Bravo, El Neil, for such a simple, realistic vision of personal freedom. And thanks for the reminder. We do have a habit of getting so focused on what we fear, dread, and hate in this scary world that we tend to forget — or sometimes not even know — what we want — what we would do with our freedom if we had it. (I’m talking about our “political freedom,” of course; we’ve already got the other sort with us.) I know we’ve been here before, but it’s a place we need to revisit frequently if we’re working for something…
Category: Practical Freedom
A broad category of things we can do, or things others are doing, to increase personal freedom
…going on today. Just learned this via Dave Duffy’s blog. This money bomb is specifically to give Paul a boost in South Carolina, where he’s not likely to make New Hampshire-like or Iowa-like v*te totals.
… and a call for people to work on it. The other day, I blogged about a smartphone app for boycotting firms that support SOPA and noted (I wasn’t the only one) that it could potentially be a powerful tool for boycotts of all kinds. Well, who feels more strongly than gun owners about avoiding businesses who’d take away their fundamental rights? And who deserves more support than businesses that support our right to self defense? An online acquaintance, Sandy Sandfort, has decided he wants to do something about that. He’s looking for people with the skills and interests to…
Even lab rats, it seems, have empathy. Now, if only government agents could be raised to that level. I had no idea that my second favorite poem (and the one I most totally identify with) had such universal appeal. Only a government could manage to create a butter crisis. “The best way to understand the Euro Crisis is to get a DVD of “Animal House” starring John Belushi.” Snort! Open letter to some professorial tax eaters from Michael and Debra Jean Dean. The average household has a post-crash net worth of nearly $500,000??? Are you kidding? Where do I sign…
Shut up. When the Feds are involved. Because this is one way they trick you into becoming a felon, as Ken at Popehat knows. Incredible videos of bizarre natural phenomena. Freedom Feens Fun Forum. New kid on the block for freedomista discussion. From Michael W. Dean and Neema Vedadi. Dave Duffy blogged this first, but it’s encouraging enough to deserve repeating. “For your own good” is the same the world over. (Tip o’ hat to DA.) Standardized testing: it’s even worse than you might think. (Tip o’ hat to JS.) Bring health care back home. Tenting in the old backyard.…
This ad is in totally terrible bad taste. Which is what makes it so good. Seems this South African chicken restaurant has a history of similar terrible taste. And sometimes nicely pointed satire. A Rearden Steel case??? Please tell me you’re kidding. Kind of a shame that Stratfor feels the need to give such basic advice on situational awareness. And never mentions carrying something much better than a flashlight. (Tip o’ hat to A.) “Bailing out the Titanic with a Thimble.” And an interesting week ahead in Europe, heaven help us all.
Sometimes when I write about freeing ourselves rather than joining mass movements or flinging ourselves into political campaigns, somebody will accuse me of being nihilistic or advocating me-me-me values. If you’ve been around long enough, you know that’s not the point. The point is, of course, that true freedom can only arise from within the individual and spread from there. All “political” solutions are just band-aids on a wound if we’re not prepared to live free, to accord equal rights of freedom to our neighbors, and to personally oppose tyranny. Still, it’s understandable that people who’ve always thought of freedom…
Early this year I used a wonderful Christmas gift to buy a lively, colorful template and a domain name, and I set about building what I hoped would be a freedomista portal — sort of a daily starting place for all things to do with living free. I was going great guns on the project until I ran into a couple of tiny coding issues. The young man I hired to help took nearly two months to do the hour or so’s worth of work (couldn’t fire him; he was a friend’s son; and to his credit when it was…
“The bug-out bag resource list — covering the best sources online.” Excellent collection of links on multiple aspects of bug-out bags — everything from “What is a bug-out bag?” to special-needs bags. Great site in general. Links, links, links on many aspects of preparedness. (A couple of the links are to this blog, I’m happy to say. But there’s so much more.) —– Speaking of preparedness, here’s a real-world idea from a real do-er. One of the readers of this blog, who doesn’t want to be named, is helping his friends develop their preparedness mindset and skills in a way…
You’ve probably heard by now: Steve Jobs is dead. Farewell to an amazing innovator. He’s been part of our cultural wallpaper for such a long time it’s hard to believe he was only 56. Don’t know that I’d want to beta test a bank, but if you’re fed up with the Big Boys, here’s an interesting new alternative. Speaking of banks, the always-interesting Barry Ritholtz has a good take on their self-inflicted mark-to-make-believe wounds and other unintended consequences of Brilliant Government Ideas. Believe it or not Tim Burton did not create this wedding photo. (I was going to post the…