The 6 Most Important Words in America

My personal nomination for the six most important words in America would be: form, establish, insure, provide, promote, and secure.

All six words are action words, and they collectively define the specific objectives for which our Constitution was created. An evaluation of how well we're meeting these objectives is worthy of a brief moment of reflection:

1. FORM - "to form a more perfect Union" - How united are we?

2. ESTABLISH - to "establish justice" - Is our judicial system providing equitable justice for all, both rich and poor?

3. INSURE - to "insure domestic Tranquility" - Are our laws reasonable, manageable, and equitably enforceable?

4. PROVIDE - to "provide for the common defence" - Are we defending more than our sovereign nation? Has our defense become too offensive?

5. PROMOTE - to "promote the general Welfare" - Are we providing instead of promoting the general welfare? If the original objective was to provide, should it not have been written, to "provide for the common defence AND the general Welfare"?

6. SECURE - to "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" - Are we unitedly pursuing the discovery and application of truth so that we can maximize our freedom today and tomorrow?

The Constitution may not be perfect, but it certainly has proven to be the greatest political document written throughout the entire history of the world. It was created to allow for amendments so that as greater truth was discovered, the original objectives could be more successfully achieved.

Of the 27 amendments, which one's have championed the original six objectives? What amendments could be added that would better focus our attention on meeting the original six objectives? What changes can we make individually and collectively that would allow us to receive greater benefits from the Constitution as it was originally written?

Form... Establish... Insure... Provide... Promote... Secure...

The Price of Freedom

We took our teenage boys (13 and 17) to San Antonio, TX on Friday to visit the Alamo. As a “warm up” to arriving at the actual plaza, we went to the IMAX theatre in the mall to watch The Alamo: The Price of Freedom.

As you walk down the large corridor to the theatre's entrance, on the right is a massive movie banner with the focal point highlighting the words, "The Price of Freedom." On the left side of the corridor is Victoria's Secret, with approximately eight (I didn't actually count them) bigger-than-life pictures of scantily dressed models with obsessively seductive expressions on their faces. Because we were in a hurry to make the show time, I didn't think much of it.

The movie was excellent, and in 42 minutes it detailed as accurately as possible the facts surrounding one of the most famous acts of sacrifice for the cause of freedom. As we left the theatre, and the first of those seductive pictures came into view, I was quickly reminded of the corridor we were going to pass through. Thinking of our teenage boys, I wanted to quickly cover their eyes, and then realizing that I couldn’t, I said the first thing that came to my mind as I tried to act out the part of a tour guide: “On the left, we have ‘the price of freedom,’ and on the right, we have ‘the price of enslavement’; let’s keep our eyes on freedom.”

After the words were spoken, and we exited the corridor on our way to the Alamo Plaza, I then had time to reflect on the irony of those opposing walls.

Let’s choose real freedom. At 26 years of age, William Barret Travis did, and is a hero in the truest sense of the word.

It's Your Money - NOT

Take a deep breath, make sure you're sitting down, and prepare yourself to try to be entirely unaffected by this experience I'm going to narrate...

I recently engaged in a business transaction that required me to keep track of a few thousand dollars. Because the bookkeeping was for a short time period, and it didn't make sense to create a new bank account specific for this purpose, I decided to use a personal savings account that was joint with my primary checking account.

My has a nice online system that makes it very easy to transfer money from one account to the other. So I transferred all of my current savings (unfortunately a very small dollar amount) into my checking account, and then deposited into savings the money I needed to keep track of. When money needed to be spent, I'd use a check or debit card tied to my checking account, and then reimburse the funds by transfering the same amount (with an identification note) from the savings account. It was clean, simple, and easy to track.

Then I got a notice in the mail from the bank. It was a verbose explanation that I had exceeded the transfers permitted by law (Reg D). Huh? So I held off making two more transfers and called the bank to get an assessment of the damage. In the current statement cycle, I had done eight transfers and the law only allows for six. The penalty is $10 per violation, and so I was being charged $20.

I kept my cool, and calmly asked the customer service rep if there was any way to not be penalized for not knowing this illogical rule. He asked if I had read all the account information paperwork I had signed when I set up the account. I thought a lie "yeah, I went straight home, read for an hour and a half, and I don't remember reading the part about six max transactions," but instead I said evenly, "that's not very realistic." He read me the most relevant parts of the law and then said that unfortunately there wasn't any way to wave the penalties.

