Q: ARE YOU FREE NOW?
A: REMARKABLY IS “YES!”
#LiesMyFascistPreacherTaughtMe 3/4
You are free.
You have always been free.
Even in a completely communist/fascist/totalitarian state you are free as a bird!
A better question is: do you believe you are free?
How can you measure freedom?
Over the 4th of July weekend I met up with an old friend.
He is a Mennonite. Every once in a while Mennonites like a change of scenery. Since Mennonites have communities all over the world, with a couple phone calls, they can uproot their family and travel to Ukraine, Africa, or South America and stay there for years.
In a way they are like Mormons.
Mormons, when they reach 18, are pressured to become missionaries for 2 years. Afterwards they can become higher ranking members in the church. It is an initiation ritual.
But, unlike Mormons, the Mennonites do not recruit. They figure if someone sees you day in and day out and likes what they see they will ask about the joy that is within you.
The Mormons make a nuisance of themselves and often use heavy-handed tactics to make a convert. They cross land and sea in order to get you into their cult as a dues paying member. I guess they never read the Mat 23:15.
So, if the Mormon church was categorized as a type of government what type would it be? Theocracy? Democracy? Communism? No to all. They are fascist.
My Mennonite friend took his family to Honduras and returned late last year.
But when I inquired about it he said it was a free country.
I was shocked.
So I probed.
“What do you mean by free?”
He said they vote.
I asked, “Do they have a constitution?” He didn’t know.
He lived there 3 years and didn’t know.
I asked if they had freedom of speech.
“Yes, certainly. They speak openly, too openly about everything in my opinion. And they have a president, legislature, etc.”
Can a man interrupt their president during a speech and shout, “You’re a crook!”
“Well, yes and no. We can’t do that here either, can we?”
“Do they have a secret police that will haul him away?”
“Not right away but in a few days he will disappear. People disappear quite a bit. It is not big news. Everyone knows it so they don't do that.”
“Do they have gun rights?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are people allowed to have guns?”
“Where I was living, in the countryside, everyone carried a gun.
They have to.
There are wild animals to contend with. And over there people remember intergenerational grudges so you had best carry a gun. Everybody knows everybody else by reputation and if you encounter a man who’s grandfather was wronged by your grandfather he will try to kill you.”
This went on for a while.
I realized that no matter what land you are in the farther away you get from the centrality of power in the capitol the less law there is. The bill of rights you may be guaranteed does not mean anything if there are no cops to enforce it.
Tyranny is proximal.
Anarchy is always distal.
There is a gradient in between.
No country is free.
In fact, the terms free and enslaved are based on distance, not dotted lines on a map no matter how enthusiastically drawn.
Freedom is a feeling not a noun.
We think we live in a free country because that is what it says on the bumper stickers and if we repeat it enough our emotions will convince us.
I asked him if the cops were corrupt, did you have to bribe them?
“I didn’t bribe anybody. They could tell by the way I am dressed that they shouldn’t expect it from me. Sometimes the cops take favors. It is worse in the cities. This is the case all throughout Central America. The politicians, mayors, governors all take bribes too. Same as here, no?”
The lesson I learned from this conversation is that no matter what government you live under it can be good or bad. What makes it that way is not the ideology, the anthem, the flag, or the rights you are told you have.
Next:
The ONE most important thing.
The one we have ignored.
