Reclaim America as the Land of Free

The time has come for all good men (and women) to come to the aid of their country.

We are witnessing the repeat of history, a pattern as old as civilization.

"Yea, well did he say that if the time should come that the voice of this people should choose iniquity, that is, if the time should come that this people should fall into transgression, they would be ripe for destruction." (82 B.C.)

"For as their laws and their governments were established by the voice of the people, and they who chose evil were more numerous than they who chose good, therefore they were ripening for destruction, for the laws had become corrupted." (30 B.C.)

Historian Edward Gibbon on the fall of Athenian democracy said, ‘In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all — security, comfort and freedom... When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society, but for society to give to them... When the freedom they wished for most — was freedom from responsibility... Then, Athens ceased to be free.’ (D. Ray, The Four Freedoms, 2010,) (600 A.D)

We must unite, not only amongst ourselves but preach the truth of American independence from the rooftops. This is a call for an embargo against our own complacency and quiet tolerance of entertainment, media and education.

The Total Power of One

A few days ago I had the pleasure of attending a lecture by Fred Holden, Author of "Total Power of One in America" hosted by Joe Sabah.  I've been thinking about it since.

The message was clear: speakers and teachers should be certain to utilize their influence to promote responsible citizenship.

A litany of topics and approaches were suggested.  Yet, it seems as though in some measure the message fell on deaf ears, and I have been wondering why.

Of the many things offered, it was the Eight dangerous illiteracies that caught my attention because it resonated.  My years of observation and research had come to the same conclusions. 

The eight can be condensed to four critical illiteracies: Financial (few of us know how to employ principles of prosperity regardless of circumstance), Political (few of us understand that we are to protect the Constitution and our rights by our elections), Economic (few of us understand the ramifications of economic policy--short term and long term), Business (few of us understand the principles that generate business success and how to differentiate business success from greed).

It is therefor incumbent upon those who do know to tactfully, tastefully yet boldly remind the rest of us what we all know in our hearts to be true yet forget in currents of daily living.

Why would a speaker or an author be reticent to take up that mantle?  Is it because we are so conditioned to avoid any social discussion about these topics that we bristle at the mere mention of them?  If not, why then would an author write or a speaker speak?  I ask you.

What's in a name?

Whether they are called communists, socialist, fascist, imperialist, liberals, progressive or what ever, it makes no difference.  What matters is that in the end the object is the same: the subversion of freedom and independence.

They may take a different tact and woo people to their cause with platitudes of noble purpose.  It must be understood that the ends do not justify the means.  For the means are what determine the ends.  The ends are not the the objective that is so earnestly being sought.  That is just a way-point.  The ends are what the endeavor makes of us along the way.  That is where the true devastation lay.

Freedom can only be had by a moral and responsible people.  An amoral people cannot be free.  A dependent population can not be free.  Any movement, no matter the name, that replaces responsibility with security, that exchanges amorality for standards of civility, will go the way of all civilizations who have attempted to do so in in the past.

We as a nation must set and maintain standards by which to live.  Do not mistake tolerance for promoting.  Do not mistake freedom for irresponsibility. Do not forget for one moment that, while you can do what ever you want, you cannot be absolved the responsibility for your choices.  No, America is free because enterprise and morality promotes freedom.  Any endeavor to the contrary undermines it, no matter what the name.

Announcing The Four Freedoms!

In commemoration of Independence Day, I am delighted to announce the publication of The Four Freedoms available at Amazon.com.

The Four Freedoms is a story about a man who discovered the wisdom of the ages and applied it in his life to create success beyond his imagination.

It was written for those that have a yearning for freedom--freedom from bad habits, freedom that prosperity brings, freedom from misery, and the freedom to be happy in relationships and in life--for those who have an innate sense that there is something more but just cannot figure out what it is.

I hope you enjoy it.

The Art of Networking

“Networking is the art of making and using contacts. It is the single minded persuit of useful contacts at every convention, seminar and neighborhood barbecue. And today networking is exploding. It is changing the way we do business and the way we socialize. Some people say it is purely a pragmatic technique but the true networker knows it is more. The true networker proposes a new outlook. Previous societies considered every stranger an inherent threat. To the networker, every stranger represents an opportunity, the chance to find prospects, reach targets or meet friends.”

As timely as this article seems, it may interest you to know that it comes from the August 1985 issue of Success. Yes, 1985. Twenty-five years ago!

Yet twenty-five years later I find that people are clamoring for networks and yet repeatedly disenchanted with them. It begs the questions, "Why?" and "What can be done?"

Permit me a suggestion. If our networking seems fraudulent, difficult or unfulfilling, perhaps it is due to intent. If everyone at an event is of the mind of “what’s in it for me” then everyone is taking and no one is giving. The result is a networking vacuum.

