The Foundations of Freedom

by Dean Underwood

Introduction

Americans were once the world's experts on questions of freedom and free societies; this knowledge made us a freer people than most in the world; our being freer people made our nation freer than most—one of the freest nations in history. But that was several hundred years ago.

Today, most Americans cannot so much as define a free society much less explain the essential differences between free and unfree people or free and unfree societies. This means that most modern Americans are unfree people. This is why the political system has grown exponentially over the past century to become the behemoth of social destruction it is today. Most of the freedoms that Americans once enjoyed are long gone and what few remain are even now being targeted by legislation for elimination.

Most Americans though, have been trained from childhood, in schools under political control, to worship the political system as the only true source of social change. They have been reduced to mindless slaves-unfree men and women-barely able to ponder the freedom and quality of life they have lost. They wear their chains proudly, and in the darkness of their minds shout how free and proud they are. How can a people who can no longer even define the basics of freedom notice when they have lost their freedom?

Freedom has always been the most neglected knowledge on earth. Without it, every other knowledge, philosophy, science, and technology become the blind tools of political parties committing the grand social violence of their day. If any future generation of Americans, or of any nation, are to experience living in a free society, their parents and grandparents will need take up again the lost discipline of freedom: the knowledge, the art, the science and practice of building and maintaining a free society. To this end the Foundations of Freedom is prayerfully dedicated.

The Foundations of Freedom

by Dean Underwood

Part I

The foundation of any society can be easily stated, in a certain sense, it is the people who make up the society. Free Societies are free because they are populated by free people-the freer the people the freer the society. Unfree societies, in contrast, are populated by unfree people-the more unfree the people, the more unfree the society will be.

This points us to several important questions which are so neglected in our age that many of us have never considered them. It is these questions which are the subject of this, the Foundations of Freedom.

(A) What is a free man-the man and woman who move societies toward freedom and how do they differ from the unfree who naturally gravitate toward politics and follow political leaders into the forced society that all political parties and political men create. We will see that the essential differences lie in deep philosophical principles, which have been inculcated in the hearts and minds of the people, over their lifetimes, and in the more measurable world view which people hold, as a result of their inner philosophical conditioning.

We will see that at the root of these two kinds of people, the free and the unfree, is the conscious and unconscious belief in transcendent truth, on the part of free men, while on the part of the unfree, they have rejected any standard of government or law outside of their own existential interpretation. Simply stated, the unfree man and woman rejects all notion that there is any truth or morality outside of their own invention, or, more commonly, they simply live as though there is none. They have made of themselves their own gods, and they then naturally seek to make themselves god over everyone else-using the force of law to enforce upon everyone the false standards they have made up. Herein lies the birthplace of politics and the source of all the great injustice on the earth throughout the ages.

This is what lies at the heart of every Nazi Germany, Communist Russia, and China of history, just as it did Rome, Persia, Egypt, and Babylon, in ancient times, and as it continues to be in every nation on earth today-wherever political parties dominate the social order. Wherever men reject the real principles of law, and the real God behind them, they invariably make false gods to be their new law givers. The thousands of waves of society-wide violence in history, the many millions of people buried in mass graves and burned in piles, the billions enslaved from birth to death, is the inevitable result of men making themselves gods, and thinking themselves a fitting source of law and government for everyone.

Unfree people accept by either conscious acknowledgment or unconscious acquiescence the politicians setting themselves above the common law, and through the violent extortion of the people's resources, create a political bureaucracy in order to force their own overreaching wills upon every man and woman, turning them into defacto slaves. They deny, through words and actions, any god or law above their own authority, and demand the right to make whatever laws and set loose upon the people whatever lawless agents they please to spread fear and prey upon those who might stand in their way.

Wherever the knowledge of freedom is lost, or more commonly overthrown and driven from the public view by state control and subsidies of schools and universities, the law and government become utterly and completely corrupt. The law and government are twisted from their natural purpose of defending the people from violence, and instead become the primary means of violating the people's wills, in order to satisfy the insatiable desire of the man-gods and their followers for power and dominion. The law and government are turned upside down and run in reverse, becoming a great profit making system, and used to do what law and government were never intended to do, make the politicians, their offices, and agents rich with power, money and privilege at everyone else's expense.

