Sections within this article:
Physical Freedom
Economic Freedom
Mental Freedom
Spiritual Freedom
Just as accountants are supposed to take an annual inventory of financial performance to keep a business on track, citizens must routinely check themselves and their relationship to social institutions to keep democracy on track. If accountants fail to perform this duty reliably, then companies can become bankrupt. If citizens fail to perform this duty then nations can become corrupted. While a monthly or quarterly review would be better, the Fourth of July is a perfect reminder that it is once again time for us to analyze how WE are doing in terms of Liberty.
In macro terms, U.S. citizens are far less “free” now than 100 or 200 years ago. Compared to the freedoms which American revolutionaries had (even BEFORE they declared their independence from a repressive government), most of us are now effectively existing as slaves: Unable to quit our jobs or provide for ourselves outside of our highly-structured economic system; ignorant of how to produce our own food and raw materials; deeply indentured for our shelter (30 years of debt!), transportation (3-7 years of debt for each car!), and an array of other borrowings; taxed at rates which would have provoked armed resistence among our forefathers; and shackled by a vast array of laws which give us little control over our own homes, bodies, labor, or even death. The only thing it seems most of us are truly ‘free’ to do is to go to work everyday… IF we can find a job. And, for many, especially workers under 40, the financial reality is that the golden carrot of retirement has become pure fantasy; working until the day we die is our more likely future. So, while overt slavery is now rare, de facto indentured servitude is the worldwide reality in this New World Order of global capitalism.
All is NOT lost, however, for as poets and philosophers have often noted, the first step in achieving lasting liberty is to take responsibility for freeing ourselves. If Liberty is our goal for our nation (and our world), we must first understand how we ourselves can achieve and retain freedom: Physically, Economically, Mentally, and Spiritually.
Physical Freedom
The most basic freedom we desire is physical freedom: To live without shackles or jailors; to live without severe handicaps or illness. Imagine incarceration: For many, it is the most severe penalty other than death; for some it is more terrible than death.
Therefore, if you are not incarcerated, on probation, or otherwise legally restricted in your movements, you can count yourself as physically free. If you are not bed-ridden, helplessly paralytic, or otherwise too ill to care for yourself, you can again count yourself as fortunately, physically free. Of course, this measurement is not a simple on-off switch. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was put into law to help ensure the physical freedom of handicapped people… although this law is ridiculed by many business executives and is not even applied in many places. And then there are politics: People living in West Berlin during the Cold War were ostensibly free to move around — unless they wanted to visit a relative in East Berlin. Similarly, today billions of people are actively prevented from traveling, working or relocating freely around the world by dictate of various governments, including the U.S. So, if we have relatives or friends in another land who have the means and desire to move near us or vice versa, but are prevented from doing so by one government or another, then we are actually less physically free than we thought. Also, since the transportation of alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and many other products (even fruits and vegetables) across national or state lines is restricted, our physical freedom is again curtailed accordingly. Thus, today we are actually somewhat LESS physically free than the 1776 revolutionaries (even under the dictates of the original ‘mean old King George’).
More ominously, governmental safeguards of our physical freedoms seem to be only political conveniences at best. Consider these blatant violations of the U.S. constitution: Critics of our government have been jailed under anti-sedition laws for nothing more than their exercise of free speech; Japanese Americans were rounded into concentration camps during World War II for no reason other than their ethnic background; Consciencious objectors to the Vietnam War were jailed for refusing military service; Lawful protestors on college campuses have been gunned down by government militia; Governmental and economic critics were jailed, blacklisted, or worse during the McCarthy-era ‘commie-hunts’; U.S. military personnel have been purposefully subjected to biological, chemical and radiation experiments under order of their commanding officers, all without their knowledgeable consent; Afghanistan “detainees” (including U.S. citizens) have been imprisoned for indetermined lengths without due process. This list is by no means comprehensive.
