Live Free

The Republic is dead. It's not sick, not dying, not failing, or in a gradual decline, not waiting to be resuscitated, but already stone cold dead.

This death probably occurred as the U.S. began to win the Cold War, but long before anyone realized the U.S. had prevailed. The hidden hands of politics, of military and bureaucratic service to the state, of foreign policy making-dictated by another country, and of business seems to have completely done in the old ideas and morals. Simply federated, decentralized, self-depreciating government that once feared the people has self-actualized into a contemptuous, aggressive and iron-fisted murderer of freedom, and murderer of men, women and children- a beast.

The founders worried that subsequent elites and factions would take over the Republic they had birthed with every aspect of their power, as the gifted political elites of their time. Yet, as the 19th century dawned, even the most pro-state among them loved freedom and hated tyranny.

They were right about government power and human nature, and their predictions true. New elites and government-dependent factions have ascended. Unfortunately, these political elites hate freedom and love the tyranny of government solutions.

Looking back at one of many truths of a random political campaign being ministered, was how hated real liberty is among the powers that be, how despised the individual, and how all-encompassing the contempt with which modern power brokers in Washington and New York held the principles of the founders.

Amerikans who care about the existence of an Amerikan Republic are many, and those who love freedom are many more. Again, the many random campaigns of the past stand witness to the fact that sheer passion for liberty remains a vibrant force in Amerikan life. But this passion, this life, is nowhere to be found in what we call the Amerikan government, nowhere to be found in the state, or in the empire.

There seems to be no effective way to save or restore the Republic, no way for any individual to even begin to solve the problem of the late 20th and early 21st century imperialism. I tend to agree, and the observers in this time warn, as Chris Floyd does, "It is pointless and counterproductive to simply throw yourself under the wheels of such a monstrous machine in futile spasms of rage and despair. The machine doesn't care. It will gladly chew up your life and move on."

All this presumes that an Amerikan Republic is still viable not really dead, just severely weakened and in need of strong salts and a booster shot.

A book written not long ago entitled Deep Survival, by Laurence Gonzales, offers a helpful perspective on this county's current condition. In studying the question of who lives and who dies in extreme survival conditions, Gonzales found that survivors shared a sense that, in fact, they were not going to live. While they wanted to live, to go home again, and to be secure they recognized that they were so royally and absolutely FUBAR'ed that they would die, probably quickly and perhaps horribly.

Now, obviously those who actually died in those disasters could not be interviewed, but the behaviors and actions of those who lived and those who died were measurably different. The survivors recognized the ugly truth of their own imminent death quickly and this early recognition of reality however harsh and frightful and depressing, may have been also at once incredibly liberating, in some ways exhilarating.

The survivors tended to reach this point of reality sooner than did the victims. They grieved for themselves, their hoped-for futures, their now impossible dreams. Then they rolled up their sleeves and got started on the hard, and very likely pointless, work of survival.

Rules were abandoned about what could be eaten, what could learned, what could be done, and what could be considered. Old ideas of personal capabilities and limitations were gradually discarded. Prayer became real and able to be felt and touched rather than formalized and devoutly religious.

Are you a freedom seeker? Then you need to recognize the unreality of a once treasured concept in the Amerikan case, a vibrant past and future Republic, may in fact free us to do what we need to do.

"And what is that, exactly?" you ask. If you are not going to venture off the campus, and leave this defunct entity, then you must have a plan. If war is not an option, and you are like me, taking up the sword would not be my first choice given my religious convictions (exceptions made for defense and protectorate of others); then you need to re-think how you will behave in the future.

You must recognize that the Republic is dead, and that we owe its rotting bloated corpse no loyalty whatsoever.

This done, you then act accordingly. Publicly and privately, we should observe the corpse as a public nuisance, a pollutant both in a tasteful way and materially. When the yellow brick road leads you to the grand doors of government services, you should not turn away your gaze but instead pull back the curtain, grandly, loudly, with the contagious laughter of a child, or the righteous anger of a soldier back in pieces from a war they did not start, like most wars, that was from the beginning, a brutal political lie.

Will you insult a federal or state employee, a law enforcer or judge? Will you anger a politician, a lobbyist, a corporatist employer, or a government news entity for stealing your life, your freedom of movement and thought, your productivity? You should certainly aspire to do so, with the zeal of missionaries.

To live in an imperial world, we must first, as survivors, recognize that it is an imperial world. History is filled with imperial/totalitarian states, as global graveyards are filled with those who were too late in recognizing what had already happened.

It's over. The faithful and the hopeful may carry the corpse of the Amerikan Republic, hoping that it can be brought back into normality, into life, and into power. I am afraid these nurturers will not survive the present reality of imperialism.

But some of us will look directly at the ugly, dangerous and very real empire. We will stare with little hope but also with little fear into the face of the FUBAR nation, and then roll up our sleeves and get started on the only life we may honestly live, as internal dissidents. We will no longer pledge allegiance, we will not obey old rules, we will make do and make it up as we go along. Our minds focused on surviving the empire, our talents and creativity unleashed against the state and its fantasy-filled faithful, we will live as if we are free.

This simple prescription will not only make us survivors, but it will gradually cultivate a political landscape for a future of free Republics where today we see the beginnings and continuation of totalitarianism and a bankrupt empire. This prescription was written for us in 1809 by revolutionary war General John Stark. He advised, "Live free or die. Death is not the worst of evils."

Today,....we face a modern Amerikan state with government heads more prideful and dictatorial than even King George III could imagine, yet we have no declaration of independence, no privileged elite to demand it, no interested population to read and debate it. This time, our declaration will be made individually, every day, in calm desperate fearlessness, as we simply live free.

One final thought:
 Until the Lord our God returns for a second time and sets things right, destroying His and our enemies, it should be our goal to live in the freeness and peace that He has given to our hearts and minds, remembering God's provisions, benefits and protections are given only to those who have called out to Him for salvation.

What else? The USA, WILL NEVER be the same again...great again? It never was. What to do now? Salvage what's left, recycle everything cause nothing is being made much anymore, and what is being made, is just a copy of something long ago that this generation has not seen yet, so to many, "some things" are sort of new. But there is nothing new under the sun. So, keep moving forward. Use, reuse, recycle...order of the day is it not?