The Nature of Freedom

By Hilmar von Campe

Some years ago construction started for a new house close to our backyard.  Work began at six o’clock in the morning with tremendous noise. On Saturday we were awakened at the same early hour. Now we were looking forward to Sunday. But it was the same as on the week days. That was too much. Furiously I went to the construction site and asked the site manager to immediately stop that noise, it being Sunday. Listening to my accent the man realized that I was a foreigner. He looked at me condescendingly and said, “You know, here in America we are free!” He obviously had the wrong but popular concept of freedom, namely that it means ‘I can do as I please.’ It didn’t last long, however, in his case since we knew the developer and that was the end of the early morning noise...  

Last year I asked a real estate sales person in Miami how much was usual for a down payment on buying a house?  “5 or 10 %” she answered,” but it happens quite often, that people buy a $300,000.house this way, and then ask me to wait with the down-payment until they get their next paycheck.” It is obvious that these buyers only front as owners for the house, which in reality is owned by a bank or mortgage company. The risk is with the government owned companies, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, which buy the mortgages. According to a recent poll conducted by Gallup for the credit-reporting agency Esperian 21% of consumers had to reduce their spending because of rising interest rates. There will be many more rate hikes. Gallup and Esperian agreed to issue every month a Personal Credit Index based on this survey. There is trouble ahead for those who have variable rates and not much equity.  

Business Week has calculated that the average U.S citizen is now indebted with more than 100% of personal income. Including mortgages personal debt stands at $8.2 trillion. The Federal Reserve has the choice between two options: let the dollar or the majority of Americans face disaster.  

According to the MacAlvany Intelligence Advisor governmental debt will reach $74 trillions this year. That is a debt of nearly $1 million for every family of four. Other intelligence reports like Howard Phillips’ Monthly Bulletin or News Max’s Financial Intelligence Report come up with similar numbers. I had already been aware of this development since the end of last century through my dear and courageous friend the late South African journalist Aida Parker. Foreigners hold 2.3 trillion Treasury notes, with the Chinese and Japanese central banks owning a major portion of it. The American economy would sink if China would ask for payment. Who can believe that any American government is free for principled policy toward that and other countries?  

America , individuals and nation, are not free any more. At best we have partial freedom – still better as the rest of the world. But to many we are not a convincing moral leader to lead humanity into freedom, and freedom is the reason for our existence as a nation.  

A lot of people think that freedom and democracy are identical. But that is not the case. The word ‘democracy’ does not exist in our constitution. At best democracy represents political freedom – who wants to live under the thumb of a dictator or as a slave in a totalitarian system. I know what the Iraqi people felt when they defied mortal threats and went to the polls. Freedom! American soldiers liberated me from Nazi rule and gave me a life in freedom. But I was before and after the same selfish and irresponsible person until I changed.  

There is more to freedom than the right to vote, as crucial as that right is. Just look at Germany . Twice Germans voted two parties into power, which come from the same rotten socialist tree as the national socialists did. Germany , once with a budget surplus the economic locomotive for Europe , is now a totally indebted shadow of herself with more than 5 million unemployed, 12.8% of the population. We pretend that Russia under Putin is a democracy, but that is not the case. Putin eliminated the freedom of the press, the direct election of the governors, whom he himself now appoints, and the right to one’s property. He sells arms to our enemies. Most ridiculous was Putin’s comparing in the press conference with George W. Bush in Bratislava , Slovakia , his appointing governors instead of having them elected with the U.S. Electoral College. Our electors represent voters. The president has nothing to do with it.  

Mexico was considered to be a democracy, because there was a voting mechanism, but the population was treated as the personal property of the ruling establishment. Pinochet on the other hand made Chile an economic show case for all Latin America and led the country into democracy, but is always referred to as an evil dictator. What about Hugo Chavez who is transforming Venezuela in Hitler style via democracy into a totalitarian state? Are we going to stand up for democratic Taiwan being threatened by totalitarian China ?  

Free people are the indispensable condition for a free society. Freedom is a moral concept, which like God or the wind can neither be seen nor touched. We can only see consequences. Freedom is not meant for a person or a nation to go about life as they please but to be free to give their best for the destiny of other people and nations. For Jews and Christians it means to serve God without restrictions. For America , it is her mission.  