In addition, physical freedom must include the sanctity of our domiciles… the U.S. Constitution tried to guarantee it! But today, search and seizure rules have been run through with numerous large swords: Drug laws, sex laws, gambling laws, weapons laws, eminent domain, and many other governmental edicts deny basic physical security even to land owners within their own property. Add to this the technologies and budgets for survelliance over private citizens and a clear picture begins to emerge regarding the severe limits placed on our privacy and physical freedom. Of course, our legislators and magistrates always have rationalizations for abridging our freedoms, and the citizenry are (almost) always so understanding.
Excuses for the loss of freedoms can be offered (they always are), but we are now attempting to do an accounting, so we must recognize the facts: Americans now have less physical freedom (politically, not technologically) than the Colonials had under the British monarchy.
To achieve true physical freedom we must demand a contraction of governmental authority in line with the original guarantees of the U.S. Constitution: Sanctity of our homes and properties; Freedom to choose our own lifestyles, spirituality, sexuality, fertility, medicines, entertainments, and all other personal or consensual acts. We must demand severe penalties against any governmental personnel who violate our rights. In many ways, physical freedom is the most difficult to achieve since it is largely out of our personal control: we must act in concert to reign-in our government. As U.S. revolutionary and patriot Benjamin Franklin remarked, “We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” On a personal level, we CAN do at least two things to reach this goal: (1) Recognize that NO system can survive without the tacit or explicit cooperation of its citizens; and (2) Refuse to support or participate in a violation of anyone’s Constitutional rights, including your own, for ANY reason or in ANY way. Even if I would NOT choose the same specific freedoms as you would, we must ALL support each others’ rights to make those choices for ourselves. Otherwise, we want to live within a patriarchy, not a democracy.
Economic Freedom
Many best-selling books have been published under the sales pitch “Achieving Financial Freedom”, so this topic is certainly the most titillating. But what does Economic Freedom mean? Can it be achieved within a capital system specifically designed to give preference to the wealthy over the laborers?
We begin our answer by contemplating a quote from Thoreau: “That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.”
Looking over the facts and figures, any independent auditor can see that our economic freedoms have declined dramatically over the past decades, and even moreso in the last century. In contrast to 150 years ago, today, the typical family does not own their land, their home, their transportation, or their means of production: Lenders and bosses do. In contrast to 50 years ago, few families (even those headed by college graduates) can make ends meet on one income. Gone are fixed pensions. Gone are vacation homes. Gone are full health care benefits. Schools are over-crowded and under-funded. Civic infrastructures are antiquated, over-burdened and crumbling. Debt is at all-time highs for individuals, businesses and governments. Deficit spending is the norm, privately and publicly. Real wages (after adjusting for inflation) have fallen every year since 1989 (the year which marked the end of competition from Eastern bloc socialism). Real production jobs are leaving our nation like a stampede, seeking dirt cheap labor elsewhere and backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government’s cooperation with the WTO, GATT, NAFTA, and the like. Meanwhile, prices for housing, medical care, utilities and other bare necessities have risen dramatically as ‘deregulations’ and ‘mergers & acquisitions’ have combined to create oligarchies of transnational corporations in nearly every industry. Real estate, banking, finance, stock markets and even municipal bonds have been racked by so many corruptions and swindles that average investors cannot plan confidently with what little of their savings remains. The overwhelming majority of American families now live hand-to-mouth, utterly beholden to the corporation that employees them, and with no alternatives in sight. As a whole, we are economically trapped; indentured slaves. So we choose to buy products made by so-called ‘Third World’ slave labor to keep our economic illusions alive, never stopping to reason that the corporate officers do not care whether the child laborers who pack their profits (and win them big personal bonuses) are Chinese or Indonesian or American. Some day (soon), when the music stops, and everyone scrambles for a living wage job chair, we will learn the lesson of the game.
So, given the facts of this economic audit, how do we achieve economic freedom?
We moderate our CONSUMPTION. As contrary as this notion is to all the advice of “get rich quick” books (which focus only on increasing income), this is the single largest step toward achieving economic freedom. As REM’s Michael Stipe sings, “What we want, and what we need, has been confused and confused!” We need oxygen to survive, but the latest Nintendo game is just a ‘want’. Clearly separating wants and needs is a key step toward economic independence because there will always be a carnival hawker screaming lies to make us part with our hard-earned money. The motto, ‘A penny saved is a penny earned’, has been around a long time because it is true. Every product we do NOT purchase is that much more capital we have preserved, and thus that much more power we then have within this capital-driven system.
