America Is a Lying Sack
Issue 49
I always thought America and freedom went hand in hand. I always thought freedom was America’s raison d’etre or, to be more American about it, it’s reason for being. I always thought Americans sought and desired freedom all day every day as a matter of course. I always thought Americans wanted more freedom worldwide for more humans more of the time, even if it has often gone about it somewhat clumsily. I always thought freedom was America’s greatest value.
It astonishes me to say this and you won’t hear it often, but I was wrong. Dead wrong.
If never explicitly stated in these pages, fellow conscious politics practitioner, I say to you today, unambiguously, that the pursuit of conscious politics is the pursuit of freedom. We are, for sure, more free when we are more present. We are more free when we believe that everything is possible. We are more free when choose to invest our precious time and energy pursuing our happiness. We are more free when we know who we are. We are more free when we realize our connection to one another and all the meaning therein. We are more free when we are grateful for everything we have. We are more free when we eliminate judgment from our lives. We are more free when we engage the law of attraction on purpose. We are more free when we align mind, body, and spirit. We are more free when cultivate and listen to our intuition. We are more free when we take responsibility for our circumstances. We are more free when we know there is purpose and value to our very existence. Most of all, we are more free when compassion inspires us to create more freedom for anyone who has less of it than we do.
Well that explains pretty much everything a conscious politics practitioner needs to know and lays bare that America is a lying sack of shit. It says it wants freedom but, yeah, no, it merely wants safety above all else. For the record, these are not the same things, not at all.
Thus, conscious politics should be an easy sell throughout the freedom-loving United States of America. But you and I both know that’s not even a little bit true. Indeed, the wall(s) of resistance to creating freedom for freedom-loving people are formidable — and were efficiently summed up decades ago by journalist and cultural critic H.L. Mencken. He said, “The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe.” Well that explains pretty much everything a conscious politics practitioner needs to know and lays bare that America is a lying sack of shit. It says it wants freedom but, yeah, no, it wants safety above all else. For the record, these are not the same things, not at all.
Indeed, this seemingly huge, hairy conundrum — which I’ve infused with an extra helping of broad generality — is actually reasonably simple:
1
A few people are fully on board for freedom for all, all the time. They love conscious politics and a few of them even read this newsletter. Fantastic.
2
Tons of people — I personally believe it’s actually the majority of Americans — are fully on board with creating freedom for all, all the time. But they are — through no fault of their own and as we keep saying — largely mired in the old-consciousness way of doing things. For example, by committing to fighting (old) and by focusing on specific policies — universal health care; criminal justice reform; voting rights; take your pick — (legit), the creation of freedom for all gets hampered. It’s just too easy for those who don’t like the policy to focus on picayune aspects of it and beat it down. You’d be forgiven, for example, for believing that all the recent hullabaloo in Georgia about its new voting legislation was nothing more than a silly argument about drinking water while waiting to vote. It wasn’t. But in today’s political environment, it’s easy to make it seem that way and the “debate” devolves virtually on the spot. No policy, no freedom. The only way out of that game is to get out of that game.
One way out of that game is for activists, candidates, officeholders, and regular conscious Joes like us not to change our policy objectives, just the ways in which we advocate for them. For example: “As fierce advocates of freedom for all, all the time, we believe providing universal health care is a way to achieve that and here’s how and why; we believe transforming our criminal justice system into a restorative justice system is another way to achieve freedom for all and here’s how and why; we believe that making sure voting is as easy as possible for every eligible voter is another way to create freedom for all and here’s how and why.” As we talk about how the policies we advocate create freedom for all, all the time, those opposed to the policies will have to argue against the freedom (he said, licking chops).
3
Some people’s paramount concern is for their own safety — emphasis on their own. That’s an automatic non-starter right there for the average conscious politics practitioner. Maybe it’s safety for themselves, maybe for their families, maybe for their church or militia or school board communities, but certainly not for all. Conscious politics, then, is anathema to who they are and what they want. What’s insidious is that these are the people who bark about freedom the most and the loudest. As a conscious politics practitioner, I would invest zero seconds in this morass of energy, but that’s just me.
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Forget, though, what I or anyone else might think about this because the question for every American today is this: Are you more interested in safety your Self and your tribe or are you more interested in freedom for all of us? If safety is one’s primary pursuit, it cannot create or lead to freedom for all. If freedom for all is one’s primary pursuit, safety for all will be its happy byproduct.
NOTE: Look for the next Conscious Politics Wednesday Audio Addition. I’ll expound upon why this frame of freedom has not come up until now and will dive further into how this practice actually makes us more free.
NOTE: Save the date: the next Spiritual Workout for Politics & Current Events Monthly Drop-In will take place on Tuesday, July 20, from 5:00-6:30pm PDT. It’s the live, interactive version of this newsletter where we talk about whatever you want to talk about.
Bravo!! Thank you for placing in the public vernacular a long held truism.
Question: How does one postulate freedom’s multiple byproducts include security?
Huzzah! Well said (written)!