Eight Decades of Free Thinking

Earlier this week I wrote an article titled “President Obama, Religion – Politics – Where He Came From, Plus Muslim Mosque Dispute.”  There was an immediate response from readers, one from World Wide News track-back on their web site.

I’m just amazed living in this internet era, how quickly articles travel around the world, and according to my web manager, my articles go to eighty countries. I frequently receive comments in German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and recently one in Dutch. I can’t read their language but apparently they read mine. With eternal gratitude to those who take the time to read my articles and comment.

I began my blog writing just over two years ago and have received thousands of comments and e-mails. Mostly supportive and frequently asking me to write more.

I recommend, any readers interested in more enlightenment, they sign on to the Libertarian Blog site where there are a number of well-informed writers daily. Particularly the militantlibertarian.org site, where the editor of that blog site re-prints a number of great articles by other writers. The editor takes the time to sort through articles for re-print, then at the bottom of each articles, lists other related articles to the subject matter. Educational and enlightening material, for anyone to read with one click and no cost.

This wonderful country we love in is in great peril, and it is incumbent upon all of us to inform ourselves of Truth, to sort through the material and decide for ourselves how it all happened, is happening now and what we can and must do about our personal Freedoms. The first step is to be informed. Which takes sorting through a lot of mis-leading untruths. Because Truth always has a strange ring, it’s not difficult to reach an understanding of it, in spite of all the jack-hammer rhetoric from those out to destroy the Principles upon which this great nation was founded and thrived on for a long time.

We must begin with an admission, a desired way of life of individual Freedom and private property ownership is under attack, and very threatened. Plus a realization Freedom is not Free, and there is an element of human beings out to destroy it, with a lust for power to take over this country. Not only that, they have already made great inroads into their scheme of takeover. They never seem to sleep in their dogged determination to rule and enslave.

We innately know this to be a fact, but somewhere along the line became apathetic, ignoring our history of how brave souls of the American Revolution pledged their lives, property and sacred honor to die for Freedom. Not only left a legacy of Freedom for us, but gave us the great document of The Declaration of Independence and a Constitution of laws to live by. They did not leave us an entitlement to do nothing to sustain it.

Awakening from this slumber of apathy can only be achieved by informing ourselves as to the Truth of what is happening in this country. And currently many are waking up, standing up and speaking out. But not enough to turn the tide back to a way of life living in Freedom. The march to creeping socialism is now leaping socialism. A system of government subversive to individual freedom. Too many have fallen into the trap of the nanny state.

Too many have been like a frog lounging in a warm tub of water, lulled into a state of doing nothing as the water heats up to a point so hot, that it is unable to extricate itself from its state of being. Realizing its plight of danger, not enough energy to jump out and extricate itself. Too late to save itself from the boiling water.

Not a pleasant analogy, but we are in hot water and losing a way of life so near and dear to all of us, unless we act now to reverse the direction.

Paul Proctor, an American columnist said: “Socialism needs two legs to stand on, a right and a left. While appearing to be in complete opposition to one another, they both march in the same direction.”

Currently, many are disturbed and disenchanted with the threat that hangs over us, losing our Freedoms and way of life, with an urge to do something about it. Therefore they fall back on the same activities, of sending messages to Congress, writing to the President, and spending their time, money and energy to elect another batch to represent in the coming mid-term election. Actions which have been tried over and over, to no avail as conditions in this country worsen.

Concerned, upset, and disenchanted and afraid, seemingly unable or unwilling to face the fact, it is all those elected in the seat of power who have led us down this road of destruction, into the bondage of Socialism. Good men and women with noble intentions, fall in lockstep with the powers at be, soon as they are elected. Refusing accountability to the people who elected them and the oath they took. Why is that? What is wrong with this type of schizophrenic behavior? Caused by what? Is it delusional over power? Whatever it is, it is repetitious. Because with each election, things go from bad to worse. Therefore it’s time to stop, think, and re-figure another way, if we are to regain the Freedoms we have lost.

The elected President is expected to lead this country out of an economic crisis, with absolutely no business experience. He was a community organizer. He’s expected to act as a commander-in-chief of the armed forces with no military experience. He’s expected to appoint conservative thinkers to the Supreme court, but has never been a judge. He’s expected to know how to act with diplomatic diplomacy dealing with other countries, with no experience in the field of foreign relations. He’s expected to act with moral judgment relative to dealing with religious terrorists, and never been a minister.

His background has been that of a lawyer as a community organizer in Chicago. What is his experience and background that qualifies him as a leader of this nation? He was catapulted into this position of power and leadership by his charismatic promises of change, change, change. And yet he does not posses the qualities of leadership most of us understand as leadership qualities. He lacks a background of leadership, aside from being a community organizer, a government tax-paid position.

The Presidency position of the United States is not an on-the-job training position. Once in office he has filled positions with many left-wing socialist leanings and some communist. With his background and absence of leadership experience, is it any wonder we are in the crisis this country is in.

