Are You Really Free? Thoughts on Liberty

Truly?

I wrote an essay for my first English class in college positing the idea that eventually the explicit graphic sexual writing and descriptions (this was in 1968) would have to eventually fade because it lacked creativeness, anybody could to it. I thought writers that truly loved their craft would stop indulging in that low level of writing. The professor gave me high marks, but wrote the comment "are you serious?" I was, but for the most part I was wrong.

Part of it is our culture has degenerated into easiness and mediocrity; in all things, not just literature. At it's core, this phenomenon has to do with our giving up on liberty, the rejection of it, and replacing it with libertinism. As a culture we've redefined liberty to mean we can do whatever we want without consequence. We can reject the Judeo-Christian moral and ethical values and rules of behavior and replace them with "if it feels good, do it". In our US Constitution we can ignore "enumerated rights" and accept the government can do whatever it damn well pleases, cannot "infringe" doesn't really mean that, and freedom to practice religion and the government can't establish a State religion, is changed to meaning freedom from all religious mention anywhere, anytime, except in church on Sunday.

I had left Christianity and the church (institutional worship and service) for about twenty five years, returned, and when I say that I am more free now, that I experience and practice more liberty now than during the years of secularism and libertinism, I get that 'you're nuts' look, or "what the hell are you talking about?"

During those years I was free not to commit to anything except pleasure  I had to ask myself, how is that good? I found it lends itself to alienation, from people and groups. Now I'm committed to my Church and my friends in a way I didn't understand before, and I'm a better man for it. I also moved from Leftism\Marxism to Conservatism politically, and my political thinking is more clear and true.

At the national level we have a government and culture that ignores fiscal responsibility and have allowed ourselves to be tens of $trillions in debt; an unimaginable number, and think there's no consequences. We accept graphic sex and violence as the norm. Maybe it's only age, but I've lost interest in it. It doesn't tantalize anymore. At the national level look at the $trillions we spend on sex, drugs, alcohol, the things that only provide us with short term material pleasure. I'm all for pleasure still, but it shouldn't be life's purpose. Tithing and giving to charity and missionary organizations is much more fulfilling. 

I think if those libertine things are the most important, is what drives you, then you aren't free. I have to ask, what good is it if what's most important is getting loaded, who benefits? If politicians' greed for money and power, which they get only by taking it from you, is what drives them, not the rule of law, who benefits? The Bible and our Constitution make it abundantly clear there are specific rules and laws that work, for both national and personal behavior. Rejecting those leads to bondage to the State, and personal bondage to things that hurts oneself and others.

I have found that the discipline of Judeo-Christian living is what frees, and the Constitution is based on those principles, and is what has kept us free as a people. Both are being rejected, at our peril, and why those of us that care see more degradation, decay and corruption in our civilization. Since the 1960's we have seen these things continually increase, our problems increase, because we reject what is right for what is convenient and mediocre, comfortable and easy.

Romans 8:21 observes "....because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.' Another way to word that is, what would you rather choose, the fake freedom of liberty of the world, or the world God intended for us? For you secularists, God intended us to get along, not fight, treat others well, and care for each other. Hope, Love, Charity. 

Milton Friedman on Collectivism

Government is too intrusive in our lives, building its power to control since the early 1900's. This administration has outdone itself, making socialist FDR look like a piker. Most of Obama's estimated 45 executive branch advisers (czars) have not been vetted, not passed senate approval, answer to no one but Obama, refuse to respond to freedom of information act requests, a justice department that selectively enforces the law, and a president that just plain ol' decides to issue executive orders to open US borders to illegal immigration, shut down mines and oil fields, and a whole list of things only congress, constitutionally, can do. If his ideas are so good, why does he and his Party pass legislation in the middle of the night, announce regulations on Friday afternoon when most are done with the week and not paying attention. This country did not become the most productive and free, benefiting the most amount of people on the planet in the history of civilization, because of totalitarians. Humanity is only impoverished and suffer under Statism, and Obama is the most Statist, anti-democratic, anti-republic president ever.