We increase our household PRODUCTION. The easiest way to do this is to become handy. We learn to fix things around the house. We learn to raise the most expensive or routinely consumed foods (strawberries, eggplant, tomatoes, apples, peaches, asparagus, eggs, etc.) and develop barter and trade networks with our neighbors. We learn to sew: Make our own draperies and clothes. We turn wastes (gray water, food scraps, newspapers) into resources (plant irrigation, compost, weed block and fire starter). We learn to trade chores and goods with friends and neighbors. Again, ‘a penny saved is a penny earned’, and when we can do for ourselves, or trade skills within our community, then we are preserving our hard-earned capital.
We BUDGET and invest conservatively. Forget ‘get rich quick’ schemes. We must manage our lives like a company (but NOT like a DOTCOM company!). We can usually estimate how much we are likely to earn per year within our chosen field, so we should begin with a conservative estimate of income (which includes sick leave, allowances for lay-offs, etc.). The next step is to make a conservative estimate of our minimum and realistic expenses. The distinction is crucial. Minimum expenses are the ‘batten down the hatches’ expenses we could get by with if the world went to hell in a handbasket. Realistic expenses are what we expect to spend at our current standard of living, including specifically (and this is VERY important) allowances for ‘variable’ and ‘amortized’ expenses. [Note: variable expenses are things such as a veterinarian bill or car repair which do not occur monthly, but which are expected to occur from time to time, whereas amortized expenses are things such as new tires, or a new roof, which will definitely be needed within a given span of time. Appropriate sums MUST be set aside for these items each month (on a prorata basis) in a separate account, yet NONE of these moneys can be thought of as part of our ‘savings’ or ‘net worth’ since we know these funds will eventually be needed for the specified expenses.] Failure to budget for variable and amortized expenses is the greatest reason most families seem to “get set back” by some “surprise” just when they think they are starting to get ahead. In reality, by failing to budget for these non-monthly expenses, they incorrectly believe they have excess spending money, so they spend it, usually on items they ‘want’ rather than ‘need’. When the inevitable variable event occurs, they dip into their ‘savings’ and then lament that they can not catch a break. Talk-show icon Johnny Carson, who earned millions but came close to bankruptcy on several occassions, once joked, “It seems that everyone spends $10,000 more than they make each year”. To really get ahead, we should budget as if we are only making 1/2 to 2/3 of what we actually make, and then plow the rest into savings and investments (striving particularly for debt-free ownership of our home). Almost everyone will protest that this suggestion is impossible, but for most of us it is certainly possible. If our household makes $40,000 per year, we need only to understand how the folks making $20,000 – $25,000 per year are getting by. If we make $60,000, we need to live like those folks making $30,000 – $40,000. We buy (or rent) a home which fits that income bracket. In the SHORT RUN we must swallow our pride and let the Joneses show-off. But after just a few years, perhaps a decade, when we have no mortgage payments (since we used that extra $20,000 per year to pay down our home loan), who will be more proud and prominent then? Who will have less risk, more flexibility and freedom in life, more capital and power? If we want a ‘secret’ for financial independence, we have one: We can call it ‘the frugal tortoise versus the flamboyant hare’ strategy.
We AVOID DEBT (like the plague)! Under the rules of capitalism, people who lend capital do so at rates which enrich themselves. Logically, therefore, borrowers are likewise stripped of their own wealth (usually, their very labor). Thus, the Bible’s sage warning, “The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is the servant to the lender.” Any way we do the math, earning 3% on our savings and paying 15% on our credit card debt is a fool’s game: We lose 12% of our nest egg every year; in 8-1/2 years we will have nothing to show for all our hard work. Thus we NEVER borrow in order to consume, and we RARELY borrow to invest. The prime exception (for most, the ONLY exception) is to secure the purchase of our family home (an investment). Even then, the goal is to pay-off such debt as rapidly as possible (thus the budget strategy listed above). We must use credit cards only as a convenience for records keeping, paying off our entire balance each month. We never spend money we do not have (i.e., on plastic). We NEVER, NEVER, NEVER CARRY A CREDIT CARD BALANCE! Thus we NEVER pay interest (usury) and are never stripped of our wealth (or labor).
