyers who practice the law from a humane perspective. So I bless you and those of your ilk!
Freedom: Is a kingdom where your body lives in harmony with your mind as YOU reign on the throne. There are no masters for every man/wo man is ruler of their soul.The mind’s pathway remains open,paved with compassion,ever-seeking knowledge,understanding and kindness towards all other rulers. Auras of harmony merge into aurora borealis jet streams which bathe the kingdoms called freedom. Freedom is what freedom is..and it is not of this earth or earthlings.The grand deception is the illusion of “freedom”. Therefore, o man, art thou the rider of thy own steed, the guider of thy own destiny, OR dos’t thou forfeit thy being to the sellers of the Bill of Goods? Bill of Rights? What are your “rights”? You have them all,my friend, they are yours for the taking. Therein lies your “freedom”. If you keep waiting for a liberator, your wait will be endless. You are the rider of your own horse, the captain of your own ship,the singer of your own song. Go ride, go sail,go sing. Life is but a vapor and the Soylent Green colored spectacles are clouding your vision. Freedom is now. It is singular.You,oh king, oh queen, oh cajunamerican princess are free.You are knighted by the Great Spirit. Go ride the winds of change in your chariot of self-sufficiancy, the white buffalo woman has left the building.
White buffalo– seeing them used to be seen as a good omen, very good luck. When is the last time you have seen a real live snorting white buffalo. I bet nobody has seen a real live white buffalo, not a living soul on this board.
What if—there are no more white buffalo ?
What if— well if there were any white buffalo, real ones roaming around, it would have been reported, here.
This should give you pause, as if there are no more white buffalo, your luck, has run out.
But, you have a credit card, a car for the freeway, a PAD in the cool breeze n-hood, all the trappings you made it.
What if it is just part of more illusions in some myth, groomed by Madison Avenue.
Without money–you are nothing, nothing at all, and you or Gerry are hooked on it, like some Palovian fix, and you can’t rationalize it away–can you ?
I saw a white buffalo. It was in a dream and the dream became a nightmare as it lay suffering from the swine flukes which spread to the herds of captive brown buffalo penned up in barbed wire electric fences. Golden buffaloes and Buffalo Nickels were extinct and bar codes were branded into the fleeing herds of brown buffalo as they tried to graze on amber fields of grain which were off limits to them. There was a memory of the white buffalo but luck turned sour and the wormwood which had bittered the water sickened them. But lo and behold..! the white helicopters dropped from sickened skies filled with clouds of swine spit spray and glistening shiny,white needles filled with pharmaceutically correct fluke killer girded the gloved,masked, Tonto-less men as they herded the cattle to be vacinated. Up Crippled Creek, they fell by the wayside into the pre-dug trenches awaiting their unfortunate reaction the fluke killer had wreaked. Less brown buffalo, few buffalo nickels,more golden buffalo for the Walled Street Gang. The white buffalo was dealt a slow, methodical death as it’s last droplets of blood fell on the ancient ancestoral land.
If you see a white, living buffalo,let me know. I don’t believe in ghosts. Quit picking on Jerry,he’s Buffalo Bill and this is the Wild West. 🙂
Buffalo Bill killed all the White Buffalo, before he went on his Wild West shows, and moved to Cody to drink at the wooden engraved bar, at Irma’s, a gift from the Queen.
When he left Wyoming, he died, and was quckly entombed up on Look Out Mountain, as a Chamber of Commerce stunt.
The most striking photo of Buffalo Bill is him looking up at the sky, when an early model bi- winged airplane was flying over, as he bridged two centuries.
Buffalo Bill’s friend Sitting Bull (his traveling companion) was shot in the back, as some beef with the Sun Dance.
The words of General Sherdian(hot off his march of ruin and burning through the Civil War South)— his orders: he(his blue coats) would take away the food source of the plains Indians, kill them all, pile their hides sky high at the train loading docks in Dodge, Kansas. Russell signs his paintings with the engraved Buffalo skull.
The Wild West had many hole in the wall gangs, outlaw territory, as the grandfater of its renowed Senator gunned down a man, some gun stunt, and it was called the case of the “disgruntal litigant”.
He too was of Cody-Husky Oil club seeds.
The Sun Dance is coming back, the sons of Sitting Bull, are calling on the ghosts, and the white buffalo will appear near Crow Heart Mesa, some time before the 1/2 moon rises in early Summer of a 4th equinox. It is predestined, all despite the swine on the prairie, who leave the foul stench, at their feeding pens, South of Wheatland, next the old MX silos.
The buffalo in your dreams, are rousing from the deep.
And to top it all off, I don’t eat at Ted Turner’s buffalo bars, the biggest land owner in the Rockies, with his 2 million acres of trophy ranches, laundered through CCN booty, and merger deals.
I don’t call him just “Ted”.
The son of the Southern Rebel plantations, reclaims the high plains as his trophy ranches, for his chain of Buffalo bars, and I now vow never to eat any popped corn from a microwaved sack of Redenbackers oily grease,
old bad seeds.
Leviticus 11:7-8 “And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you. Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcase shall ye not touch; they are unclean to you.”