This eight minute clip concisely makes the point that we need to look at the results of collectivism vs capitalism. The intention of collectivism, what Obama and the Democrat Party want and are forcing down our collective throats, is social justice, equality and the rest is a good thing, but the result is always no just and only the political class and their supporters experience any equality.

http://youtu.be/W-8g5S0z5Y4

Time to Take the Boot of Gov't Off the Back of Business

This is rousing and true. Mike Kelly on the floor of the House of Reps

http://youtu.be/F1YQDjpuY_U

It's come to this. Do we want to continue to have the Democrats run business in America, one of the definitions of fascism, or let the free enterprise system do what it has successfully done for a couple centuries. For five thousand years before the founding of this country mankind has lived under tyranny, and suffered and was poor financially and in spirit as a result. The Declaration of Independence and our Constitution freed people and look how we flourished; the freest and most successful civilization in history. Now Obama and the Democrat Party want us to live in pre-Constitution days, and obey them.

Economic Freedom & Quality of Life

http://youtu.be/v1U1Jzdghjk

Libertine or Liberty?

I had written earlier about Man and God and liberty. I noted that through my evolution from Marxist to Conservative Christian I had noticed something. The idea of liberty and freedom comes through scripture. The Magna Carta, Mayflower Compact, Declaration of Independence, and Constitution all draw from Scripture. (For those interested, the best analysis of this is M. Stanton Evans’ The Theme is Freedom.) The Leftist or Statist view of freedom is being a slave to the material; Marx, Engels, Lenin and Rousseau were all atheists, anti-Christian and anti-Semitic. Our society has been following and applying their ideology since the early 20^th century and look where we are.

As we watch the decaying of America, it’s noticeable the liberty is being confused with libertine. I remember listening to a Los Angeles talk show host that called himself a libertarian, but he was no more that a libertine. It was all about what brings on pleasure. If it feels good, do it, as the 60’s slogan said.

We have a legal system the puts the rights of criminals above the safety of citizens. We have government and citizens thinking have the debt monkey on our backs, personally and nationally, is a good thing. Sex above relationships. Disposable marriages. We all know the litany of things dragging down doing right, good and moral things.

Augustine:  For of a perverse will, was a lust made; and a lust served, became custom; and custom not resisted, became necessity. (Confessions 8.5)  Or as the Doobie Brothers put it, “What were once vices are now virtues”.

True liberty, true freedom, comes from having the discipline to live a scriptural base life. God directs us through scripture to a right kind of life. Christ died the way he did to give us the opportunity to wipe the slate clean of our bad thoughts and behaviors. That’s the hard way. The anti-scriptural is the easy way, and doesn’t lead to freedom.

Romans: "…because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God."

http://youtu.be/U1xEL6CGA5o

We Still Hold These Truths

 Our first principles for a free nation. This is a powerful reminder of what our nation is, and what we must resist if we wish to remain free.

http://bcove.me/yao33vu5

Grains of Liberty

One of the ancient and less known Greek philosophers, Eubulides, made an observation about a heap of sand. If one took away a single grain from the heap, it would still be a heap. Take away two grains, and you’ve still got a heap. The question becomes how many grains of sand have to be removed from the heap before it's no longer a heap of sand?

How many grains of liberty have to be taken away before we have no liberty?

Energy, the life blood of our liberty. The grains being taken away? No oil refining plants built in decades. One grain. No nuclear energy allowed. Two grains. No offshore drilling. Three grains. No new oil wells allowed. Four grains. Those and all the unemployed energy workers equal how many grains? No processing of shale for oil is a grain. No Alaska north shore drilling is a grain.

ObamaCare and all the limitations on choice are how many grains of liberty taken away? The legislation requires a citizen to purchase health insurance whether he/she wants it or not, under penalty of imprisonment, fine, or both. One grain. One can go through this legislation that was passed a year ago, around midnight on Christmas Eve by one political party, and find lots of grains of liberty being taken away.  