Out of curiosity, I asked where the $20 would go. He responded, "That's a good question, let me find out." After four minutes on hold, he returned and said, "It all goes to the federal government." As I processed this information, my grasp of reality began to rapidly deteriorate. Hanging on to anything I could grab, I asked if I could go into the branch and withdraw any money without being penalized. He replied, "No problem. So long as you're in a branch office, you can transfer funds, withdraw money, whatever you want, and it doesn't count towards your limit of six. Just remember though, if you do keep violating Reg D, you'll receive another notice and your savings account will be shut down."

I didn't want any more clarification. I didn't want any more information. All I wanted to do was to hang up, to resolve in my mind that twice a month I'll make a trip to the bank to do all of my transfers at once, and most importantly to just move on with my life. The bars of enslavement Congress had placed around me, were incomprehensible, but they weren't going to hold me captive indefinitely.

I jumped over the bars. Hopefully in the future the bars won't get so high I can't jump over.

The Best Part About a Sporting Event

Most sporting events in America begin with the athletes lining up on the field or court of play, the fans standing and looking in a particular direction, hats coming off, hands placed on top of hearts (or not), and our national anthem played or sung; it's a moment of personal, quiet reflection.

For some reason that I've never been able to understand, many of the athletes, and some fans, keep their hands to their sides. A logical reason might be that the individual is not a citizen of this country, while some illogical reasons might be that even though they are a citizen they hate this country, or maybe the act of putting their hand over their heart isn't "cool" and they are "cool," or maybe it makes their arm tired and they need to save their strength for the sporting event. But whatever the reason, I wonder during those few moments, what is being reflected in the mind of the "hands-to-the-side-person" versus the individual whose palm is placed against their chest such that they can feel their own heart beat?

I don't know the answer to this question, and I probably never will, and personally, it probably doesn't matter. What really matters is that everytime I go to a sporting event (on time) and get the opportunity to put my palm against my chest, I DO feel the beat of my heart. This beat reminds me that I am blessed to be alive, and that so long as my heart continues to beat, I have the opportunity to study, understand, experience, and live for freedom. It also reminds me that I need to be wise and to take the best care that I can for my heart, so that the health decisions I make will not cause it to stop beating prematurely.

And as I thus reflect, the reality is once again reinforced, that while the clash of opposing athletes may hold captivating entertainment value, the real value of the event was only realized in those few short minutes with my hand on my heart.

The Bondage of Inefficiency

Tax collection is a necessary and critical function of any good society, and while most of us may wish everything could be free, it's not. Fortunately, few people argue in favor of no taxation. What we do frequently argue, as a whole, is how much should be collected and from whom. Commonly missing from our dialogue, however, is the recognition and correction of what may be the greatest abuse of our tax system: inefficiency.

This bondage of inefficiency originates with thousands of pages of rules and regulations designed openly and specifically to manipulate and control our decision making, which is an entirely separate topic of its own. The inefficiency becomes readily apparent when acknowledging the mammoth and constantly expanding army of regulators who try to interpret and enforce the rules, the many professionals hired to try to understand the same rules and protect their clients against retribution, and the excessive non-productive hours spent by citizens tracking and accounting for decisions made and actions taken.

By removing the objective of decision making control, employing common sense, and deploying technology, the collection of taxes can be seamless and non-intrusive, or in other words, efficient. Efficiency removes the chains that inefficiency fetters.

Toll Slavery

A few months ago I moved to Houston, TX and immediately became aware of the many toll roads that link the metropolis together. Fortunately, my most frequented destinations allowed relatively convenient travel on free roads and so I resisted the "need" to get the magnetic tracking device required for toll road travel. But one day after making a trip across town through 17 stop lights, I took a deep breath, and visited the nearest EZ Tag Store.

My wife complimented me for not complaining during the 45 minute ordeal. I even engaged in small talk with one of the eleven service reps and credited myself with helping replace her glum "I don't want to be here" attitude with a few smiles. My good attitude faded, however, immediately upon exiting the "store" and walking to the car; I felt compromised, like my freedom had been forcibly violated. After expressing the sentiment, my wife peaceably suggested, "Just try not to think about it; it's easier that way."

