My Disappearing Liberty

An old guy remembers what we have lost

The other day I was thinking about just how much liberty I’ve lost in my lifetime. The memories of an amazing time came back to me, along with frustration about the things that we aren’t “allowed” to do anymore. You see, I’ve been awake to tyranny since I was a kid. Oh, I went through a few stages in life. From a *very* short “staunch lefty” stage to a somewhat longer “staunch ‘good Republican’” stage, to finally settling on not having a political letter behind my name at all. I am who I am and my beliefs and philosophy are mine and mine alone. All I can say is, I believe in individual liberty. Period. If anyone else feels the same, we can work together and be friends even if we disagree on certain things. That being said, I submit the following:

Please keep in mind that some of this deleted “liberty” may seem like a “good thing” to many people.  After all, we are just being kept safe, right?  NO.  We were/are being conditioned.  Conditioned to accept things in the *name* of safety in many cases.  Other examples are to “save the earth” and so on and so forth. 

I really want people to think about the cigarette smoking issue in particular. It’s an excellent example of stolen liberty (and I do NOT smoke cigarettes).  Yes, government did get in there and raise taxes and some other things.  But, guess what?  Regardless, PEOPLE STOPPED SMOKING, not because of anything government did, not because of a mandated warning on a pack of cigarettes (which, as far as I know, most people completely ignore), but because of education about how bad cigarettes (especially mass-produced cigarettes) can be for a person’s health.  Most older people have known friends and family who have died from them.  So… a lot less people smoke cigarettes.  

If governments truly cared about the earth, about our health and a whole plethora of other things, wouldn’t one think they would be stealing our tax dollars to educate the public instead of using that money to enrich and prop up corporations and push agendas? (Personally, I don’t want them using my stolen money for ANYTHING. I want it back).  Truth in education goes a long way toward changing behavior for the better.  In fact, most of the changes I make in my own life as it pertains to health, conservation and other things isn’t because of ANY rule or mandate by government.  But because of the private sector and activist groups who have invested time and money writing about, and speaking on, issues that really do matter.  I follow that up with my own research and, wow, change happens!

Regardless of what you may think about the historical liberties that I list below (and the list is almost endless if I was to keep thinking about it), the fact remains, these were things we were “allowed” to do in our lifetimes that we now have to get a permission slip to do, or we just plain can’t do them anymore without risk of fines or prison sentences.  I am listing these things from memory and starting from some of the earliest I can remember.  Enjoy your freedom.

1: Kids riding in the car (even convertibles with the top down) with no seatbelts and even climbing over the seats from back to front and front to back while careening down the highway at breakneck speed.  BANNED

2: People packed into the back of a pickup truck, again, not strapped in anywhere and, again, careening down the highway.  BANNED

3: Smoking pretty much anywhere we wanted.  (Again, whether this was a good idea or not, it wasn’t the government’s right or responsibility to change this and demand businesses tow the line). BANNED

4: Watching ads for your favorite cigarettes on TV.  BANNED (But now we can watch our favorite ads for deadly (in many cases) pharmaceuticals non-stop).

5: Baby cribs made however we wanted them.  (Again, government had no place in making “regulations” for cribs, the manufactures were already changing their designs).  BANNED

6: Playgrounds on asphalt or dirt with every kind of amazing climbing and swinging object known to man.  BANNED

7: Walking to school alone at the age of 5 and up.  (Not necessarily banned, but a parent could be put in a lot of hot water or even have children taken from them if this happened today.  Regardless whether this was ever a good idea, that doesn’t matter.  Parents will do the right thing in the right circumstances and as culture etc changes)

8: Riding bicycles without helmets.  Pretty much BANNED.

9: Riding in the front seat of an automobile with Mom and Dad without a car seat.  BANNED

10: Hitchhiking.  Still allowed but in most places BANNED

11: Letting children play in the yard without supervision.  (Another one that is still allowed, but parents could have children taken from them if caught or turned in by their lovely neighbor, Karen)

12: Getting home from school as a kid and not having a parent home for an hour or two.  (Another one where the children could be ripped out of their homes and put in foster care… for their own good).