Sales tax, property tax, income tax, usage taxes and fees totaled together removes about half of each citizen's income and redistributes it to the government. How many grains of liberty do we loose? How much more liberty could you have if your income were say, 35% more, allowing the government a much smaller portion of the grains that give you economic liberty? How many grains of liberty are lost when those tax dollars are given to multi-$trillion companies, their CEO’s and boards, that take that money, turn it around and finance the political campaigns of the politicians that gave them that money?

How many grains of liberty are lost when citizens give up our forth amendment rights against unlawful search and seizure when we want to fly?

How many grains of liberty are lost when children come out of the government education monopoly not knowing about mathematics, literature, history, the Constitution, or how to be a free thinker?

How many grains of liberty are lost when the government tells us what we can eat? The glaring example of this is San Francisco passing legislation telling businesses that stock vending machines what they can put in them, that McDonald’s happy meals are made illegal, or the city council of New York City telling chefs how much salt they can use in their dishes.

How many grains of liberty are lost when an enemy foreign country, China, controls our two and a half $trillion debt, and another enemy bent on our destruction, Russia, comes ever so close to dictating our military strategy and missile defense in Europe? How many grains of liberty are lost when Islamofacist countries build up giant military forces and are close to having nuclear weapons, and nothing is done?

How many grains of liberty are taken away when majority of citizens say to the elites, enough is enough, quit taking so much of our money, stop making so many laws that we can hardly breathe a breath of freedom; and for saying that, vilified and called Nazis, fascists, racists, homophobes and bigots, violent when there is not violence, haters when there is no hate, instead of being listened to.

How many grains are taken away when the right to freedom of religion in the Constitution becomes the tool for the repression of religion; primarily Christianity while giving a pass to Islamofacism?

How many grains of liberty are lost when politicians are voted out of office in protest of their taking away so many of our liberties and so much of our money, and use the last weeks of their power to continue trying to pass legislation that they were thrown out of office for trying to pass in the first place?

How many grains of liberty are lost when states on the border pass legislation to protect themselves because the federal government won't, and the citizens are getting raped, robbed and murdered, and the federal government sues the states for trying to protect themselves? 

At what point does the heap of liberty cease to be a heap? 

"Make Mine Freedom" ~ 1948

Lessons in free minds and free markets

"Those Voices Don't Speak for the Rest of Us" ~ Ronald Reagan

4th of July As a Religious Observance

Today is one of those July 4th's that happen on a Sunday. Despite protestations to the contrary from Secularists, this nation was founded on Judaic-Christian principles. Saying anything other than affirming this truth, makes them willfully ignorant or liars. Worshiping on this Sacred Day gives yet more meaning to our celebration of it.

I loved our Responsive Reading this morning:

Worship Leader: Many years ago the founder of our great nation gathered to initiate a new experiment in government.

Congregation: They were people of faith - faith in the providence of God and the competence of all citizens to manage their own destiny.

Worship Leader: They possessed a vision of a land where the human spirit, created free and owing ultimate allegiance only to the Creator, would be free to reach its highest potential.

Congregation: We are heirs of that faith and vision. We therefore come to worship this day asking God to continue to bless this land of ours, to keep watch over it and to protect it from the power s of tyranny and all that oppresses the human spirit.

Below is a rather long speech to read, but should be read by both Secular and Religious people. Secular people must be intellectually honest, and recognize that all they claim they believe in, the values, The Bill of Rights, the rule of law, the institutions of freedom, all have at their core, Judaic-Christian tradition. If there is no religious freedom, then there is no freedom, because there is nothing else to challenge the State.

On 23 August 1984, President Reagan spoke to an ecumenical prayer breakfast in Dallas, Texas.

Part 2

"I believe that faith and religion play a critical role in the political life of our nation — and always has — and that the church — and by that I mean all churches, all denominations — has had a strong influence on the state. And this has worked to our benefit as a nation.

Those who created our country — the Founding Fathers and Mothers — understood that there is a divine order which transcends the human order. They saw the state, in fact, as a form of moral order and felt that the bedrock of moral order is religion.


The Mayflower Compact began with the words, “In the name of God, amen.” The Declaration of Independence appeals to “Nature’s God” and the “Creator” and “the Supreme Judge of the world.” Congress was given a chaplain, and the oaths of office are oaths before God.

