Freedom is defined in Noah Webster’s 1828 dictionary as “a state of exemption from the power or control of another.” It is the power and privilege to carry out our choices whether thoughts, such as love or hate, or actions, such as walking or running. Freedom can be broken into personal, civil, political, and religious freedom. Freedom is the right of every man, woman, and child. However, freedom may be forfeited or taken away (1) by physical laws, including the physical limitations with which we are born, (2) by our own action, and (3) by the action of others, including governments. A loss of freedom reduces the extent to which we can act upon our choices, but it does not deprive us of our God-given free agency.
The war over freedom, which has been ground zero for many of the worlds revolutions and wars, originated from a spiritual battle that began in Heaven (the War in Heaven) and continues on the earth today. It’s a spiritual battle that has reached a culmination foretold in the Bible – a day when good would be called evil and evil good; a day of wars, pestilence, earthquakes, and famine; a day when the love of God grows cold, and a day of widespread apathy and hypocrisy. Since his expulsion from heaven, Satan and those that were cast out with him (now demons on Earth) have sought to destroy and oppose everything that God is trying to build, essentially counter-resistance to all things good.
Neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution of the United States use the word “freedom,” rather describing our rights in the terms “Blessings of Liberty” and “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Liberty is often confused as having the same meaning as freedom (as indicated in the playlist below where many describe liberty, but call it freedom), yet there is a difference. Liberty is described in Noah Webster’s 1828 dictionary as “freedom from restraint pertaining to the body, will, or mind“. Liberty comes from using our agency to choose and the freedom to do the right actions, those which are just before God. It’s really impossible to separate liberty from obedience to the laws of God, whereas freedom pertains to the ability to think or act as we will, good or bad, and to reap the consequences.
God’s plan requires a world where there is freedom to choose, whether wisely (liberty) or unwisely (captivity), and consequences to our choices. Knowledge and wisdom requires understanding such as hot being different from cold, light from dark, good from evil (we are born with a moral compass to distinguish between the two), etc., and this world is meant for us to learn and grow from our experiences and choices. Without awareness of alternatives an individual could not choose, and that is why being tempted by evil is as essential to freedom and agency as being enticed by the Spirit of God. Without agency, none of us could grow and develop by learning from our own mistakes and errors or from those of others. In essence, God uses Satan’s desire to destroy our agency as a means of ensuring our freedom to choose between opposites.
Satan seeks to cloud our judgement and entice us into making poor choices. He gets us to make seemingly insignificant decisions that only slightly compromise our morals and beliefs at first, but every tiny step begins to add up until a tiny crack has potentially led to our enslavement to sin.
The lie that true freedom means “freedom from all unpleasantness: from hardship, from discipline, from the stern voice of duty, from the pain of self-sacrifice” is a philosophy so pleasing unto the carnal mind that it can be promoted with much success. If real freedom means that there are no restrictions whatsoever, no laws to bind us down, then “whatsoever a man [does is] no crime,” and it would not be necessary for an “atonement [to be] made for the sins of men”. The founding fathers of this country new that anarchy ( a government with no laws and restrictions) was just as dangerous as a monarchy. They sought to find a perfect balance of a government between ruler’s law and no law and that resulted in a peoples law with representatives and checks and balances between the branches of government.
In 1689, John Lock wrote that ““Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins”. The equality of all citizens under the law is a lynch-pin of the modern notion of the rule of law in a democratic state. A revolutionary implication of this idea, well appreciated by Locke in the tumultuous 1680s, is that even rulers and their magistrates were also under the “sovereignty of the law”. Locke concludes that when any member of the state exceeds his legal authority or in any way violates the law, he ceases “to be a magistrate; and, acting without authority, may be opposed, as any other man, who by force invades the right of another.”
Many of the freedoms are being infringed upon by the very governments that are instituted to protect them:
Freedoms in a Noose
- Academic Freedom
- Religious Freedom
- Scientific Freedom
- Freedom of the Press
- Free Speech
- Property Rights
- Free Enterprise
- Medical Freedom
- Free Thought
While economic freedom may remove financial limitations and offer more freedom in that regard as well as contribute to liberty, they do not guarantee more liberty. The same can be said of political freedom. Alexander the Great had high physical courage, impulsive energy, and fervid imagination, and he, at the unripe age of thirty-two years, became to all intents and purposes master of the then-known world. But he was far from enjoying liberty, for of himself he was not master. In his thirty-third year he died, a victim of his own excesses, a total stranger to freedom of the soul.