Networking is, by defenition, connecting. Connecting requires giving. Try instead to see how much you can give–referrals, advice, introductions, useful information–any kind of value add. Les Brown says that the universe hates a vaccume. In order to get you have got to give. The more you can give the more will you get back. Conversely, you cannot recieve if both hands are busy holding one to what you have.

Steve Jobs Commencement Speach

Steve Jobs knows something about creating financial freedom. Hear his advice to Stanford University's graduation class of 2005.

Change

The following is the fourth installment of the paper on Personal Freedom.

"'Status Quo' is Latin for, 'The mess we are in.'" -- Ronald Reagan

Understanding Choice, Cause and Effect, and Responsibility lead to a singular option—accept or reject it. Some may argue that one can accept a truth but do nothing about it. I contend that inaction alone is the indicator of rejecting a thought or idea. As the ancient author said, “shew me thy faith without works and I will shew thee my faith by my works.” If a person believes that a diet will work but does nothing about it, the diet, and their belief in it, will avail them nothing. Only a belief that motivates to and includes action constitutes faith. Ergo, “…faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.”

The action that must ensue is, again, a singular option—do something, or do nothing. There is no status quo. There is only growth or decay, advance or retreat. Change is constant. Change is certain. It is the obvious result of the endless ripples affected by all of the causes that occur around us. Jim Rohn puts it eloquently when he says, “All positions are temporary.” He goes on to say that if change is inevitable, we might as well choose the change we want.

”We can also do nothing. We can pretend rather than perform. And if the idea of having to change ourselves makes us uncomfortable, we can remain as we are. We can choose rest over labor, entertainment over education, delusion over truth, and doubt over confidence. The choices are ours to make. But while we curse the effect, we continue to nourish the cause. As Shakespeare uniquely observed, "The fault is not in the stars, but in ourselves." We created our circumstances by our past choices. We have both the ability and the responsibility to make better choices beginning today. (Jim Rohn, Change Begins With Choice)

Now, suffice it to say that you have a choice: you can accept what has been presented and go on, or reject it and go back. The key question to any and every decision is;

Where will this choice lead me five or ten years down the road, and is that okay?

Look for "The Keys That Unlock the Doors" as the next installment of the paper on Personal Freedom.

The Law of Cause and Effect: Part II

The following is the third installment of the paper on Personal Freedom.

Responsibility

In this sense, we will employ Steven R. Covey’s use of the word. He explains that all of us are “response-able” or able to respond. In other words we can choose how to respond to the situational effects of our given circumstance. Many argue that their responses are someone else’s fault—I have a hot temper because I’m an Irish red-head; It’s my parent’s fault; I didn’t have the opportunities others did; I was abused; I’m too fat, too thin; too ugly, too beautiful; too dark, too light, too short, too tall; too rich, too poor; it wasn’t in the stars; et cetra at nauseum. These people are really just arguing for their limitations—caught up in their self-justification endeavoring to excuse their feelings of fear, inadequacy, or guilt and shame for inaction. Jim Rohn said, “You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of. You don't have charge of the constellations, but you do have charge of whether you read, develop new skills, and take new classes.”

Once we recognize our “response-ability,” we are faced with the truth of our responsibility. We are responsible for what we think, feel, say, and do in response to our circumstances. Concurrently, we are responsible for the consequences pertaining to our choices. There is no shirking that responsibility. We can hide from it, ignore it, or deny it, but in the end, there it is. Every choice is a cause which in turn has its effects. It also means that if you don’t like the effects you are experiencing, you can change them by changing the causes.

“If you don't like how things are, change it! You're not a tree.” –Jim Rohn

At this point I may have lost some of you. For the idea of such responsibility strikes such fear into the hearts of some that they choose to crawl back into bed and pull the covers over their head.

Perhaps this would be a good time to consider whether freedom after all, is what you really want. The very idea! Who in their right mind would not chose freedom over captivity? Consider the illuminating social study that the fall of the Soviet Union has afforded us. A generation in economic, social, intellectual, spiritual, and personal confinement and a large majority of the population find themselves quite without the internal compass necessary to capitalize on their new found liberties. Similarly we can look the people of ancient Israel. Four hundred years in captivity and they had grown accustomed to being cared for. They were unprepared, unwilling, and unable to step up and take responsibility for caring for and acting for themselves. As such, part of the reason given for their wandering in the wilderness for 40 years was to allow a generation to die off taking their mistaken ideologies with them.