I had to think about it. While we took the same trip across town using toll roads and avoiding 12 of the 17 stop lights (35% red), I tried to calculate at each "zap zone" what the total cost was going to be. When we got home, I just couldn't be sure so I went online, spent ten minutes setting up my account, only to be greeted with: "Transactions may take several business days to post to your EZ TAG Account." What? An entirely automated, electronic system costing tens of millions of dollars has an unpredictable data delivery speed of days, not seconds? Do they purposely not want me to easily be able to keep track of my expenditures? I unrealistically vowed that I would avoid all toll roads unless it was a matter of life and death.

I was a fool. A few weeks later I was mapping a different trip across town, and after ten minutes of finding and then trying to understand the toll road map, I determined that I was either going to drive an extra 22 miles on the freeway or pay $7.90 in toll fees. Suddenly I remembered that I hadn't returned to my account to see what the last trip had cost me. After looking up the URL and being grateful that I had used my most common username and password when I had set up the account, I was incredulous to realize that I had spent $10.40 to avoid 8 red lights, not to mention the $15 spent to purchase the EZ Tag. Now it’s sounding like I’m a cheapskate.

I’m not. It’s about the difference between freedom and tolldom. The roads need to be paid for to be built and maintained, but what’s the most efficient way to collect these infrastructure dollars? The overhead costs already exist to operate the systems necessary to collect taxes, a portion of which funds are used to build and maintain roads. Creating an entirely separate overhead of hardware, software, signs, marketing material, operators, application takers, buildings, janitors, managers, executives, attorneys, accountants, fixed assets, IT personnel etc…is an unproductive and complete waste of time and money. Granted, if it costs less to collect tolls than it does to collect taxes, then maybe it would be logical to make EVERY road a toll road. However, by mixing the two collection systems, you pay for it once whether you use it or not, but if you want the “freedom” to use it (as the marketing material suggests), you pay for it again in order to cover the extra and unnecessary overhead.

Excess taxation (tolling) and wasted tax (toll) dollars is an insidious form of economic enslavement; it’s theft.

Individual Economic Freedom

If you depend on someone else to provide your needs and wants, you are economically dependent and enslaved; this is the state of a child. If through your own initiative you provide for yourself, you are economically independent and free; this is the state of an adult. Most governments believe that its citizens should be children.

For many decades since its inception, the United States of America has been a bastion of individual economic freedom by both promoting the value of independence, while at the same time protecting ingenuity, which unique combination ignites the human spirit to take risk for the possibility of reward. The risk is the sacrifice of time and sometimes money, and the reward is realizing various levels of economic freedom.

See.... THE 7 LEVELS OF ECONOMIC REALITY

The common misconception regarding these levels is the belief that an individual should hope and try to skip levels. Two examples expose this fallacy. Consider the lottery winner who is financially dependent: The sudden introduction of wealth without the refining process of learning the principles that lead to economic independence, results in the “lucky” winner seeing the money go up in smoke before they return to financial dependence. The second example is subtlety deceiving: The spoiled heir of a fortune, who has never earned any of the wealth, remains entirely dependent on others to provide the “freedom” because they are not capable of maintaining or growing it themselves.

An individual cannot be economically independent and free unless they have provided for themselves; otherwise, they are still dependent.

The Rights of Man

Every day we wrestle with rights: free speech rights, property rights, civil rights, women’s rights, employee rights, cultural rights, parental rights, teenager rights, unborn infant rights, minority rights, human rights, electoral rights, sexual preference rights, consumer rights, animal rights, social rights, labor rights, citizen rights, immigrant rights, healthcare rights, environmental rights, welfare rights, to list just a few. What is a right?

A right is defined by authority. For example, if someone begins speaking and they are in no way prevented from speaking, then they have the authority, or the right to speak. But if someone else does prevent them from speaking, then their authority to speak has been taken away, or in other words, they no longer have the right to speak. A less obvious example would be breathing. We normally don’t question our right to breath, but if the authority which allows us to breath was taken away, we would stop breathing and become dead. Murder usurps the victim’s authority to breath, or in other words, murder abolishes the right to life. In summary, a right is the authority to think, to speak, and to act.

Where does authority come from? One possible answer is from man;* man creates authority. For example, one man is physically or mentally stronger than another man, and uses this strength to assert authority over the weaker man. In society, men collaborate and agree upon the creation of laws, and then from the authority of the law delegate some degree of authority to other men to administer or enforce the law.