What then are the crippling forces that make a nation or a person non-free? Greed - you live to make money. Hatred – the most destructive force of all, which ties you to whom or what you hate. Sex – dominating a person’s life leading to a society of irresponsible people, slaves of their combined lust. Terry Schiavo is not free to live. Murder - when unborn human beings are robbed of freedom and life. . Fear – leading to wrong decisions. Excessive indebtedness – as explained at the beginning. Lies – the summary of all, which make a person or nation believe that what is evil is good or justified and enslave a nation in a system of lies where evil becomes part of the social and judicial infrastructure.  

Jesus had the following to say regarding freedom when he pointed out to a group of Jews that truth will set them free and they protested stating that they never had been any man’s slave: “…every man who commits sin is a slave…why do you not understand my words? It is you can not hear what I am really saying. Your father is the devil…and he has never dealt with the truth, since the truth will have nothing to do with him. Whenever he tells a lie, he speaks in character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. And it is because I speak the truth that you will not believe me.” One’s own lies prevent a person to be free. Lies as the basis for political decisions prevent a nation to be free.  

The American psychotherapist Dr. Scott Peck described all those who have handed themselves over to lies as “people of the lie”. Any lie is evil. The phenomenon, namely the possession of an individual by lies, is not confined to Nazis and Communists, he says, and to terrorists, I add. There is evil in every one of us. The principal question is to what extent is evil determining the rules of society? Who is pulling the strings in American society? Is it Congress and the President? Bankers who control the supply of money as well as the interest rates – for the benefit of whom? The homosexual and abortion lobby who destroy the family? The environmentalists who prevent the extraction of oil within the United States and force everyone to pay high prices for gasoline? Judges who change the Constitution? The education establishment, which dumbs down and perverts our youth? Hollywood ? The UCLA which applies Nazi policy to remove God from society?  

Alexander Solzhenitsyn pointed out, “The most important part of our freedom, inner freedom, is always subject to our will. If we surrender it to corruption, we do not deserve to be called human. But let us note, that the absolutely essential task is not political liberation, but the liberation of our souls from participation in the lie forced upon us, then it requires no physical, revolutionary, social, organizational measures, no meetings, strikes, trade unions,. No. It requires from each individual a moral step within his or her power – no more than that. No one who voluntarily runs with hounds of falsehood will ever be able to justify himself to the living, or to posterity, or to his friends, or to his children.”  

President Bush has made the right issue, freedom for humanity, the purpose of America ’s foreign policy. That is the mission of the United States . It implies that the same moral principle is being applied to every person and every nation, be it Haiti , China , Germany or Russia , we ourselves – or whatever nation. To change conditions in non-free nations is necessary. But alone it does not go far enough and, besides, that would be Marxism. People have to change and find new motives. The ideology of evil, as the president defined terrorism, can only be eradicated by a better ideology. Terrorism is part of the big lie. The idea of freedom has to become the ideology of Truth and Freedom, because freedom without truth is not possible. An ideology consists of an idea, a goal, a plan how to get there, and a commitment to make it happen.  

Of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence 17 lost their fortunes, 12 had their homes destroyed, 9 fought and died, 5 were arrested as traitors, and 2 lost sons in the war. They gave their every thing. As Samuel Adams signed, he said, “We have this day restored the Sovereign to whom all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven and from the rising to the setting of the sun, let His kingdom come” Our commitment must match theirs.  

On October 11, 1798 President John Adams stated in a letter, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passion unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.”  

On September 21, 1924 President Calvin Coolidge in an address to the Holy Name Society stated, “It seems…perfectly plain that … the right to equality, liberty and property…have for their foundation reverence for God. If we imagine that swept away…our government could not long survive.”  

With regards to conditions, I have three propositions regarding the present fatal financial imbalances, which includes the restoration of the viability of Social Security in order to be able to liquidate it later on. 1. Follow Dr. Jack Wheeler’s advice, and sell government land. The federal government owns one-third or 650 million acres of the United States, including 86% of Nevada, 70% 0f Utah, 65% of Idaho, and more. 2. Put all debt payments to the Federal Reserve on hold and have that institution audited. 3. Drill for oil and gas on public land where we know there is and where it is possible and recommendable.  

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