Here in the south there is an old saying: “One can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” To that I suggest, a real leader of this nation is not derived from a community organizer. After almost two years in office, he has managed to make a pathetic mess out of this once free-enterprising free nation, constantly making flowery speeches blaming the last political regime for the problems we face, with the assistance of Congress. Topped by his latest speech of support for a Muslim mosque near ground zero of 9/11. An insult to injury to the citizens of this nation.

Whatever happened to that “root, hog, or die” spirit so pervasive in the early founders of this nation, who pledged their lives, property and sacred honor for a Right to be Free?

“Those who have been intoxicated with power – can never willingly abandon it,” said Edmund Burke.

Let Freedom Ring

Just me AC

Email: annecleveland@bellsouth.net

THE LATEST WITH PRINCE WILLIAM

I had not seen him in almost a week. He came in bubbling over yesterday with things to do and news about his activities.

The first thing he wanted to do is start planting his little fall garden. I had already removed all the vines and stalks from his spring planting. The popcorn, tomato, squash, cucumber and etc. He got out of the car and grabbed a hoe and started digging, when his mom dropped him off. Then he planted some morning glories, and other flower seed, after digging up the soil. Then it began raining, and we ran in the house.

I have a little 8-inch replica of the Statue of Liberty placed in my dining room window. William loves that little statue. I previously kept it in a small cabinet in my dining room. When William sat down at the dining table and noticed the statue had been moved to the window, he began talking about his schooling of the day before.

I said, Before you tell me about your first day being home-schooled, I want to know what you did over the weekend. He said, “Oh yeah, I jumped into the deep end of the pool and Dad gave me one hundred dollars.” He beamed, explaining he had put it in his bank and now had one-hundred-thirty-six dollars and wanted more money-schooling today.

I keep the little box of change in a drawer nearby. He took the box out and dumped all the pennies, quarters, dimes and nickles on the table, then sorted them out and counted all of them. After sorting, I asked him to separate each amount which represented one dollar, and he did. Then I explained how many of each required to make one-hundred dollars.

It’s just amazing, how quickly he has grasped the concept of money. How he can earn it and similarity of the seed principle between money and the seeds he plants in his little garden. In a very short period of time starting with one dollar, not spending it, but putting it in his bank, he sees how quickly it can grow to a larger amount. He’s got the hang of it now.

We put the change away, when he noticed the Statue of Liberty in the window, and began explaining to me that it sets out in the water from New York, and below it on the map is Washington D. C., Washington State and volcanoes.

He is fascinated by volcanoes, and has talked about where some are located in prior conversations. However, he must have been listening to his sisters, or had a geography lesson his first day of school, because he was quite excited about Washington State, Washington DC, and volcanoes being located just below the Statue of Liberty.

I drew a map and showed him locations of each, which did not budge him, and he drew a map showing me how they were located near each other on East Coast. Finally I said, When you go home this evening ask your mom and sisters about the location. Then I suggested we go for a walk.

His visits are times of great joy for me. He is a very pleasant, smart five-year old, but has great tenacity when arguing a point, and can filibuster like a seasoned politician. And one of his traits so endearing is that he will stand up for anything he believes until shown convincing evidence otherwise. He has already acquired this great love of learning, just beginning home-schooling in first grade, after a couple of years of pre-school kindergarten in a local school.

Very interesting, after a few sessions learning about money, how suddenly he changed his mind about jumping into the deep end of his swimming pool, to receive the one-hundred dollars his father offered him to jump.

A great lesson in ones’ Values and how they are always changing. Unlike Principles, which are undeviating and immutable, and never change, ones’ value system is always changing. Jumping into the pool was a display of gravity, a Principle which never changes.

LET FREEDOM RING

JUST ME
AC

EMAIL: annecleveland@bellsouth.net

Here it is end of summer again, and school children standing at the bus stop, waiting for the yellow school bus to arrive. Millions across this country enrolled in the tax-supported school system.

In a recent conversation with a friend, I suggested not much is going to change in the direction this country is headed, unless there is a change in the government-owned and operated school system. My friend responded by saying, “But we have always had ‘free’ education.”

The sophistry of the mind-set and argument that education in this country is free, has always struck me as being very peculiar. Intelligent, rational persons seem to have a very jaundiced mind-set when it comes to schooling and education.

It’s my position that the system of government-funded, mandated schooling in this country is a system of thievery. A system which forces most all to pay for via taxes, and the staggering cost amounts to over half the budgets in most, if not all, the 50 states. Here in the State of Georgia, for year 2009, according to the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget, schooling costs amounted to more than 55% of the state budget. A whopping $8.2 billion for last year’s budget.

The current Congress just approved $26.1 billion, allegedly to save teacher jobs across this country.

As President Johnson used to say, “My fellow Americans.” This is billions and billions and billions of dollars going into schooling, collected from the citizenry of working Americans and yet so many still view it as being “free.”