But what of the modern individual; have we not similar tendencies? How many of us are prone to shirk our responsibilities? Be honest now. Have you ever heard someone say, “It’s not my fault!” Have you ever heard anyone say that when you were the only one in the room? It’s true we are a generation of “excusiologists.” We employ billions of dollars per annum to attorneys, courts and legislators to either get us off the hook, or to hold someone else responsible. The most absurd example is the so called McDonald’s Coffee case. While the public scoffs at the plaintiff as being the fool who was unwilling to accept responsibility for dropping her coffee, the truth, as the court found, was that McDonald’s was unwilling (without compulsion) to accept responsibility for persistently preparing a beverage to a temperature sufficient to cause third degree burns and skin grafts. [1]

Such compulsive fault finding and placing blame perpetuates a subconscious life philosophy toward the same end. The results are people who, as stated above, feel that they are owed something and that they are not to blame—for anything. The often unspoken end to that line of thinking is, “and therefore I have no control.” Ironic isn’t it? Control, or self-determination is one thing that permeates nearly all of the human needs Maslow depicted in his 1943 paper.[2]

Thus we have exposed another great lie of the human condition. We tend to do things erroneously believing they will yield certain results, when the natural consequences are actually contrary to what we want. Much has been and could be written on this topic, which is, in my opinion, the very essence of insanity or at the very least dysfunctional. Suffice it to say that we as sentient beings will accept certain basic needs being gratified by others for a time. But there comes a point when our needs for esteem and self-actualization cannot be given us by someone else. Those needs are not satisfied unless we take the responsibility to do so. I submit that once one has experienced the sweet satisfaction of self actualization, he is, or should be, far less willing to allow someone else to remove from him the responsibility for the baser needs. This is nature of growing up.

It is an unspoken but commonly held belief that what we as people really seek deep down is the freedom from consequences. This fact was vocalized to my surprise by a group of youth who were responding to the question ‘What is freedom?’ Their answers feeding off one another in a brainstorming fashion eventually drew out that what they really thought freedom to be is freedom from consequences. But in the same instant they said it, they realized, as you just did, that there is no such thing. Yet that is what we humans seem to crave. Historian Edward Gibbon on the fall of Athenian democracy said,

In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security.

They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all -- security, comfort and freedom...

When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society, but for society to give to them...

When the freedom they wished for most -- was freedom from responsibility...

Then, Athens ceased to be free.[3]

But freedom is not free. Neither is captivity free. There is a price for both. The difference is that you often don’t know the price for captivity and ignorance until later—sometimes too late. [4]

Here is indicated the inextricable connection between personal and political freedom which will be discussed later on. The important message is the imperative nature of personal freedom and the responsibility it demands.

We all feel that we would like to do certain things and not suffer any consequences for those choices. That is the essence of our carnal natures. That is the essence of what we must master. The mastery of those tendencies is what constitutes character and maturity.

"What if you could be anything, or anybody, you chose to be? Think about it. What would you choose to be?" Nido Qubein

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[1] Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants, P.T.S., Inc., No. D-202 CV-93-02419, 1995 WL 360309 (Bernalillo County, N.M. Dist. Ct. Aug. 18, 1994) details from nmcourts.com

[2] Maslow, A. H. (1943). A Theory of Human Motivation. Psychological Review, 50, 370–96. (See Chart in Appendix.)

[3] Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1998 edition, Wordsworth Editions Limited

[4] In his book Escape from Freedom, Eric Fromm explores this social/psychological dichotomy. He writes, “The person who gives up his individual self and becomes an automaton (mindless conformity), identical with millions of other automatons around him, need not feel alone and anxious any more. But the price he pays, however, is high; it is the loss of his self.....freedom has a twofold meaning for modern man: that he has been freed from traditional authorities and has become an 'individual,' but that at the same time he has become isolated, powerless and an instrument of purposes outside of himself, alienated from himself and others; furthermore, that this state undermines his self, weakens and frightens him, and makes him ready for submission to new kinds of bondage. Positive freedom on the other hand is identical with the full realization of the individual's potentialities, together with his ability to live actively and spontaneously." (Eric Fromm, Escape from Freedom, 1941, Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 115 West 18th Street, new York New York, 10011, clarification added.)

See installment four on Change.

The Law of Cause and Effect: Part I

The following is the second installment of the paper on Personal Freedom.

The concept of choice introduces us to the Law of Cause and Effect. This is a universal law that, like gravity, is always in effect whether or not you know about it or even believe it. It has been called by many names as it has been discovered and rediscovered over the centuries. It is known as the Law of Reciprocity. Ancient script calls it the Law of Harvest or the Law of Reaping and Sowing. Newton’s third law of physics is the Law of Action-Reaction, and Emerson called it the Law of Compensation.

This law requires that for every effect or result there is a cause; or as more commonly stated, you reap what you sow. Its meaning is both a word of condemnation and a word of hope. It means that you are who you are, you have what you have, you do what you do, you know what you know, and you lack what you lack because of the choices you have made. Now the tendency here for some may be to argue that they are experiencing the effects of what others have caused. This idea may be true, but refers to situational effects.