Aside from manmade authority, the only other source authority could come from is the creator of man. Man calls this concept of a Creator, God. If, however, we conclude that there is no God, or in other words that man was not created and comes from no identifiable origin, then all rights and all authority only come from man and are relative. If we conclude that the origin of man is indeed God, then specific absolute rights and authority are given to man from God. We commonly refer to these rights as inalienable, meaning that certain defined authority is inherently given to every man as part of his creation or formation.

Manmade rights, the authorities that come from man, are notoriously inequitable and are in constant conflict. Man is by nature an egocentric creature, who unless challenged by someone more powerful, considers his rights and his authority as superior to those around him. Take for example a typical politician, who professes one standard for his constituents, but personally lives by a completely different standard. This selfishness is manifest in all types of social organizations, in education, in business, in religion, in a family; and the resulting conflict leads to the rights of one man being subjugated to the elevated rights of another. And even when inequities are brought before a court of law, the judge and/or jury’s administration of equity and prudence is at times suspect. In summary, man continually proves his inability to create equitable rights and authorities.

On the other hand, God-given rights and authorities are perfectly equal. Man may be born with inequitable physical, mental, and socio-economic opportunities, but the inalienable rights are always the same. The right to think, to speak, to act, to own property, to defend property ownership or to pursue happiness, are some of the inalienable rights given by God, and are equal to all men. God sees all men as equal. Man sees other men as unequal, and to prove his point, he uses the ignorant rationalization that because men are not born physically, mentally, and socio-economically equal, God really does not see men as equal. Such a paradigm naively dismisses the reality that if we were all perfectly created the same, then what would be the point or the purpose of this existence on earth? Through imperfection, we can learn and develop. Through failure, we can succeed. Through pain, we can appreciate joy. Through need, we can lift and support each other. In other words, without the opposition that imperfections provide, what seems like a perfect utopia would actually be an existence entirely void of understanding or feeling; being placed on top of a mountain would be meaningless compared to the exhilaration experienced after conquering a difficult and dangerous climb from below. Clearly, our Creator understands this reality, or we wouldn’t have been created with different imperfections and the opportunity to climb mountains.

Probably the greatest confusion and distortion of authority is the claim that one man has the right to receive a tangible good or service from another man. If God gave all men the inalienable right to own property, and one man needs or wants the property that another man owns, then inalienable rights are rendered unequal to forcibly take from one man in order to give it to another. It is self-evident that God expects man to voluntarily give of himself to help other men in need, but in providing the assistance, not to take away the receiving man’s opportunity to climb mountains. But if there is no God, then inalienable rights do not exist, and men act as pseudo gods by forcing one man to give of his property to another man based on relative assessments of excess, needs, and wants. In summary, the authority to take by force from one man in order to give to another man does not come from God; it comes inequitably from men with elevated rights and unjust authority.

The rights of man define freedom. Freedom is man’s opportunity to exercise all of his inalienable rights so long as he does not violate any other man’s inalienable rights in the process. God gives absolutely equitable inalienable rights. Man selfishly creates under the guise of equality, relative rights that are inequitable. Government’s sole responsibility is to protect and preserve freedom by using its authority to equitably protect all of the inalienable rights of it's citizens.

* Simply for communication efficiency, “man” refers to every human being, inclusive of all races, cultures, sexes, ages, with exceptional abilities or handicaps, who has lived, is currently living, or will live on this planet we call earth. Specifically it is one individual of the human species, unique to all others as evidenced by a complex genetic code, and yet equally part of a genus which is remarkably superior to animals while being remotely inferior to a god.

The Zoo

In the wild, animals roam free. In the zoo, animals live in captivity. In the wild, only the laws of nature govern as many animals fall prey to predators or starvation. In the zoo, caretakers provide all of the animals’ food, shelter, and medical attention. In the wild, risk is common. In the zoo, risk is virtually eliminated.

Should humans live in the wild or in the zoo?

While biologically humans are strikingly similar to some animals, intellectual comparisons become dishonest; the capability of the human intelligence is so vastly superior to any primate in the animal kingdom, it seems an ironic misuse of human intelligence to dwell on the diminutive percentage of similarities. And yet, when human intelligence is misused or unemployed, a human can think, decide, and act like an animal. Such humans, commonly referred to as criminals, are routinely placed in the zoo, in order to protect other humans who are roaming free in the wild. This reality alone proves the superior intelligence of humans; the capability to tame the wild through the creation and enforcement of laws of man that temper the laws of nature by providing a degree of protection for the innocent from the predator.