Undeniably, this is a system of Socialism. Taking from the haves to give to have nots in a system of re-distribution of wealth. One dictionary defines Socialism as: “Public collective ownership or control of the basic means of production, distribution and exchange, with avowed aim of operating for use rather than profit, and for assuring to each member of society an equitable share of goods, services and etc. The doctrines of those advocating this system.”

Taxes by definition are an involuntary relinquishment of one’s property (money). A system of thievery accomplished by a gun or threat of a gun. Therefore, if the school system operates on all these billions of dollars extracted forcibly from the citizenry, then it is obviously a system of Socialism, hence thievery. Why are so many in denial of this fact?

This school system of immorality goes back several generations. Earlier, a child was forced into the system by seven years old, or the parent was subjected to arrest for defiance of compulsory attendance laws. Now with all the Pre-K laws and schooling it’s much earlier than seven years old.

In this great Nation, founded upon the Principles of Individual freedom and personal ownership of property, the people are subjected to arrest and jail, if they do not hand over their property (money) for government schooling, and the parents of young children face the same arrest or jail, if they do not enroll their children. I know this to be true because I was threatened with arrest when my children were school age.

It’s a sort of circular saw-type situation. A child is forced to enter the system at an early age and attends through high school. Wants to go to college and applies for a government grant or loan, and obtains the funds out of the same trough which funded the schooling from Pre-K years. The so-called higher education they receive is also a government funded institution. The college student graduates with a degree in education, goes out and gets a job in the same system they grew up in. That same system of Socialism which cost the citizens of Georgia over eight billion dollars last year and that same system the Federal government just approved of over 26 Billion Dollars to pay teachers in order to have jobs!!!

The NEA, National Education Association, is one of the largest and most powerful lobbying unions in this country.

In this squirrel cage-type thinking, i.e., that education is free, and we are not a socialist country, is one of the major reasons this nation is in the crisis we are now in. We have been indoctrinated and propagandized into this verge of collapse. That is, a collapse of the free-enterprise, capitalistic system of voluntary exchange of goods and services, and collapse of personal Freedom and private ownership of property, upon which this nation was founded and thrived upon at one time.

We are on a merry-go-round of denial, relative to our participation in that which has caused the downfall of all those life-sustaining Principles upon which this country was founded.

Indoctrination into Socialism via government schooling, labeled education, is at the very root of the problem we face. That’s how it all began, that’s what we have accepted and lived with for generations, that’s where we are today, living in a system of Socialism and denying it. Not an opinion, but the facts as they exist today.

Political government is a con game, i.e., keep your eye on this ball, while others juggling in the air to divert attention from the true nature of just what politicians are doing. In this connection, we hear all kinds of far-fetched notions and excuses as to the cause of the downfall of the Principles upon which this country was founded. We must change our thinking from the blame game, and take an objective, realistic look at ourselves, and our participation, and decide whether or not this current way of life in this country is what we really want or not. Socialism is the antithesis of personal Freedom. It is a system of bondage.

We have been lulled into a manner of irrational thinking, and false beliefs, by the jack-hammer rhetoric. Frequently promoted by polling. But one polling, I keep hearing seems to be quite consistent, and that is one of the major concerns of the general population, that of the future of their children. A realistic valid concern. Because if we do not turn the tide away from socialism now, they will live in bondage. And we are not entitled to do nothing, and sit idly by, and just watch this happen. Because it is happening, and has been going on for a long time. We have gone from creeping socialism to leaping socialism.

Because the so-called education system has local school boards as overseers of the system, this is the easy place to start if you are concerned about the future of your children, and the current crisis we are in. Nothing else about our way of life is so layered with bureaucracy as the school system. Beginning with the federal government at the top, then the state, counties, cities and districts and communities.

Nothing epitomizes the precarious pyramid of government like the school system. It began with locals in charge of education, i.e., the majority forming the base of the pyramid, with political government of policies, laws and edits at the narrow tip of the pyramid. Today that is reversed, an upside down pyramid, teetering on its tip, reversed with the control and power of political government at the broad-based top, and the power of the people reduced to the pinpoint tip at the bottom. The people who pay and the parents of the students, have no input into what is taking place today in the school system.

Hardly a day goes by in the news cycle, we don’t hear something about the drugs, the bullying, the killings and abuses in the system. All out of control of the parent from the time the child steps on the school bus or enters the school facility.

No, we have never had “free” education in this country. Aside from the military, it is and has been one of the most costly social programs this country has ever engaged in. The focus should be, save the children, not the teachers’ job. And we save this country by saving the children. By education instead of indoctrination. By parents assuming the self-responsibility and self-control of their children. Starting at the local level. By ridding ourselves of the fear of those in charge.

Bullying of children is pervasive in the system, but so is the bullying of parents by the system.

LET FREEDOM RING

JUST ME
AC

EMAIL: annecleveland@bellsouth.net