Or:Matthew 7:6 “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.”
I saw a white buffalo, but it was unclear if a mere vapor of a dream, but of the coming dawn of its rebirth.
So, it is pre-ordained.
What if on Freedom ?
Freedom to what ?
One man’s claim of freedom is other another’s
ticket to trouble, big time
Gerry is B-B, the Wild West, fast draw, land where the home of the brave roam, no barbed wire fences , under crystal blue skies, you conceive, like Dicky Cheney(Mr so called Wyo Power-LINE-Man), who took the freedom to get 5 draft deferments while other young men in his era got lifted to Viet Nam, jungle-swamp duty.
What do you mean you don’t beleve in ghosts, agent orange is a ghost that will haunt America for the next 200 years,
as the Tonkin Gulf Resolution was not an exercise in freedom, it was an act of grand deception, old beefs that hang on, and stir debate, Bill Ayers, and O’Reilly, and other Weathermen who see which way the winds are blowing.
What do you know about freedom you ever kill to defend it, put it on the line ?
Is freedom a myth ?
Whose freedom, or is it like that flip side of some eagle coins, with slogans on them.
It sounds like one could wonder, if Gerry is musing if all this plastic card society is worth even defending, for some who
take great liberty, as if libertine is the word of the decade of decadence.
I think what Gerry(B.B.) and Patrick Henry said was “Give Me Liberty..” Both are patriots in their own time. Are liberty and freedom one and the same? A man shackled to a myth or a shadow of a country that no longer exists or maybe never existed except in the imagination or interpretation of the ones who envisioned the full potential that country could become? I lived in a country but am a citizen of a planet and the Great Spirit had no need for fences because it was all deeded to all mankind from conception. Liberty then is personal and within,not without,not with territorial boundaries. BUT, man will never “get it”. They prefer bombs, bullets and b.s. to squabble endlessly over “freedom”. Freedom is getting up in the morning, taking a breath and realizing you’re still on the upper side of the earth where the flower blossoms bloom,not sniffing roots from the underside. The ultimate “Freedom” is death. When the shackles of this old earth suit snap, you are “FREE”(I hope) 😉
Does this post have a ring of opinions your dad used to say to you when you were a young boy?
(Know he had no use for people with money, even if they earned it through hard work themselves, etc.) Just wondering if you had heard it all as a “moldable” young boy.
Mr. Spence,
This is such a profound and timely subject in our country today – actually on our planet.
Females of all species have always known that for them biologically there in no such thing as total freedom without major consequences. Unlike the male species, they give birth and therefore must inherently be nurturers or species will become extinct.
We are seeing the females plight play out in Washington now. A certain SCJ retired early thinking she was needed at home to nurture an ill husband when that turned out NOT to be the case. Yes, we are all paying the price but being the consummate nurturer, she is making lemonade from this lemon by having a website that teaches children both civics and history through video games, since only 1/2 of our states teach such in schools.
Total freedom without consequences? Never has and never will be for the female of any species without extinction.
It’s time to get our Supreme Court up to snuff with Canada with 1/2 woman. Nurturers and unnecessary wars are incompatible. Guess why third world terrorists are OUT OF BUSINESS if they can’t control females?
If David Walker, onetime Comptroller General of the US is correct, our federal taxes will be doubling within the next 20 years and that will only be to pay the INTEREST on our debts.
Looks like our days of consumerism are quickly catching up with us and may be over sooner than we think.
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/02/01/what-every-american-should
The late and great George Carlin on the loyal American consumer:
“A place for my stuff”.
Personal freedom:
A moment of silence in memory of those now quaint and unappreciated PAY TELEPHONES.
(Can just picture the entire 9/11 group running around with burlap bags full of quarters all over the world organizing it for months. We hear ya , Ted.)
No, not condoning it. But it certainly turned out to be a massive double-edged sword.
“What if freedom is a myth?”
Really? What if? LOL! That’s been the delusion of the century (well at least since the 1890 Sherman Act). It’s pathetic what we call freedom nowadays. If you are allowed to do something then you are not free to do it. That would be a contradiction. You cannot have both regulation and freedom; they contradict each other. We are forced to support other people (public education, grants, transportation, tax credits, health coverage, retirement, etc.) which is the definition of slavery. If you don’t/can’t cough up the cash, they take you away from your family and put you in jail! Haha freedom yeah right, if you’re forced to support others then you’re not free-you’re ruled. Freedom in the 21st (and the 20th) century is (was) a myth. Just an amazing marketing campaign that convinced a world that there could be both regulation and freedom. (Do you think that speaks to the merits of the campaign or the intellect of the subscriber?)
As I always tell my audiences and readers, the answer to anything is never either A or B.
It is always C (something in the middle; a compromise)
I also always advise them to remember:
“People first, money second”.
what if is a good question, and one that really made me think. if we are told that we are free, told that we are living in complete equality, we wont think to look at anything any other way. you tell someone the sky is green,and if they dont know any other color or any other way to think, htey will sincerely believe its green. they will even defend that belief because it is all they know, and all they think of. great points, really made me think.
It’s not a “what if” at all. There are those that have known this at elementary school.