Cardinal Wolsey learned, to his sorrow, how little political independence and even political power can contribute to true liberty. You may recall that he gave a long life in the service of two English sovereigns, enjoying all the while great freedom and political power. Finally, however, he was shorn of all his greatness by an impatient king. As he stood, disillusioned, among the ruins of his life, he lamented to his friend,
O Cromwell, Cromwell!
Had I but served my God with half the zeal
I served my king, he would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies.
The people—rejecting government by judges, which God had established—clamored for Samuel to give them a king. Samuel warned them that a king would make servants of their children, lay heavy taxes and services upon their backs, and send them to war,
19 ¶ Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us;
20 That we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.
Samuel therefore anointed Saul to be their king. In due time, just as Samuel had predicted, heavy burdens were laid upon them, their sons and daughters were made servants of the king, and war came. The nation was divided into two kingdoms, Israel and Judah, both of which were, in their turn, carried away into captivity. Not only did they lose their political freedom, but their very political existence as nations was terminated.
We have a classic example of the loss of economic freedom by the misuse of free agency in the book of Genesis. The Egyptians, instead of exercising their agency to provide for themselves against a day of need, depended upon the government. As a result, when the famine came they were forced to purchase food from the government. First they used their money. When that was gone, they gave their livestock, then their lands; and finally they were compelled to sell themselves into slavery, that they might eat. (See Gen. 41:54–56; Gen. 47:13–26.)
We ourselves have gone a long way down this road during the last century. The powerful and ultra-rich families that have sold their souls to the devil for riches and power are indebted to Satan and serve him religiously. They seek not only to take away the liberty and freedoms of all people, but to enslave us. The Luciferians, the religion of the powerful elite, use deceit to manufacture crisis, wars, poverty and pestilence as they pull the strings of governments by funding dirty politicians that they can blackmail or pay off. Through these manufactured crisis, they fake We the People of the USA and others throughout the world into giving up our freedoms in exchange for security, a trade that as Benjamin Franklin warned:
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Samuel Adams, in a letter to James Warren, said:
A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.
The Illusion of Freedom
(Paul Henderson) In recent years, the government in the USA has perverted the meaning of the word freedom, and in so doing has confused Americans as to the very nature of freedom. Whenever the government grants “freedoms” to a specific class of citizens, it’s really granting special privileges. Privileges that come with costly strings attached. Think for a minute about today’s concept of freedom. It’s freedom from hunger Freedom from worry. Freedom from discrimination. Freedom from medical bills. Freedom from anything and everything in life that one might consider unpleasant. There’s a basic quality of freedom. And Americans have forgotten it. Simply stated, freedom can only be ‘to’. It can’t be ‘from’
You can be free to eat, but you can’t be free from hunger. You can appear to be free from hunger, but in reality, freedom from hunger is a privilege bestowed in exchange for giving up another freedom. The natural state of freedom is always to. Governments can’t grant freedom to because freedom to is a natural right of human kind. We have natural rights and freedoms simply because we exist; not because governments dole them out. The ruling elite want us to believe they grant us rights and privileges, not God – the true author of liberty and the true giver of our unalienable rights.
“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion of freedom. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.” ~Frank Zappa
“All the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.”—Historian Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45
In the Wachowskis’ iconic 1999 film, The Matrix, the protagonist Neo is wakened from a lifelong slumber by Morpheus, a freedom fighter seeking to liberate humans from virtual slavery—a lifelong hibernation state—imposed by hyper-advanced artificial intelligence machines. With their minds plugged into a perfectly crafted virtual reality, few humans ever realize they are living in a dream world to such an extent that most are willing to give their lives in order to preserve the system that enslaves them.
(by John W. Whitehead) There is something being concocted in the dens of power, far beyond the public eye, and it doesn’t bode well for the future of this country. Anytime you have an entire nation so mesmerized by the antics of the political ruling class that they are oblivious to all else, you’d better beware. Anytime you have a government that operates in the shadows, speaks in a language of force, and rules by fiat, you’d better beware. And anytime you have a government so far removed from its people as to ensure that they are never seen, heard or heeded by those elected to represent them, you’d better beware.
The gravest threat facing us as a nation is not extremism—delivered by way of sovereign citizens or radicalized Muslims—but despotism, exercised by a ruling class whose only allegiance is to power and money. We’re in a national state of denial. Yet no amount of escapism can shield us from the harsh reality that the danger in our midst is posed by an entrenched government bureaucracy that has no regard for the Constitution, Congress, the courts or the citizenry. If the team colors have changed from blue to red, that’s just cosmetic. The playbook remains the same. The leopard has not changed its spots.
