Liberty has been under assault lately, with Big Government seizing on economic adversity as an opportunity to further its reach into every home, into every life. We are reminded of how precious are our freedoms by the letter below, from an old and very dear friend of ours who who recently began serving a six-year sentence at a minimum security prison. A commodity trader and hedge fund manager, his crime, mainly, was to have promiscuously mingled personal funds with those of clients. Although he does not profess his innocence, the experience of being “put away” has made him fearful of a federal judicial system that be believes has concentrated too much power in unjust hands.  He writes as follows:

A heart-felt generic message to you my dear friends, who maintain contact with the evil felon during the holidays. Send me a note, an e-mail, and any prayers such as lighting candles, toasting to my health with strong or mild drink or just a joke or three. Life here is not really hard, but it IS after all, voluntary incarceration. Voluntary you ask? Yes, no fences, no guns or gun towers — just a severe consequence should we walk out and be brought back chained and disgraced, resentenced and sent to a minimum (fenced, gunned) security prison. But, today, some of our Mexican drug types disappeared, presumably southward (I do not know, or only knew them by sight) into the obscurity of perhaps the Mexican nation? In any event, I wish them well in their furtive freedom.

First “Secular” Holiday

Freedom is such a precious thing as you all know. The Thanksgiving celebration, the world’s first secular ‘holy” day under Lincoln, was designed to bridge the various faiths, most of which clashed seriously, and have a common ground. But, one thing that can be recalled about the awful puritans that applies to all men who love liberty. They (Puritans) were a severe and legalistic cult of extreme Calvinists who did not accept the Church of England’s worship,  not only thinking it too Catholic (which it was and is today even, outwardly). Plus, as head of the Church of England, the Kings of England were to be respected as such, something Calvinists and Protestants in general do not accept. Hence, it could easily be concluded that the loyalty (to the king and the English nation) could be called into doubt and the Puritans were seen as a force of rebellion. They were being persecuted for their views, so many of them sought political refuge in the colonies. Of course, once they settled in, they themselves became the model for a form of oppression even greater than the Kings of England: Puritanism, a severe form of prohibitionism which still casts a shadow on American culture, albeit with subtle historical effects.

Rolling Back Tyranny

Here we sit, federal laws abounding in money, relative to vegetables, e-mail, airports, media, money interference and the list goes on and on, not the least of which is the mandatory schooling, mandatory inspections and car registrations, mandatory taxation (called voluntary in the statute books), and so on. So, unlike the men in Black who landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620, we have nowhere to go to recover our liberties from Big Government. We will not see that sacred liberty until the tyrannical abuses of power are curtailed and rolled way, way back. I am certainly not the only one who in retrospect sees in my own case abuses of power, of due process, of the timidity of the legal defense system, and the arbitrariness of the federal judiciary. No matter my own conscience in the matter, I could not have gotten fair play, and neither can you, or you…or you. There is too much power in unjust hands which belongs entirely to the people, power which was usurped behind war emergencies, and economic depressions probably easily engineered by central private banks.

So, to those Puritans of old, I will thank them for their disgust with the King. No decent man could help but agree with their desire for religious freedom. Just for the record, of course, I think no decent man could agree with them on their religion, period, being the bane of American culture for nearly 150 years and counting. But, we can eat our special turkey (they served turkey wings and legs here, with mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce), and remember the years ahead in which we wish to gain property and money, live without interference from officials, nosy officials, and enjoy the simple pleasures of tyhe family gathering.

If I were with you, after I got off my political high horse, I would of course continue to eat and drink and be thankful for that little freedom, which means so much to me, and of course to the other 499 men who stood in line outside the mess hall waiting for a little turkey and the trimmins’. May the Lord richly bless you.  Jim.

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