The more unfree the society, the more the people have been trained from youth to worship politics, and the unfree society that politicians create. Unfree people have usually lost even the most basic understanding of freedom. They are commonly taught that freedom is the opportunity to vote for the politicians, who are enslaving them, and to participate in the political system, which is the unfree society.

Free men and women in contrast work ceaselessly to defend the integrity of their law and government from the constant onslaught of the politicians—their parties, followers, offices, and agents, in word and deed, they defend what is left of their law, and courageously work to restore what has been lost. They are not satisfied until every law, every office, every act of government and agent, which is contrary to the transcendent law of peace and justice—DO NOT VIOLATE—is broken of its power to harm, and all those who persist in this way of violence, no matter how high or low they may be, are brought to justice.

(B) What is the essential definition of freedom? And what does it mean to be free or unfree? We will see that freedom is the opposite of force-violent force in particular. Freedom, simply stated, is the opposite of slavery-the freedom to fulfill one's own will rather than being forced to do the will of another.

There are four forms, or aspects of freedom important to this study:

(1) Freedom: a form of knowledge that makes free societies and the practice of freedom possible. Freedom in this sense is the knowledge of building and maintaining free societies; the science of limited government and establishing a truly just and peaceful social order. Just as the knowledge of engineering makes new designs and the construction and maintenance of high-rise buildings and expansion bridges possible, the knowledge of freedom makes the building and maintaining of free societies possible. Just as the science of chemistry makes new chemical bonds and the manufacturing of new substances possible, the science of freedom teaches men how it is possible to overcome all political ideologies, and set their nation free from the influence of political parties.

Freedom is the knowledge of teaching people how to govern themselves; the science of cultivating a love of doing right in the hearts of people and deep wisdom in their minds so that freedom can be lived out. The knowledge of freedom probably reached its most recent historical peak, in Europe and America, about 250 years ago, in the middle 1700's. Early Americans lived without income taxes, sales taxes, or property taxes—as a general rule. No one was forced to pay or forced to attend a school(no "public" schools) and yet Americans were more than twice as literate as most nations on earth-more literate even than leading nations like England and France—more literate by some accounts than modern Americans.

For the first several hundred years of American history, even before we became a seperate country, most 12 year old boys, and not a few girls, had their own guns—even carrying them to school; yet children harming others with guns was much less common than today. There were no building codes at all then; people built their houses any way they pleased of any materials they chose; yet the houses they built are highly praised today. Modern preservationists seek to declare them historical and protect, through draconian laws, whole neighborhoods built under conditions of complete freedom of choice. Up until the middle part of the last century, no one was forced to fund or support a "public" hospital and yet every American city of any size had its own charity hospital for any person needing it. It was common practice for nearly all doctors to give everyone care regardless of their ability to pay, even taking chickens and cows as payment.This meant that everyone needing healthcare had multiple choices to obtain it.

Every generation of Americans got wealthier than the one before; many millions of people lifted from poverty to wealth in just a few generations. There were few police and fewer prisons, when we were a freer people-we did not need them. Most towns had no police at all. Yet, until little more than a generation ago, from one side of the continent to the other, people could walk their streets, night and day, without fear. It was common that people did not bother to lock their doors, even at night while they slept. When Americans today hear of these things, made possible by the knowledge and practice of freedom, they seem to be remembering some distant, clouded dream because they are so completely removed from the knowledge that made it possible.

Since then the ideas and practice of freedom have been displaced by a great rising tide of socialism. What is being taught in nearly every school and university in the world today as government, law, social studies, politics, etc., is some form or mix of socialist ideology.

Socialism is the modern knowledge and science of building and maintaining slave culture-the unfree society. This is same basic culture as that of a slave plantation, only on a more universal-national and increasingly international level. If you understand what a slave plantation is and how it works, you understand the basic workings of all slave culture, including the modem movement toward nation-wide slavery. Politicians building national slave cultures based on the principles of socialist doctrine, has been widely accepted and increasingly popular since the early 1900's. People's increasing acceptance of socialist ideas and practice, often taught under euphemisms like democracy, conservatism, liberalism, and progressivism, is largely a result of being indoctrinated in politically funded and controlled schools from infancy. The longer people stay in school, and the more unquestioningly they absorb the curriculum, the more hopelessly lost in socialist doctrines they tend to be.

