Freedom

On October 1st 2011 I went to Westminster Abbey in London, England. My wife and two daughters and my older daughter's boyfriend and I went to England and Scotland then. But, I was unprepared for the experience of Westminster Abbey because people like Queen Elizabeth I and others out of history are actually buried there inside it. And many English Greats like William Shakespeare and Francis Bacon and all the others are memorialized there as well. So, having watched historical movies about England and Europe all my life since I was a little child I found myself sort of overwhelmed by the whole experience. To add to this overwhelm I also experienced living and walking and talking in the Westminster Abbey as an Englishman during the years of it's existence in previous reincarnations which I sort of found difficult to deal with to because of the completely different mindset that I had then. It wasn't really at all about freedom there then it was mostly about loyalty to the Crown and to England. Without the medical benefits and free thinking of today it wasn't anything at all the way life is now.

But, in this lifetime on October 1st 2011 with my family I was amazed to also see where the Free Thinking of many of the Greatest minds in England led directly (along with great minds from Europe and around the world) to the type of freedom we now live in the U.S.

Much suffering of thousands of years led by experience for the founding fathers to create the United States of America. It wasn't like the U.S. just came up from nothing. It came up from thousands of years of suffering and of governments out of balance in one way or another. So part of the beauty of the U.S. is it's checks and balances which keep things running smoother than most other nations. In my lifetime I have watched many other nations do very well and then without the types of checks and balances we have in the U.S. I watched those same nations falter and sometimes fall. Without the right structure in place and enough educated disciplined people checks and balances don't work and governments falter and fall.

Freedom is responsibility. Most of you might not see it this way but to not only achieve Freedom but to also maintain it,  responsibility and discipline is necessary to maintain freedom for anyone or any group or any nation on Earth or beyond Earth.

As I have traveled the world many people thought unusual things about the U.S. Some people thought that the streets are paved with gold. Some people thought all their problems would be over if they just went and left their countries and just came here. However, I could usually look at them wherever they were and depending upon how well educated or informed they were I could usually tell who might survive and succeed here and who wouldn't. But for most of the people I have met coming here likely wouldn't be a good idea for them. One needs a lot of education and understanding about what actually is here to succeed. For people in countries near the U.S. where there is a land bridge it is different than for people who live across the ocean. Because all the land bridge nations have relatives who have been here and either communicate with them by phone or who have come here and returned on visits. This is less true where oceans have to be crossed and often people are very uninformed about what life is like here.

Here is a good example. Let's look at winning the lottery. Without responsibility and discipline the money either causes people to alienate from their friends and associates or it causes them to commit suicide directly or indirectly because they are not psychologically or physically prepared for what having wealth actually is. Freedom is a lot like this. Without being prepared for what freedom brings people often die or commit suicide directly or indirectly because they just can't handle it.

So, being disciplined in knowing who you are and who your family is is a part of what it takes to be able to survive freedom. Surviving freedom looks a lot different than the fantasy most people might have about what freedom is both here in the U.S. and around the world.


Here is one way to do this in regard to money. Let's take "Winning the Lottery" in this example. Let's say the person winning the lottery (or obtaining freedom financially in the U.S.) has a degree in economics. So, this person understands that if you spend the money you have you just don't have it anymore. So, this person realizes that in order to have any money at all for himself, his wife and his children or maybe their children too, he invests this money into either savings, stocks or Municipal Bonds or maybe all three because of the times we now live in. Then he finds he can still travel around the world all he or she wants to, buy at least one or more homes, send all his or her children to college etc.

So, by having gotten a good education when he or she was young he or she invested all the money and lives on the interest and dividends and tax free municipal Bonds from the interest created by their bond ladder. This creates financial freedom to do what this person wants. Then they can either choose to work at a job, own a business or whatever they want to or not, all the while knowing that if they stay vigilant that all their children and grandchildren can go to college and travel the world if they want to for generations as long as at least one person is in charge and knows about how to invest and to manage investments and money on into the distant future.

Freedom is responsibility, but it is possible to have this freedom still here in the U.S. That's why the whole world invests here because it is (now at least) the most stable free  place on earth to live and invest at this time in the world's history.

You are likely going to get taxed wherever you live on earth to a greater or lesser degree. But, here at least it is possible to live free and to invest freely with the highest likelihood that you and your investments will keep increasing and you can be free by basing yourself here to travel the world.

So, what is real Freedom? It is a different thing for each person on earth. But mostly, it is the freedom to pursue happiness without harming anyone else. It is the freedom to get rich or to not get rich, to get educated or to not get educated, it is the freedom to move about and to discover yourself everywhere you go. It is the freedom to discover everything wonderful about yourself and the world and to meet amazing people wherever you go. It is every constructive thing you can think of doing that doesn't harm anyone. Freedom is fun. Freedom is responsibility. Freedom is discipline. Freedom is contagious. Freedom is living in the U.S. Freedom is whatever you think it is or make it. Freedom makes life worth living. Like Patrick Henry the American Patriot said,"Give me liberty or give me death." He is one of the revolutionary war heroes who died creating the freedoms of our country. Freedom is what everyone wanted for thousands of years. Now we have it here in the U.S.