Unfortunately, in the wild, only a degree of protection can be provided, and risk is still common. But the only way to fully protect and eliminate all risk is to place all humans, both innocent and predator, in the zoo. But if all the humans are in the zoo, then who will be the caretakers, and where will the resources to take care of the humans come from? In such a scenario, the caretakers, or the privileged humans who believe they are more intelligent than the others, force the humans in the zoo to work instead of play in order to provide the resources to keep the zoo operational. Curiously, in the human zoo, history has shown that the caretakers eventually become the worst predators.

Freedom is only found in the tamed wild, where risk and the opportunity to roam is only tempered by the intelligence needed to properly identify and restrain the most dangerous predators.

In the wild, animals roam free. In the zoo, animals live in captivity.

The Freedom Equation

The newborn baby enters this world naked, helpless, and essentially without any freedom or independence; its ability to choose comes from instinct instead of intellectual processing, and it is entirely dependent on others for its survival. As the child grows, and the ability to make choices increases, the battle for independence begins; for good and for bad, older caretakers restrict many choices that could otherwise be made. During the teenage years, the battle for independence becomes a full-fledged war; the teenager is still mostly dependent on others for meeting basics needs, but now his or her wants have become insatiable, especially the want for complete, unrestricted, freedom of choice, and quite immaturely, freedom from consequence. Adulthood begins when the consequences of choices are understood and accepted, some level of independence is realized by choosing to provide for one’s self, and the ability to consider the interests of others is greater than the focus on self. Unfortunately, many teenagers reach adult age, but never reach adulthood.

Considering the realities of these different stages in life, freedom is a summation of the ability to choose, the opportunity to choose, the level of independence earned, and the restricting consequences resulting from choices made by self and others, and is represented mathmatically:

aoi - r = f

a = ability to choose = the natural and the personally acquired intellectual, physical, emotional, and spiritual capability to make decisions
o = opportunity to choose = the degree to which others are not limiting the choices that could otherwise be made
i = independence earned = the degree to which dependency has been reduced through the use of choice to provide for one’s self
r = restricting consequences = the limitations naturally and unnaturally placed upon an individual according to certain choices that have been made by self and others
f = freedom = the summation of choice, action, and consequence

Often the word freedom is ignorantly used to describe a false freedom: the idea that one should be able to do whatever they want whenever they want without any consequence, or in other words, eliminating "r" from the equation. True freedom is the result of maximizing "a" "o" and "i," and minimizing "r" through making good choices.

The ironic truth about true freedom is that higher levels are only approached when the ability to choose the interest of others is greater than the interest in self.

Life or Death - "Get on that gurney!!"

Last Saturday I arrived with my 13 year-old son at a large, well-run Boy Scout camp. During my physical that evening, the camp doctor (Doc Sharp) got a funny expression on his face while listening to my heart on his stethoscope. For a few minutes he used his fingers to feel my pulse from my wrist before finally declaring, “You’re skipping a heartbeat every 20 to 30 seconds.” He had the nurse verify the same, and then called an ER doctor down in civilization who rendered the opinion that it was nothing urgent, but that it should get checked after camp is over.

“So what does this mean?” I asked with consternation, and then received a long narrative that mostly went over my head. What I did understand is that besides his disclaimer that he was an orthopedic surgeon and not a heart doctor, he remembered a lot about the heart from his general medical training 20 years ago, and that even though 10 years ago he had felt the same skipping in his pulse in a hotel room in New York City shortly after 9/11, he’s never had a problem since and the skipping went away. I left the exam room quite concerned, and naturally began to wrestle with many difficult questions consuming my mind.

I ran into Doc Sharp at breakfast Monday morning and he asked how I was doing. “Fine,” I replied before inquiring, “on Saturday when you asked if I had had any palpitations, what exactly does that feel like?” His explanation made sense and I carried on with the morning. Late morning while working on the computer, I began to feel the palpitations exactly as he had described them. I tried to brush it off as merely psychologically induced, but when it persisted I headed to the health lodge to have the nurse listen to it (the doctor wasn’t in). After intently listening on the stethoscope, she matter-of-factly said, “The skipping is gone, but now I’m hearing rapid extra beats.” She seemed pretty casual about the whole thing and suggested it wouldn’t hurt to have the doctor listen again when he was on duty later in the evening. After lying down for 15 minutes the palpitations left; at least I thought they did.