All questions, arguments, studies, and classes, today, of a socio-economic nature, almost without exception, are varying perspectives of socialist political doctrine. Every modern idea and thought is directed toward how to perfect the unfree society. And there is only one solution to any and every social problem from the perspective of unfree people: make the society more unfree by expanding the unfree part of society via inventing more laws, regulations, restrictions, political programs, searches and seizures—more police and prisons—to scare people into compliance—and more taxes to pay for it all. For unfree people, well trained in the modern authoritarianism of socialism, the concepts of building and maintaining a free society is a long forgotten, now unconceivable dream.

(2) Freedom: the idea of a free society. This is the idea that the only purpose of law and government is to protect and never violate a person or his property. Although this idea has existed as a minority view in every society in history, rarely have the politicians been blocked for long from their ceaseless work of systematically corrupting the law and government to their own violent ends. The most perfect expression of this idea of freedom can be found in the Ten Commandments of God in the Old Testament, in the non-political social order that God established in Ancient Israel, based upon God's law, and in the promise of the New Testament to fulfill the law of the Old Testament by establishing God's true law and government inside the heart's of men. Thus, a true free society is made possible by men not just outwardly acknowledging God's authority, but actually internalizing and living out God's life, God's way. Jesus said that, those who only profess to be His disciples are not His disciples, but rather those who do His works.

(3) Freedom: the state of being free from legalized force, not being violated as a slave, not forced by law to do the will of others. Freedom exists everywhere the people's person and property, are respected by law, and are free from tax, license, search and seizure. Some freedom exists in every society but becomes rarer as political ideology spreads and forces out the knowledge of freedom. Once political parties gain control of the apparatus of law, they establish their own schools, funded by force, of course, and systematically work to make extinct, the knowledge and practice of freedom.

(4) Freedom: the practice, skill, or art of living free from the forced society that political parties build. Freedom in this sense means finding ways to live apart from the forced society, but on a higher level of its application means living in such a way that free men and women are able to overcome and displace the forced society and to establish the free over the unfree. The art of living free means applying the knowledge of freedom to building islands of freedom within the greater forced society and working to re-establish the idea of integral law and government amongst the people.

(C) What is a free society? and what are the basic social structural differences between free and unfree societies?

What we mean by free society is the opposite of forced society. This should seem obvious to everyone—but is not to those living in more forced, unfree societies, where the people have been forced to pay and forced to attend the politically controlled schools.

Although, a perfectly free society is theoretically possible, none has ever existed on Earth, as yet. Likewise, some freedom exists even in the most authoritarian cultures. While every society contains elements of the free and the unfree within it, the free society succeeds in limiting the forced, unfree part of society to a very small portion of the social order.

Essentially, a free society means freedom from politics. In a free nation, the only people who come in contact with the tiny unfree part of society are the robbers, rapists, murderers, and thieves who act in willful violation of their neighbors. No one, who does not commit such actual serious crimes, need ever fear the force of law being used against him or his property, in any way. In an important sense, every society is free in proportion to the people's freedom from politics and all the political plots, ploys, and programs that politicians seek to gain acceptance over the whole of the people and the many agents and agencies, who serving the political interests, seek to enforce upon the people, turning them into defacto slaves of the state.

The level of freedom of any society can be measured on a sliding scale of the corruption of law and government by violence. How much violence is being committed under the cloak of legality, by the politicians and their agents? How many political programs, plans, and schemes are being implemented, and how many taxes and what percentage of the people's wealth are being taken to pay for the legalized violence? It is easy to distinguish the free part of any society from the unfree. Every institution or activity that is not taxed, licensed, regulated, or restricted, nor supported by the same, is part of the free society; every other institution or activity, which is marked by such force, is part of the unfree.

The unfree society is made up of every institution which is funded by force or where participation is demanded upon penalty by the state. This forced social structure-all the monies flowing into it, all the grants and subsidies which come from it, and all the forced human activities-paying taxes to the political schools or else men with guns and badges come and kick in your door, buying licences, building one's house by someone else's building codes, running ones business by someone else's regulations, etc., etc., is the matrix of the unfree society. And every nation in history, has naturally collapsed into an unfree, fascist and communist-like state, except where men of wisdom and courage have stood against the tide, upholding the integrity of their law and government against all persons and parties seeking to corrupt it. Many thousands of men and women in history have stood against the raging storms of political violence and given their lives to restore the integrity of their law and government once lost. This is what made some nations like early America and Switzerland special in history, because so many were willing to stand for freedom against the political violence of their day.