Situational Effects implies another very important principle which is, we do make choices but we cannot choose the consequences. In an extreme example, one can choose whether or not to pull the trigger. Once that choice is made, the consequences will unfold naturally and beyond anyone’s control. The consequences of that choice may be that a life ends, a person goes to prison, lives are disrupted, and the ripple effects of that choice reverberate across space and time. It is rightly said that no man is an island. Every person touched by that choice is experiencing a situational effect—they have been placed in a situation not of their choosing. (Excluding those who chose to associate with a disreputable individual or other ethereal, distant choices.) But for purposes of this discussion, we will say that Victor Frankl was in a concentration camp for reasons not of his choosing. And that the heart-break of losing his wife to an executioner was also an experience not of his choosing.

The fact is that all of us, every one with no exception, are experiencing situational effects in every moment of every day. It is a mistake to think that because we did not create the situation, we are not responsible for how we respond to it.

For the continuation, see Part II: Responsibility

Tolerance

"Tolerance is giving to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself."

Robert Green Ingersoll
1833-1899, Orator and Political Speech maker

Tolerance is not to be confused with approval or condoning.

"News"week Nonsence

In response to the December 15, 2008 cover story and the conjoining editorial, we wish to go on record as saying:

Never in modern history have we beheld such irresponsible reporting and dissemination of swill and tripe as this lead essay and follow-up drivel of an editorial. Congratulations to Newsweek and its plebeian editor for acceding to the ranks of the supermarket tabloid.

For an intelligent expose we recommend to the readers this article by Albert Mohler.

On Socialism

Glen Beck plays audio of Sec of Agriculture Ezra T. Benson on his meeting with Khrushchev

On Socialism

Book Review

Why Good People Do Bad Things: How to Stop Being Your Own Worst Enemy by Debbie Ford

A critical read for a complete understanding of the human condition.

Ford illustrates that the root causes by which sabotage our relationships, our finances, our families, and our careers are rooted in our unknown and unconscious programing.

This programming results in an unhealthy belief concerning our dark sides. The pain and shame we feel "drives us to use food, alcohol, sex, drugs, excitement, collecting, gossiping and philandering as ways to distract ourselves from seeing that which we deem unacceptable or unflattering."

The scary thing is that we ALL do this to some extent or other. Some self-sabotage to the extent of the criminal.

In the end, it is important to recognize the lies we sell ourselves as the root cause of our short comings.

Introduction to Personal Freedom

Personal Freedom is the realization of who you really are and what you are capable of becoming and that only you stand in your way.

Psychologist Victor Frankl discovered this great truth while a Jewish prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. He observed that those who survived developed a will to survive. He realized that no matter what was inflicted upon him, he could choose how to feel and think about it. He poignantly illustrates the depth of this discovery when, considering a guard, he says to himself, “You have more liberty than I, but I have more freedom.” Frankl concludes from his experience that a prisoner's psychological reactions are not solely the result of the conditions of his life, but also from the freedom of choice he always has even in severe suffering.[1]

Freedom of choice is the first great personal freedom.

Personal Prisons

Personal Prisons are cages of our own forging. They are the things that keep us down, that keep us in a rut, keep us in our box, prevent our growth, and weigh us down with depression, discouragement, and defeatism.

These bars and shackles are forged out of the alloy of misperceptions and bad habits. Ideas that we are victims in this world, that we are owed something, our poor self-image, laziness, complacency, addictions; ideas that “this is all there is,” or that “nothing can be done” and the like form our individual prisons.

Dr. Carter G Woodsen described it this way:

"If you can determine what a man shall think, you will never have to concern yourself with what he will do. If you can make a man feel inferior you will not have to compel him to seek an inferior status for he will seek it himself. And if you can make a man feel justly an outcast, you will never have to order him to use the back door he will go without being told, and if there is no back door, his very nature will demand one."

But as Frankl points out, you can choose what to think. In fact, in every circumstance you choose what to think, feel, say and do with respect to that circumstance. Many of us are accustomed to reacting, or playing off of and reflecting the circumstance back on itself. Most of us respond out of habit and without thinking and by so doing demonstrate our character or lack thereof. These habitual responses, or auto-responses, are the sum of the choices we made long ago based upon our experiences. They become reflex so we no longer consciously make a choice. The good news is that at any time, you can choose to take control of your programming. You can choose to change.

"It is not what happens to you but how you think about what happens to you that determines how you feel and react. It is not the world outside of you that dictates your circumstances or conditions. It is the world inside you that creates the conditions of your life." --Brian Tracey

"I used to say, "I sure hope things will change." Then I learned that the only way things are going to change for me is when I change." --Jim Rohn

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[1] Victor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, October 23, 1984 Revised and Updated, Washington Square Press.

For the continuation, see Part I: Law of Cause and Effect