13: Getting, or giving, a good spanking/swat.  Now, don’t get me wrong, there is a difference between a good swat to get a small child’s attention and a beating.  But, if a parent is caught doing this now, again their children may be whisked away.

14: BB guns for kids as young as 5 (and even younger in my case!).   Another one of those things that is still quietly done, but if the wrong person finds out… Yep.  CPS.

15:  Fishing and/or hunting without a “permission slip” (license) BANNED            

16:  Boating without a license.  BANNED (in a lot of places)

17:  Boating without wearing a life jacket. BANNED (in most places)

18: Driving a car (in general) without a seatbelt.  BANNED (except for a couple states)

19: Driving or purchasing a car without an emissions test.  BANNED (except for a few states)

20: Putting a shed or other outbuilding on property that you own without a permission slip.  BANNED (except for in some locales in most states)

21:  Making changes to the home you own without a permission slip.  BANNED

22:  Doing your own plumbing.  BANNED

23:  Doing your own electricity (even replacing a light switch or recepticle).  BANNED (but not everywhere… yet)

24:  Repairing your own appliances (especially an Air Conditioning unit).  Yep, if a person is dumb enough to tell the wrong person they could get into trouble in some places… right here in America.

25:  Having a Post Office Box with USPS without proving *exactly* where you live.  BANNED

26:  Putting whatever the hell you want in the trash.  BANNED (in most places)

27:  Picking up an arrowhead or other “artifact” off of public land (including fossils).  BANNED (in almost all areas)

28:  Watering grass, flowers or vegetables at whatever day/time works for you.  BANNED (in a lot of areas).

29:  Collecting rain water from your roof.  BANNED (in a few areas)

30:  Growing a tomato plant or other vegetables in your front yard.  BANNED (in a few areas)

31:  Riding a motorcycle without a helmet.  BANNED (in a lot of areas)

32:  *Responsibly* drinking a beer or two (NOT drunk) and driving home.  BANNED

32:  And the list goes on and on and on and on.

If I sit and think I can come up with at least 32 more examples of liberty that has been lost just in my lifetime alone.  Very soon (if we don’t wise up NOW) we will be able to add things like “shopping without a ‘face covering’ and shopping without a ‘vaccine’ to the list.” 

Now, don’t get me wrong, some of the liberty we used to have will horrify some people (including me as the writer! Ha!).  They will think, “well, it’s a good thing we can’t do that anymore.”  I’m not arguing whether some of these things were good or bad.  My argument is that *politicians* and busy bodies decided *for us* whether these things were good or bad and decided that if a few people died or got hurt we need to make a law or an edict to FORCE people to change their behavior.  In some cases, many of the things we can’t do now were because a few busy bodies didn’t like what someone else was doing with their own life and lobbied politicians (or became one themselves) so they could FORCE their view upon someone else with the power, might and guns (violence) of government.

I guess my main point is this:  We only lose liberty if we give it away.  All of the things we used to be able to do and can’t now could have been stopped if people would have known that these changes were being forced on them and if the people would have just said NO.   It is no one’s business what someone does with their own life, health, or family.  And it is most certainly NOT government’s responsibility.

Over the last 20 months, give or take, we have watched as government has “solutioned us” literally to death.  Killing without bombs this time, but by forced medical devices (YES a few people have died from wearing their face diaper to death), medicine (shots) and even starvation (the fallout in 3rd world countries from government “solutions” to a “virus” has been devastating and I won’t be surprised if it doesn’t hit the first world soon). 

Yep, life is scary.  But we all need to remember that it will *never* stop being scary.  There will always be something we do now that we find out later… “well, that probably wasn’t a very good idea.”  We have all taken risks with our health and our lives at some point in our lives.  That’s a fact!  But do we really want a world where we can literally do NOTHING and we aren’t allowed to take ANY risk on our own?  Liberty is risky.  Freedom is risky.  Life is risky.  And, for most of our lives we have been free to take whatever risk we thought we could handle without permission.  But we were also allowed to NOT accept risk we didn’t want to take, or we were allowed to use preventative measures to minimize that risk FOR OURSELVES. 

I won’t keep belaboring the point.  All I can say is please, please, PLEASE wake up to what is being taken from us now (or, more accurately what we are *giving away*)  Before it is too late.  We will NEVER get back anything we surrender.