I must admit, I'm not usually posting here. Rarely, in fact, do I wander into the quagmire of political mudslinging. And I daresay I'm not going to now, either; rather, I want to share some thoughts.


Humankind is blessed by whatever deity or chance you wish to believe in by being born free and intelligent. In essence, we are born 'free;' when we come from our mother's womb, we have no taxes to pay, we have no lord to swear allegiance to, and we literally own everything we have-our naked, bloody, and generally screaming bodies. What we do from there sends us more and more into a virtual serfdom.

There are governmental restrictions on us from the time the nurse slaps us with a wrist identifier and places us in a nursery crib to the time we die. One could in fact argue we are free for about 2 minutes or less in our lifetime; from the time our cords are cut to the time the nurse takes us away.

Where we go from there is up to us. Sure, the younger days in life we are bound to a 'lord' in the way of our parents, or in some cases government or private institutions (orphanages) that limit us. Curfews, dietary restrictions, even going to school is a form of serfdom in the sense that we have no choice.

Then there are adults. We have a choice, tho it may not seem so. Every slave or servant in history has chosen that path, either by voting in a tyrant or allowing himself to fall into the hand of those that would oppress them. Numerous figures in history have said something to the effect "I would rather die on my feet than live my whole life on my knees."

There is much difference between saying this and living this. Who is free? What are our rights? The vast difference, even between a US Citizen and a real 'free' man/woman is that one has government regulations to dictate what rights they have. Every day on a local (city/county/etc) scale laws are passed such as bans on fireworks, speed limits, zoning requirements for property, etc, that tell us what we can or cannot do with our property.

Real liberty is "Do whatever you want, but do not inhibit other's ability to do whatever they want." This is not simply "do what you want to do, when you want to do it." This would mean that if my neighbor pissed me off, I could go next door and kill him with no repercussions.

On the contrary, "Do whatever you want, but do not inhibit other's ability to do whatever they want" means that within your basic rights- Life, Liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and property (many nations choose one or the other) - you can do what you want as long as you don't endanger others' basic rights. This rules out the ability to bring others under your service by force, in any way. Should another person attempt to do this to you, you have the right to life and liberty-hence you can defend yourself, a simple, almost granted right that many nations are seeking to eliminate, if not in words than practice. In Britain (not picking on the Brits, but an example) a man's home was broken into and in an attempt to defend himself and his home he wounded the man, who sued, won, and pressed charges as well, sending the homeowner to prison for attempted murder. The thief's sentence? None; he was let off for testifying against the man.

In Finland, you may own firearms, and indeed from my research it seems that Finland is one of the freest nations in Europe. However, you may not defend your own property from a man breaking into your home or on your land unless he threatens you with bodily harm physically-not even if he just verbally threatens!

Laws such as these are violations of human rights. Wyoming, if I recall correctly, has a law that if a person you don't want on your property sets foot on it, and won't leave, they can be considered trespassing and shot on sight. This is a law that is rarely invoked, I imagine, due to the paperwork involved, but just going out of your door and wielding a firearm wards off most intruders, even those with firearms themselves!

Not to digress onto the firearms issue, liberty and basic human rights are voted away by us (humans) daily. We vote for more restrictions on this, supposedly laws written 'for our safety.' Where does this end? Herding your nation's population into bunkers and wrapping them in bubbles to avoid any sort of harm? 'Our safety' MUST come after our liberty.

"Give me Liberty or Give me DEATH!!"
This quote by my ancestor Patrick Henry is immortalized, but for the wrong reasons at times. It is a battle cry if you will on patriotic events such as the 4th of July and on days of tragedy such as Dec. 7th, 1941 or Sept. 11th, 2001. Ironic, then, that such events lead to less rights and less liberty!

Not to digress into the mess the US is in, where do we go from here? As humans, not nationalists or 'good citizens,' whatever that means in this day and age?

I would say that each man is his own governor; his own head-of-state. If he wants to do something, he can, and will. 95% of humankind I imagine has broken the law in some small way, because we wanted to do something prohibited by said law. That's a conservative estimate as well, I'd imagine.

Yet we allow ourselves to be convinced by the demagogues of government that in fact we need restrictions to keep us safe, or to give us the best of life's experience. Yet some of the healthiest people I know, mentally, physically and emotionally lead very 'high risk' lives! Traveling abroad, extreme sports at middle or old age, eating things not approved by the FDA or foreign equivalent, and so on.

Many people are happy with their position. In fact, most of the world is happy as long as the football game is on and there is plenty of beer. Here, I daresay the same for internet access and high grade PC's. No thought is given to the small bill passed at the city council last night that further inhibits life.

So apart from the 2 minutes of liberty at birth, when are we free, and when are we going to realize, as a race, a single human race, we've had enough of living lives of servitude and become independent?