When dinner was over, I debated whether or not to have Doc Sharp listen again; other than his “skip” report and the nurses “extra beat” report, I felt fine and had no other symptoms. I finally concluded that it wouldn’t hurt to have him listen. After a long silent five minutes of stethoscope on my heart and an index finger on my wrist, he said with a puzzled look, “I don’t hear anything. It’s all normal.” Good, I thought, until he picked up the phone to call the ER doc for a second opinion. When he hung up he emphatically told me arrangements were being made for me to “go down the hill” to get checked out at the ER. It didn’t seem prudent to challenge him and so I said nothing.

On the ride down I fretted about the fact that I currently don’t have health insurance. I followed instructions as the triage nurse entered my information into the system. When she told me to take a seat, I explained that I didn’t have insurance and wanted to know what the costs of the tests would be. She rolled her eyes, gave me a disgusted look, and then dismissing me again to go take a seat, ordered me to make sure I checked out with her when I was done. On the door was a sign posted that publicly disclosed the law requiring the hospital to give treatment to anyone, whether or not they could pay for the services.

A few minutes later a nurse opened the door and called out, “Irregular heartbeat?” The other patient in the waiting room looked to be in extreme pain, but it was obvious I was being summoned first. As we walked I responded to her questions before asking my own, “Can you tell me how much an EKG is going to cost?” She stopped walking and stuttered, “I don’t know. You need to get checked.” I explained my situation and how I needed to know the costs before I agreed to the services. She continued to stutter as a result of my out-of-the-ordinary questions, and now the conversation was attracting the complete attention of everyone working in the nearby nurses’ station.

Suddenly a different nurse appeared, and interrupting me mid sentence sternly commanded, “Take your shirt off, and get on that gurney. We’re doing an EKG.” I followed her to the gurney she was walking towards, and when we arrived, I gingerly asked, “Do I have a choice?” “NO,” she immediately declared with great irritation. With the bizarre concern that she was going to grab my shirt and body slam me onto the gurney, I repeated my dialogue I had had with the first nurse. Her demeanor hardly softened as she impatiently told me that there’s no way for them to tell me what the costs are, that it’s never less than $500 for someone to be seen in their ER, and if I can’t pay for it, they’ll put me on a payment plan. The conversation was going nowhere when a third nurse suddenly appeared and introduced herself as the “nurse in charge.” She was the “good cop” in what appeared to be evolving into a “good cop/bad cop” routine, and she listened better than the previous two nurses. After I once again explained that I didn’t want the hospital to perform services that I couldn’t afford, and that I didn’t want to take advantage of the law posted on the waiting room door, she confirmed that there was no way for them to give me dollar figures, and then indicated that the bill could be as much as $12,000. So I asked the bottom line question, “What are my options?”

She hesitated for a moment, and then answered, “Well, you’re walking fine and talking coherently, and so we can’t force you to lie down and be tested; if you weren’t, we’d have no choice, and neither would you. I would strongly suggest you get tested, but if you decide not to, we’ll delete you out of the system right now and you won’t be billed for coming through these doors.” I received her words with great relief: I had a choice, even if the decision wasn’t an easy one. If I didn’t get tested, for liability reasons, I wasn’t sure if Doc Sharp would let me back into camp and I really wanted to finish the week with my son. If I did get tested, I would probably be looking at a bill that would be a devastating financial setback. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be tested; I didn’t think it was necessary to do it immediately in an expensive ER setting, and I needed a little bit of time to do some research and explore other options that might better fit my personal situation.

I decided to walk out. Doc Sharp was not happy when he got my call, but fortunately after consultation with the camp director, he stated that liability concerns aside, I was welcome back to camp. Doc Sharp's last words were that he was going to be really mad if he had to perform CPR on me. I hung up the phone and contemplated on the concern we both shared.