Scrape off the surface layers and you will find that the American police state is alive and well and continuing to wreak havoc on the rights of the American people. “We the people” are no longer living the American Dream. We’re living the American Lie. Indeed, Americans have been lied to so sincerely, so incessantly, and for so long by politicians of all stripes—who lie compulsively and without any seeming remorse—that they’ve almost come to prefer the lies trotted out by those in government over less-palatable truths. Here’s a truth few Americans want to acknowledge: very little has changed (at least, for the better) since Barack Obama passed the reins of the police state to Donald Trump. The police state is still winning. We the people are still losing.
In fact, the American police state has continued to advance at the same costly, intrusive, privacy-sapping, Constitution-defying, relentless pace under President Trump as it did under President Obama. (One can only imagine how quickly our freedoms might have eroded if the witch was in the White House)
- Police haven’t stopped disregarding the rights of citizens.
- SWAT teams haven’t stopped crashing through doors and terrorizing families.
- The Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security haven’t stopped militarizing and federalizing local police.
- Schools haven’t stopped treating young people like hard-core prisoners.
- For-profit private prisons haven’t stopped locking up Americans and immigrants alike at taxpayer expense.
- Censorship hasn’t stopped.
- The courts haven’t stopped marching in lockstep with the police state.
- Government bureaucrats haven’t stopped turning American citizens into criminals.
- The surveillance state hasn’t stopped spying on Americans’ communications, transactions or movements.
- The TSA hasn’t stopped groping or ogling travelers.
- Congress hasn’t stopped enacting draconian laws such as the USA Patriot Act and the NDAA.
- The Department of Homeland Security hasn’t stopped being a “wasteful, growing, fear-mongering beast.”
- The military industrial complex hasn’t stopped profiting from endless wars abroad.
- The Deep State’s shadow government hasn’t stopped calling the shots behind the scenes.
- And the American people haven’t stopped acting like gullible sheep.
Here’s the problem as I see it: “we the people” have failed to recognize these warning signs as potential red flags to use as opportunities to ask questions, demand answers, and hold our government officials accountable to respecting our rights and abiding by the rule of law. Unfortunately, once a free people allows the government to make inroads into their freedoms, or uses those same freedoms as bargaining chips for security, it quickly becomes a slippery slope to outright tyranny. And it doesn’t really matter whether it’s a Democrat or a Republican at the helm, because the bureaucratic mindset on both sides of the aisle now seems to embody the same philosophy of authoritarian government.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, this is what happens when you ignore the warning signs. This is what happens when you fail to take alarm at the first experiment on your liberties. This is what happens when you fail to challenge injustice and government overreach until the prison doors clang shut behind you. In the American police state that now surrounds us, there are no longer such things as innocence, due process, or justice—at least, not in the way we once knew them. We are all potentially guilty, all potential criminals, all suspects waiting to be accused of a crime. So you can try to persuade yourself that you are free, that you still live in a country that values freedom, and that it is not too late to make America great again, but to anyone who has been paying attention to America’s decline over the past 50 years, it will be just another lie.
The German people chose to ignore the truth and believe the lie. As the wife of a prominent German historian recalled: “[O]n the whole, everyone felt well. . . . And there were certainly eighty percent who lived productively and positively throughout the time. . . . We also had good years. We had wonderful years.” In other words, as long as their creature comforts remained undiminished, as long as their bank accounts remained flush, as long as they weren’t being discriminated against, persecuted, starved, beaten, shot, stripped, jailed and turned into slave labor, life was good. This is how tyranny rises and freedom falls.
Remember, freedom demands responsibility. Freedom demands that people stop sleep-walking through life, stop cocooning themselves in political fantasies, and stop distracting themselves with escapist entertainment. Freedom demands that we stop thinking as Democrats and Republicans and start thinking like human beings, or at the very least, Americans. Freedom demands that we not remain silent in the face of evil or wrongdoing but actively stand against injustice. Freedom demands that we treat others as we would have them treat us.
In other words, if you don’t want to be locked up in a prison cell or a detention camp—if you don’t want to be discriminated against because of the color of your race, religion, politics or anything else that sets you apart from the rest—if you don’t want your loved ones shot at, strip searched, tasered, beaten and treated like slaves—if you don’t want to have to be constantly on guard against government eyes watching what you do, where you go and what you say—if you don’t want to be tortured, waterboarded or forced to perform degrading acts—if you don’t want your children to grow up in a world without freedom—then don’t allow these evils to be inflicted on anyone else, no matter how tempting the reason or how fervently you believe in your cause.