James Madison in the Federalist Papers admitted that in the creation of our Republic he perceived the hand of the Almighty. John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, warned that we must never forget the God from whom our blessings flowed.

George Washington referred to religion’s profound and unsurpassed place in the heart of our nation quite directly in his Farewell Address in 1796. Seven years earlier, France had erected a government that was intended to be purely secular. This new government would be grounded on reason rather than the law of God. By 1796 the French Revolution had known the Reign of Terror. . . .

In 1962 the Supreme Court in the New York prayer case banned the compulsory saying of prayers. In 1963 the Court banned the reading of the Bible in our public schools. From that point on, the courts pushed the meaning of the ruling ever outward, so that now our children are not allowed voluntary prayer. We even had to pass a law — we passed a special law in the Congress just a few weeks ago to allow student prayer groups the same access to schoolrooms after classes that a young Marxist society, for example, would already enjoy with no opposition.

The 1962 decision opened the way to a flood of similar suits. Once religion had been made vulnerable, a series of assaults were made in one court after another, on one issue after another. Cases were started to argue against tax-exempt status for churches. Suits were brought to abolish the words “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance and to remove “In God We Trust” from public documents and from our currency.

Today there are those who are fighting to make sure voluntary prayer is not returned to the classrooms. And the frustrating thing for the great majority of Americans who support and understand the special importance of religion in the national life — the frustrating thing is that those who are attacking religion claim they are doing it in the name of tolerance, freedom, and openmindedness. Question: Isn’t the real truth that they are intolerant of religion? [Applause] They refuse to tolerate its importance in our lives.

If all the children of our country studied together all of the many religions in our country, wouldn’t they learn greater tolerance of each other’s beliefs? If children prayed together, would they not understand what they have in common, and would this not, indeed, bring them closer, and is this not to be desired? So, I submit to you that those who claim to be fighting for tolerance on this issue may not be tolerant at all. . . .

There are, these days, many questions on which religious leaders are obliged to offer their moral and theological guidance, and such guidance is a good and necessary thing. To know how a church and its members feel on a public issue expands the parameters of debate. It does not narrow the debate; it expands it.

The truth is, politics and morality are inseparable. And as morality’s foundation is religion, religion and politics are necessarily related. We need religion as a guide. We need it because we are imperfect, and our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they’re sinners can bring to democracy the tolerance it requires in order to survive.

A state is nothing more than a reflection of its citizens; the more decent the citizens, the more decent the state. If you practice a religion, whether you’re Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, or guided by some other faith, then your private life will be influenced by a sense of moral obligation, and so, too, will your public life. One affects the other. The churches of America do not exist by the grace of the state; the churches of America are not mere citizens of the state. The churches of America exist apart; they have their own vantage point, their own authority. Religion is its own realm; it makes its own claims.

We establish no religion in this country, nor will we ever. We command no worship. We mandate no belief. But we poison our society when we remove its theological underpinnings. We court corruption when we leave it bereft of belief. All are free to believe or not believe; all are free to practice a faith or not. But those who believe must be free to speak of and act on their belief, to apply moral teaching to public questions. . . .

Without God, there is no virtue, because there’s no prompting of the conscience. Without God, we’re mired in the material, that flat world that tells us only what the senses perceive. Without God, there is a coarsening of the society. And without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure. If we ever forget that we’re one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under."

Stand Up for Religious Freedom - Chuck Colson

Some Excerpts: "In New Jersey, a Methodist camp lost its tax exempt status for refusing to hold a same-sex civil union ceremony. In California, Christian doctors were successfully sued for refusing to offer in-vitro fertilization procedures for a lesbian couple. Catholic Charities in Boston had to shut down its adoption services because it was being forced by the state to place children with same-sex couples.

The current health care bill has no protections for religious medical personnel or health care providers who, by reason of conscience, refuse to participate in abortions.

So why is religious freedom such a concern to us as Christians? Freedom of religion is called the first freedom for a reason. Our founding fathers recognized that without freedom of conscience, no other freedom can be guaranteed.

