On Freedom
On Freedom
Freedom is not the absence of restraint. It is the refusal to surrender conscience. Freedom is the independence to live according to one’s own conscience within nature’s law. Nature’s Law is you don’t harm me… I won’t harm you.
Most people believe freedom exists on a spectrum… more or less free, depending on wealth, status, geography, or permission. That belief is a mistake. The first trap.
Freedom is not relative.
It is binary.
You are either free, or you are not.
And the difference has nothing to do with where you live, what you are allowed to do, or what has been taken from you.
The Illusion
Licensed self-rule is not self-ownership
People cling to the idea they have their freedom without acknowledging they would live different if there were a lot less laws. People do this because it is more liberty than others have, even if it is not freedom. They do it because of that and because they have been made to feel small.
That comparison keeps the illusion alive.
“I may not be free,” a person tells themselves, “but I am more free than I would be elsewhere.”
Relative freedom pacifies.
Absolute freedom confronts.
The moment a person who sees the government as something that exists for it’s own sake… not for theirs… or anyone else’s… they feel small. That feeling is unavoidable. Big screws small. Every system eventually proves this… everyone is taught to know it.
From that moment, people take one of two paths.
One path offers comfort, safety, and guarantees. It asks you to accept stability provided from outside yourself. This is the New Deal way.
The other path offers no guarantees at all… but it leaves your hands untied. The Old Deal way.
The first path feels responsible.
The second feels dangerous.
The New Deal way is the second trap. The Old Deal way is our Founders Way.
The Cost
There is no social safety net that comes with the Old Deal.
Your life is your own to make of it what you will… a dream or a nightmare. Either way, it is the only life you get to live which scares most people… especially the older they get.
Freedom costs guarantees.
What it gives in return is security and stability of one’s self not because the world becomes predictable, but because you learn to stabilize yourself in an unstable and unpredictable world.
The New Deal way asks the world to be stabilized for you. When it fails… and it always does… it always collapses into a system of even greater control in the pursuit of the same security promised.
A free person is not shook by an unstable world they are refined by it through necessity.
The First Sign
We all have a conscience. Would you ever cross it?
The first sign a person is no longer free is not chains, poverty, or punishment. It is this:
There is something they love so much they would cross their God or conscience to have or protect it or them. If there is something or someone you would do anything for you are not free.
From that moment on, they can be manipulated.
The test is simple:
Is there anything that can be taken from me that I would not give away?
If the answer is yes, you are not free.
Authority
God allows all authorities to rise for the common good.
That is not rebellion. It is jurisdictional clarity.
Governance is permitted.
The governing are human… There is a good reason Benjamin Franklin insisted on God being mentioned as the source of freedom even though he wasn’t faithful. Attributing rights to a God not Man places them out of man’s reach. What God gives only God can take away.
A Harmless person has a God given Right to not be Harmed.
Freedom exists in the separation between the harmless from the harmful. A free person obeys laws without crossing their conscience.
When consequences come as they sometimes must they should be expected. That being said one should seek to rise above the law by requiring more from yourself as a child of God than your government and fellow man.
Punishment does not mean guilt. It does not mean failure.
It does not mean defeat.
It means fate has brought you to where you are in pursuit of finding and fulfilling your purpose.
Chains
Chains do not bind a person who does not struggle against them.
Resistance feels strong, but it often tightens the grip. Mastering oneself physically and emotionally loosens it.
When any emotion rises… anger, fear, despair… it must first be recognized as a flood. You do not argue with a flood. You do not obey it either.
You name the emotion.
You allow accept it.
You set it aside.
Then you act.
Nothing is good or bad until it is judged so do not judge it. Responsibility demands emotional control. Emotional control is not suppression… it is sovereignty. It is how you crown yourself your own King.
This discipline is daily. Small. Repeatable.
It works in offices and in cells alike.
Dignity
It does not come from respect, status, fairness, or outcome.
It comes from the God who is in you.
No guard, judge, crowd, or government can take it unless you hand it over.
There is a line.
On one side is duty to God, self, family, and humanity.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
On the other is compliance in the pursuit of security and prosperity…
Cross it once of your own free will and you forfeit the right to not be forced across it again.
That is how tyranny spreads not by violence, but by numbers.
Democracy does this quietly a tyranny of the majority.
Standing
Sometimes freedom requires standing alone.
You do not persuade.
You do not organize.
You do not compromise the line.
You stand on it.
If you find yourself alone, you were meant to be. You likely will not remain alone for long.
A person who stands on the line creates gravity. Others like them feel it.
This is not leadership. This is being a witness.
Be your own king.
Divine authority flows God → you.
Not God → government → you.
Speak only what you believe.
Say nothing you do not.
Silence is better than false speech.
The Line
If everything else fades, let this remain:
I have never been able to find harm in not harming a harmless person.
Stand there. There are worse places to be caught standing when Jesus comes back.
Here is the next article on the Start Here page
1 comment so far