During the drive back to camp, my mind began to explore how this experience related to freedom, and our innate right to choose. When I was born, I inherently possessed the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These rights were not to have life, liberty, and happiness, but the right to choose through my own initiative the maintenance of life, the preservation of liberty, and the realization of happiness. Because of my poor eating habits and limited exercising, at 45 years of age I should be honest and admit that I have not made good choices regarding the maintenance of life. The consequences of my choices should be mine, and not someone else’s to bear. My moral dilemma in the ER was whether or not I should use the law to force someone else to pay for the choices I’ve made, to take away some of their freedom of choice, and hinder the realization of the happiness they may be rightfully pursuing. It was tempting to dismiss the conflict by rationalizing that no one person was really being forced to assist me; it’s “they,” that nameless, faceless, multitude of benefactors who owe me something for nothing in return. I guess according to current societal norms, I was perfectly justified in playing the system by closing my eyes and doing what I was told, and then when the bill came use the law to stop the collection process.

My conscience wouldn’t let me go there, legally justified or not. The irregular heartbeats are disconcerting, and I do want to be tested, but as difficult as it is for me to accept, I should only access these medical services within the realm of what I can afford, and not demand or expect someone else to pay for it. Does this mean I might die any minute of any day? Of course, which is exactly the same reality I share with six billion others. No one is exempt from death; it comes as the consequence of our own choices, someone else’s choice, or merely as the result of naturally occurring circumstances. If death comes due to my own choices, then owing to the importance of protecting the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, no one should be forced to come to my aid, even if no one volunteers. If death comes due to someone else’s choice to intentionally terminate my life, I would hope that government would do their best to protect my God-given right to life (see Patriot or Slave, A Modern Declaration of Independence, pages 14 - 19). If death comes due to naturally occurring circumstances that are either impossible to mitigate or I cannot afford to pay to have them mitigated, then I must accept the reality that the clock recording the time of my life will have expired.

I hope that I can appropriately accept any of these potential realities, and be confident that in the course of my life, I did not undermine the universal quest of freedom to choose for myself, and that I did not deprive anyone else of the same.

The Emotion Factor

Those who love freedom cannot ultimately obtain it if they hate those who don't.

The Control Equation

More control of self = Less control of others = More freedom for everyone

A Synonomous Relationship

Freedom is only obtained through the discovery and the application of truth.

One Label in a Pitch Black Room

Labels define us, unite us, and divide us. Take the political landscape as an example: liberal, moderate, conservative, Democrat, Independent, Republican, traditionalist, progressive. We do the same thing with religion, secularism, relationships, race, ethnicity, sexual preference, and pop culture. Some people may privately label themselves, and when asked, they don’t want to disclose their label, while others seem to go out of their way to loudly let everyone know what their belief systems are: I’m gay, I’m Christian, I’m vegan. Amid the constantly shifting landscape of overlapping groups and factions, one might thoughtfully ask, “Are labels constructive or destructive?”

Logically, if labels unite individuals to do good then they are constructive. But if labels unite individuals to do bad, or much less obvious, they serve to distract from good by creating division and contention, then labels are destructive. Unfortunately in our current society, while many labels are used to rally individuals to do some good on a micro level, on the macro level the same labels are divisive and counterproductive. Consider a Catholic, a Jew, a lesbian, a Muslim, an environmentalist, a conservative, a Mormon, an African-American, an atheist, an ACLU attorney, a Hispanic, a liberal, a Baptist, a union leader, a career politician, a prominent rapper, a big oil executive, a Native American, a national radio talk show host, a night club stripper, an abortion activist, a nuclear scientist, and an Amish leader coincidentally ending up in the same room, each wearing an applicable label on their forehead, and discussing freedom and slavery. How productive would the conversation be? Contrast with the following: Assume these same individuals, without any previous introduction to each other, met in a pitch black room where they could only hear each other's voices, and they each cared more about truth and freedom than they did about lies and slavery. With the labels removed, could this conversation be synergistic with a positive outcome for freedom?

Freedom and enslavement are the only two belief systems that encompass all social, cultural, political, scientific and religious boundaries. Curiously, commonly recognized labels for these two fundamental and basic approaches to life do not exist. A self-evident truth is that the cause of freedom thrives proportionately to the extent that all labels are erased and replaced with only one; one that clearly identifies and unifies all those who care about and are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to discover truth and to support freedom.

E Pluribus Unum: Out of many, one. One for the truth, one for true freedom.