Conclusion

Where are the free men and women of today? Do they have enough courage and integrity to stand against the tide of politics that our whole nation is drowning in? Our freedoms are removed, our economy is being destroyed, our great industries are dying, our money is being inflated into oblivion, we are taxed, licensed and regulated from birth to death-even after death. All of this, the consequence of the political system's insatiable lust for unlimited power. When do the politicians, and their agents stop passing more laws and demanding more taxes and power? When do they in any nation in history? Never. Never until there is nothing but injustice and poverty left. Or, until the remnant of good people find the courage to stand against the tide, saving what good remains and building back what has been lost.

The generation of Americans born in the 1980's is said to be the first generation in American history to be poorer than the one before it. And every generation after this will likely be poorer still, until men and women of courage and dedication work to restore the knowledge and power of freedom lost. America has more people in its prisons today, by far, than any other nation. We have 5% of the world's population but 25% of the world's prison population. No people have been so spied on, searched, seized, and imprisoned as modern Americans. Millions of laws are now on the books-laws contradicting laws on top of laws contradicting laws. If you keep one law you break another; if you keep this law you break that law. No one should delude themselves any longer, justice is dead. The agents of this corrupt system can go after and destroy anyone they please. Justice has been removed from the land as far as the east is from the west. It is no longer a matter of who is guilty and who is innocent. It is mostly a matter of who those in authority want to go after; because, they see their victims as stepping stones to higher offices, or, as standing in the way of their unbridled pride.

The underlying strategy of politics has always been to divide and conquer. But the important distinction between people today, is not between rich and poor, black and white, liberal or conservative, but between those who seek to live as free men—living apart from politics and refusing to worship the lies and violence, and those who happily acquiesce to total slavery, cheering at receiving yet another promise of something free, paid for at someone else's expense.

The leaders of our land must swear an oath, before they take office, to uphold the Constitution—the highest law of our land. They customarily violate their oath before they ever take it. For they are planning, often have publically stated so, to act in every way against its letter and spirit. And from the time they take the oath they never cease, in every piece of legislation and every law and tax they vote for, to break the constitution at every point and in every way that it seems to defend the people from their violence. For they cannot allow any thought in their minds that their power and privilege be limited. They imagine themselves the highest of gods, controlling law and government to extend their own prideful wills and do as they please. Unless, and until the American people rise up and insist by some combination of force, force being the only thing that evil men understand or respect, that limited government be restored, that politics be put back in its box, and that all men be under the same law, arising from transcendent truth—DO NOT VIOLATE—America will never be free again. Americans will have nothing to look forward to but generations of fear, social depravity, slavery, physical and spiritual poverty.

Little remains of our once precious freedoms. All-out fascism and communism is upon us-even as it is over the whole Earth today. More people were likely robbed, enslaved, murdered and otherwise violated in the 20th Century than all the previous centuries combined.  99% of this violence was committed by the politicians and the military, bureaucrats, police, and courts under their control. The ability to restrain this violence has been lost over the past two centuries as the knowledge and power of free men has been systematically attacked and overcome by the powers of rebellion against God. Socialism, in its various forms—democratism, fascism, and communism—have swept the whole Earth. Everywhere, politics is unleashed upon the nations of the Earth to violate the people at will, without restraint.

How many good men and women are left to stand against the storm? How many have not bowed their knees to Baal? Who will turn from their wickedness and seek the face of the only true God? Who will cease their worship of Baal, Molech, and Caesar and put their trust in the real Lord and His authority? Who will turn and repent of trusting in deception and violence for help and sustenance, which is rebellion against God, and trust instead in the one true God and His peaceful government and lawful, just order?

Follow the instructions of the Book. Learn to love and serve others today-where you are-in your present condition-with all your heart. Let others know who you are and what you are about. If you desire to be a leader in God's economy you must learn to love and be the servant of all. Make friends; form associations, of every kind; build freedom loving communities within the greater social violence. Build pockets of freedom within the unfree and work to expand these beginnings until pocket touches pocket all across the nation.

"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." 2 Chronicles 7:14