We DE-CENTRALIZE our economies. Henry Ford catapulted the industrial revolution with his centralized management and assembly line production methods. Yet, we soon learned that there was a huge price to pay for such de-humanizing labor practices. Product quality, personnel morale, even customer choice and satisfaction suffered. So we took another step and learned to create “quality circles” where production was shifted to a sequence of teams whose members could handle a variety of tasks and easily accomodate customized requests. More recently we have learned to manage an even more flexible and powerful model: decentralization! Even the defense department has embraced this notion: The internet (a D.O.D. creation, accidently embraced by the publicly) is the epitome of decentralization, designed specifically as a loose affiliation of interconnected communications systems which no one can shut down, blow up or block. But how do we apply this to our lives? (1) We diversify our household incomes: One wage-earner keeps a job (perhaps part time) with benefits; Another performs temp or consulting work; Both cultivate local sources of productive self-employment income (such as preparing tax returns, operating a weekend bed & breakfast, selling produce at farmers markets, etc.). (2) We demand governmental regulations which decentralize (i.e., provide local ownership and control of) key industries such as utilities, medical services, banking, insurance, etc. People report that it is literally amazing how much personal power they regain once they have economic options in their lives… and how much increased leverage they gain with their traditional employer once they know they can say ‘take this job and shove it’.
In fact, people CAN AND DO gain economic independence using this formula (usually in ten years or less). These disciplines are powerful and empowering. The only variable is our own personal dedication to achieving economic freedom.
Mental Freedom
An analysis of our mental condition is a true test of an auditors’ skills set. Fortunately, we can fall back on the concept of a balance between Debits and Credits to rectify the incredible cognitive dissonance on our ledgers. We simultaneously believe that our nation is great also while recognizing that our government is so non-responsive that we hardly bother to vote. We insist that we are independent thinkers, then buy nutritionless burgers, fries and sodas from whoever imprints the most impressions on our brain. We say we buy computers for “educational” and “business” purposes, but we actually use them mostly for pornography. (Really! This is statistically true… precisely as it was for videotape machines.) We say we want democracy and freedom, but we decline to get involved and often trade the promise of security for the reality of decreased liberty. How can we explain such contradictions? What shall we do to remedy this cognitive fracture? Upon conclusion of this audit, any independent accountant worth his or her salt (are there any?) would conclude that earlier generations, indeed, had a larger degree of mental freedom than we do.
As reggae composer and spiritual leader Bob Marley urged, “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds.” Most of the world’s great religions and philosophies echo this sentiment: It is WE who hold the key. The champion is within each of us, waiting to be set free. The battle for good and evil is within each of us. We can choose our destiny. We can find, or create, nirvana.
Motivational speakers make millions each by simply reminding us of what we already know (in our heart of hearts): WE have power within us to be or do almost anything we can imagine. When it comes to mere mortal fetes (such as motivating a group of employees, or selling a product we believe in) this is certainly true. And, as the waiting room sign says, “Yes, we can do extraordinary things, but the impossible takes a little longer.” So why must we pay dearly for someone else to tell us what is already inside each of us?
The good news is this: The tangible path to mental freedom is actually straightforward and is completely within our control. The bad news is that mental freedom requires effort and is completely within our control. The worse news is that we are therefore personally responsible for whether or not we achieve mental freedom. (Shit! And we thought this was gonna be easy!)
In another essay (“What’s So Funny ’bout Peace, Love and Understanding”), we have explored the topic of mental freedom in greater length, so here are just the bullet-points: (1) We must develop a commitment to discovering truth; (2) We must remain open-minded and parsimonious; (3) We must maintain perspective; (4) We must understand — and remain open to — pattern recognition; (5) We must perform hypothesis testing; (6) We must be willing to revise our beliefs and worldview based on newer and better information. All of this implies that we must avoid traps such as intellectual dishonesty, superstition, parochialism, and (internal or external) deception.