Christians, in fact, are the greatest defenders of religious freedom and human liberty—not just for Christians, but for all people. Compare religious freedom in those countries with a Christian heritage to the state of religious freedom in Islamic nations, communist countries, and Buddhist and Hindu nations, and you will see my point."

Just a great article. Full article here.

Satire Anyone?

"Conservative arguments against President Obama are becoming increasingly silly. They oppose Obama rescuing businesses despite all the jobs on the line, they're against government taking control of health care from soulless insurance companies, and they oppose increased taxes on energy consumption despite the sorry state of the environment. And why do they oppose these most sensible actions? Because of their irrational, brain-dead obsession with liberty. Of course, everyone likes freedom -- to a point -- but there are a number of loud, stupid Americans who just take it to ridiculous extremes. They hoard their freedoms like greedy little dwarfs hoarding gold when they have little actual use for most of it. People need rules and order and guidance, but they hardly ever need liberty. Liberty doesn't feed your family. Liberty doesn't heal you when you're sick. Liberty doesn't educate your children. A strong government can do all those things, but apparently that's against liberty. ... Just look at this ludicrous debate over health care reform. Of course the government should provide health care for everyone; how obvious can anything be? The government has the money and smart people working for everyone's interests to make sure all get health care, so why would anyone be against that? Because apparently people aren't 'free' to make their health care choices for themselves. ... Real freedom is not having to worry about health care, and that's what you get when you have the government take it over. Yes, you'll have little control over who gets what kind of care, but some people will just have to suffer some for the betterment of the whole. The advantage of having the government in control is that it makes sure the fewest number suffer, and those that do aren't particularly important. ... Most of the civilized world has moved beyond this uncompromising view of 'freedom' -- if they were ever foolish enough to adopt it in the first place. Can you think of any other country that would permit its citizens to have guns like America does? Of course not; that's beyond moronic. People know freedom is a dangerous, scary thing, and you have to be careful how much you tolerate." --Frank J. Fleming

The whole satirical article here.

Quotable Quote

"We warned of things to come, of the danger inherent in unwarranted government involvement in things not its proper province. What we warned against has come to pass. And today more than two-thirds of our citizens are telling us, and each other, that social engineering by the federal government has failed. The Great Society is great only in power, in size and in cost. And so are the problems it set out to solve. Freedom has been diminished and we stand on the brink of economic ruin. Our task now is not to sell a philosophy, but to make the majority of Americans, who already share that philosophy, see that modern conservatism offers them a political home. We are not a cult, we are members of a majority. Let's act and talk like it. The job is ours and the job must be done. If not by us, who? If not now, when? Our party must be the party of the individual. It must not sell out the individual to cater to the group. No greater challenge faces our society today than ensuring that each one of us can maintain his dignity and his identity in an increasingly complex, centralized society. Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business, galloping inflation, frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise. They are the residue of centralized bureaucracy, of government by a self-anointed elite. Our party must be based on the kind of leadership that grows and takes its strength from the people." --Ronald Reagan

Suicide of the West? by Thomas Sowell

An incredibly wise, insightful piece. The meaning of releasing the Lockerbie terrorist. Adam Smith: "Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent." Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: "The timid civilized world has found nothing with which to oppose the onslaught of a sudden revival of barefaced barbarity, other than concessions and smiles." Western civilization is appeasing the march of Islam, and if it continues, then we'll have Sharia, not constitutional democracies. Article here.

Barry Goldwater- Quotable Quotes

"Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed. Their mistaken course stems from false notions of equality, ladies and gentlemen. Equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism."

"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!"

"My faith in the future rests squarely on the belief that man, if he doesn't first destroy himself, will find new answers in the universe, new technologies, new disciplines, which will contribute to a vastly different and better world in the twenty-first century. Recalling what has happened in my short lifetime in the fields of communication and transportation and the life sciences, I marvel at the pessimists who tell us that we have reached the end of our productive capacity, who project a future of primarily dividing up what we now have and making do with less. To my mind the single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom."