What is freedom?  What is liberty?  Today, let’s look at just a very few stories and try to remember what it means to be free in this evil modern world.

Tranzis stealing freedom
Dismantling Freedom of Association
(Conservative Action Alerts) During the years before the American Revolution, the British Empire did not allow citizens to assemble in groups in public. The King’s government feared that citizens assembling in groups could lead to the attempt to overthrow the government. William Penn, in 1670, was convicted for public preaching. As the call for independence approached, deeper restrictions on public assembly were enforced, to restrict the colonists from assembling to protest the various Acts passed by Parliament that attempted to tax and control the colonial population….

Senator Ted Cruz says that we are on the doorstep of the government going after preachers for hate-speech if they dare preach in opposition to homosexuality. What if you have a history of attending churches that preach the same? Will you be penalized for daring to associate with such defiant churches? The San Antonio City Council in the State of Texas is working on a proposed change to its nondiscrimination ordinances that will target those who take the Bible at its word and follow it. Any past association with people, groups, or churches that teaches the Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality will be punished with a permanent ban on participation in city government, business or employment – because such an association exhibits a “bias” not acceptable to the local government. …

Nathan: The article is alarmist, and well it should be.  The British government did not restrict its controls on assembly and association to the American colonials.  The history of such goes back nearly 400 years before that.  It was aimed at those who did not subscribe first to Roman Catholicism, then from the early 1500s on to those who did not accept Anglicanism and the Monarchy and then Parliament (starting about 1640).  Those who met illegally were hunted, arrested, jailed, tortured, and often killed: burned at the stake or drawn and quartered. The same thing can and will happen in America.  Indeed, it is again happening in the UK and other Commonwealth nations, as long-standing and hard-won constitutional rights are thrown away by the elected dictators in the Houses of Commons.

Like the King’s and Queen’s Officers of old, the new bureaucrats and their parliamentary masters in the UK, Canada, Australia and elsewhere, and the thugs, cops and bureaucrats and more, who work for the “messiah” and Congress and General Assemblies and County Commissions and City Councils have no mercy for those who do not grovel before them.  Although their techniques are different, they all boil down to the same thing: the fist, the boot, the sword, the gun: power and violence and legalized robbery of some and then all:  if not the actual taking of dissenters’ and protestors’ lives, then destroying those lives and those of their families, friends, and communities.

Are YOU prepared?  Am I prepared?  Not just to defend against the physical violence, but against the innuendo and slander and theft large and small, the spying (not just drones, but the “humint” (Human Intelligence) of traitors and snitches, provocateurs and infiltrators?

Stupid government stealing freedom
Syria: Fatwa against eating crescent rolls
(Personal Liberty)  A new fatwa in the Syrian city of Aleppo targets people who dare to eat croissants.[ Story in Sina news website:] “Al-Nusra Front fighters come up every day with a new unimaginable fatwa, or religious edict,” such as the fatwa against croissants, said the Syrian, identified only as “Ahmed.” The fundamentalists claim croissants are particularly relished by European infidels as a celebratory food (because of their “symbolic” crescent shape), which they allegedly tear into with gusto to commemorate historic victories over the Muslims.

Nathan: I know that this sounds ridiculous, and just what we would think that these vicious, evil, Islamists would come up with.  So let us talk about Nanny Bloomberg and 24-ounce sodas, or Miz “messiah” Consort’s attacks on sodas and candy bars in vending machines in schools, or prohibitions on butchering and selling horse meat, or selling raw (non-pasteurized) milk.  All things being done right here in the United States.  How is this different?  “Scientific” proof that such is bad for you?  Elected officials instead of religious leaders making the decision?  ALL of these things are wrong: they are EVIL.

Home front – Scummy government stealing freedom of speech and thought and more
Sitting Senator Warns About Smartphone Surveillance
(Personal Liberty) U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden warns. “The government will not state clearly what the rules are with respect to tracking Americans on their cellphones, and I have asked this repeatedly at public hearings in the Intelligence Committee,” the Oregon Democrat and member of the Senate Intelligence Committee told the C-SPAN program “Newsmakers.” “I can’t get into the details of any specific operation, or whether it’s being conducted, but … having that computer in your pocket increases the potential that certainly people could be tracked 24/7,” he told the program, which aired Sunday. “Under the Patriot Act, the government’s authority to collect is essentially limitless.”

Nathan: NO senator of the US can be trusted to be on the side of liberty – no, not even the semi-deified Rand Paul.  So do we believe Wyden or not?  It is obvious that the Republican Party has no real concern about whether Americans can be spied on continuously by the FedGov (NSA) or anyone else.  Indeed, their almost unanimous condemnation of Snowden as “traitor” and “spy” indicates exactly the opposite: the Senate and House of Representatives AS A WHOLE and including virtually ALL members thereof, believe that it is the American people: the people of the Fifty States, who are their enemies – enemies of the state, and must be treated as enemies.

Now it is just spying and denying the truth, for the vast majority of us.  But more and more of us are being killed, arrested and imprisoned, made homeless or jobless or penniless for the convenience of the federal and state and local governments, a web of evil and deceit and tyranny which seeks to control the entire world.  Even Wyden’s words indicate that HE is part of the powers-that-be: he considers that the USA PATRIOT Act is authority – NOT that it is claimed to be “authority” but is on its face unconstitutional and immoral.  And he blames US for “having that computer in your pocket” and NOT the government for being the tyrants.  It is OUR fault that we are targets of government spying, according to him.

Liberty and money: freedom to do or NOT to do
The Greatest Food in Human History
(New York Post, by Kyle Smith) What is “the cheapest, most nutritious and bountiful food that has ever existed in human history” Hint: It has 390 calories. It contains 23g, or half a daily serving, of protein, plus 7% of daily fiber, 20% of daily calcium and so on. Also, you can get it in 14,000 locations in the US and it usually costs $1. Presenting one of the unsung wonders of modern life, the McDonald’s McDouble cheeseburger.

Nathan: Freedom is just that: you are free to eat and drink and smoke and live what you want.  Tranzis don’t want you to have your freedom: they want to tell you what to do.  You MUST eat this, you can NOT eat that.  This was sorta written tongue in cheek, but it is the truth: what can you live on when you HAVE to?  I’m not (and Smith is not) saying a steady diet of McDoubles is the best way to go, but consider the alternatives.

Mama’s Note: This is a hard one for even some who at least seem to understand individual liberty most of the time. A recent discussion left me scratching my head when these “freedom folk” insisted that the government should “ban,” or at the least mandate the labeling of anything remotely possibly connected to “genetically modified” plants, foods or substances. This seems to be one of the new religions, and the faithful so often are completely uninterested in any sort of facts or logic about it.

The idea that they can and should simply NOT buy or use anything they consider to be contaminated with “GMO” genes – by labeling “GMO Free” or whatever means – is not nearly good enough. They demand the “freedom” to buy anything they want and be assured, by government or SOMEBODY, that it is free of modified genes. They fall into the same trap as those who insist that things like health care and a “living wage” are part of the natural rights of human beings, unwilling to admit that these things can only be provided by theft and force.

And these same people have no problem condemning the USDA guidelines for nutrition as the cause of American obesity and poor health. Not their free choice to eat what they please and can afford… oh no… it’s the fault of the same government they want to have even more control of the food supply – as long as it is done the way they wish.