The simple key to achieving mental freedom is this: AVOID HUBRIS. Hubris is when we think we are so smart that we KNOW what the truth is. In truth, we are ALL just guessing, and hoping, and believing. Once we get this fact through our thick heads, mental freedom comes pretty easily since we are no longer weighted down by rules, dogma, and unchallengeable convictions. Our being is lightened by the flexibility to consider new arguments, contemplate new facts, and draw novel conclusions demanded by the evidence at hand. No more effort wasted trying to force the square peg of reality into the round hole of pre-conception.
So much of what we have “learned” is wrong. Most of our education is really indoctrination, and the rest is largely industrial training. Real education teaches us how to use independent thought to discover truth. When we open our minds to the truth we will see it. But we must remember that the truth is not frightened, and so it never demands our unswerving allegiance. The truth is happy to be put to the test. The truth has nothing to hide. The truth enjoys interrogation, doubt, and reflection. The truth does not claim to be eternal, unchanging or omnipotent. If we seek the truth, we will achieve mental freedom.
Spiritual Freedom
Sometimes it just comes down to faith. Not ALL the time, but once in a while (otherwise we could pretty much make-up what we want about “reality”). Religious leaders want us to accept their decisions as (literally) holy. This is NOT a good start regarding our audit of Spiritual Freedom. In fact, it is quiet similar to the conditions which drove our forefathers to leave Europe altogether. Shouldn’t we be able to explore our world with an open-mind and THEN attempt to construct our own coherent world view? Or should we just open wide and swallow the religion of our parents or peers… with little or no intellectual effort put forward in the matter? That’s no way to achieve spiritual freedom!
Spiritual freedom only comes in 2 flavors: Folks who have it, and folks who don’t. A majority of Americans are quite decidedly closed-minded on the topic — there IS a (Christian) God. They demand a currency which proclaims their belief, a pledge of allegiance which does likewise, and an array of other injections of religion into matters of politics (in spite of our Constitution’s requirement of a separation between Church and State). To even SUGGEST that these groups should be more tolerant and objective on the issue is to become the object of scorn. This is NOT spiritual freedom… this is the behavior of fanatical cults.
One of The United State Constitution’s key provisions is specifically designed to allow freedom of religion. But spiritual freedom means tolerance. We shall not be threatened by good people whose ideas differ from ours. Nor shall we fear inspection, introspection, or a call to account. We shall simply represent the truth as we know it. We shall count our days in service. We shall give abundantly and graciously of our wisdoms. Spiritual freedom means being open to the feelings and directions our God gives, not superimposing our own petty plot lines. If we DO stand for those ideals of our forefathers, then we shall remain tolerant and acceptant of the beliefs held by others.
Just because we keep falling, saying what we believe but living a different life, always begging for forgiveness, always feeling guilty; just because we WANT to believe in something immeasurable, something which has no consequences; just because we NEED to believe; just because it would be nice if the world were that simple and fair does NOT make it so. We ridicule ‘pagan’ island cultures for praying to mysterious Volcano gods, while we swear all manner of miracles by our own God(s). Our Spiritual audit reveals that we must end our hypocrisy and re-commit ourselves to The Golden Rule.
In many ways, obtaining Spiritual Freedom is the easiest freedom of all since all we need to do is remain tolerant and treat others as we wish to be treated. Now, is that so difficult?
Summary & Conclusions
There is no mystery to achieving independence. Most of us can choose to do it. There is no reason to remain trapped and powerless, helplessly denying that the elite intend to increase their wealth and control at our expense. If we truly desire freedom, then it is ours for the taking. By finding spiritual freedom we can realize mental freedom. This in turn allows us to logically approach our economic freedom. In the end, our very awareness, personal strength and resolve practically guarantee our physical freedom.
WE can have Liberty if WE act Responsibly. The choices and the paths are ours.
‘Liberty & Responsibility’ is a viable alternative to the current system. Let freedom ring!
Thank you for your attention, interest and concern.