Category: freedom

The Fabric Of Society #1 Freedom

I am a libertarian.

To me, freedom looks like the essential glue or fabric for society.

(An alternative view would be to say that the dichotomy of Freedom well balanced with Discipline (FbD) is what holds us together.)

But today, on my birthday, I speculate that my poet’s etymological analysis of the word “freedom” can give us both freedom and discipline in one. To do this I first suggest that the roots of the word “freedom” can lead us to call it the home or homes where we can feel free.

This might not actually be what happened in the evolution of language.

But I think it is is worth embracing because I believe it represents what we need.

It’s my birthday.

I am a poet.

So I am taking liberties with in offering this explanation of “freedom”, which literalists might dislike but others might enjoy.

For me, the word “freedom” combines the adjective “free” with the Latin word “domus” or home to mean a home where someone can feel free.

This works for me as the FbD I mentioned above.

Freedom balanced with discipline.

Homes are, or were, most commonly (like the homes I grew up in, first in Canberra, then in Melbourne) heterosexual places where parents raised kids. So there had to be rules.

One online etymological source says that the word “freedom” comes from the Old English “free” and “doom” meaning “regulation” or “statute”. Meaning, I presume, “no regulations”, “no statutes” or what some might call “anarchy”.

I prefer my flight of fancy in going back to the Latin which I studied in my youth for ten years. Maybe “domus” is where “doom” came from.

So, now, on my birthday, I feel I can say:

“Freedom is the home(s) where we feel free.”

A personal definition.

Humane.

Non-authoritarian.

Who agrees?

Geoff Fox, 23rd May, 2023, Down Under

PS I thank the United States Of America for how much help I can get online in artistically pursuing this idea and other libertarian ideas from so many of America’s wonderful freedom lovers like Tulsi Gabbard.

The above piece of word art is a photograph of Tulsi authored by Tulsi with words added by me. This resulting piece of word art is published by me under a GNU Free Documentation License, version 1.2.

I WILL TELL MY STORY #9 My Heritage Betrayed

The picture above shows Victoria Police in 2021 in Melbourne, Australia, pepper spraying a grandmother protesting for freedom after knocking her to the ground.

These cowards, assaulting an old woman, make me ashamed of Australia.

My grandfather JR Blanchard stood up for human rights after World War Two and represented the Presbyterian Church of Australia at Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. He taught me The Lord’s Prayer. I am proud of him.

My grandmother, Clarissa Fox, made me deeply happy because she recognised when I was young that I like to help people. I believe she was a granddaughter of someone in The Australian Aboriginal cricket team which toured England in 1868. She had a cooking show on the radio. I am proud of her.

At Queen Elizabeth’s memorial service in Melbourne this shows the moment when police fingers went inside my underpants after they took me out of prayer with an aboriginal man at the Cathedral and physically assaulted me.

Cowards.

In police uniform.

Assaulting elderly people.

Such is life in Australia.

Geoff Fox, 66 years old today, 23rd May, 2023, Down Under

Women For Freedom #36 Dorothy Levitt

British journalist and racing driver Dorothy Levitt died 101 years ago on May 17 1922, with a unique catalogue of achievements summarised like this on wikipedia:

“She was the first British woman racing driver, holder of the world’s first water speed record, the women’s world land speed record holder, and an author. She was a pioneer of female independence and female motoring, and taught Queen Alexandra and the Royal Princesses how to drive. In 1905 she established the record for the longest drive achieved by a lady driver by driving a De Dion-Bouton from London to Liverpool and back over two days, receiving the soubriquets in the press of the Fastest Girl on Earth, and the Champion Lady Motorist of the World.”

She advised women drivers: Don’t be afraid of your car. Dress well. Don’t forget your gun. You can fix your own car.

Geoff Fox, 17th May, 2023, Down Under

Women For Freedom # 34 Victoria Woodhull

On May 10, 1872, Victoria Woodhull became the first female candidate for US President.

She was implacably opposed to government control of the individual, saying,”I shall not change my course because those who assume to be better than I desire it.”

She was a libertarian when it came to sexual morality: “I am a free lover. I have an inalienable, constitutional and natural right to love whom I may, to love as long or short a period as I can; to change that love every day if I please.”

Geoff Fox, 10 May, 2023, Down Under

I Will Tell My Story # 9 The Vertigo Of Police State Life

Today is the 65th anniversary of the release of the Hitchcock classic “Vertigo”. (Pictured above are Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak in a still from the movie with words added by me.)

Today my head is spinning. Living in a nascent police state which used to be a liberal democracy will do that to you. Vertigo.

Today, I was due to go on trial in this state of Victoria as a result of proudly and quietly seeking prayer and spiritual communion with a Warthaurong man at an Anglican cathedral on 9/11 last year during the Queen Elisabeth memorial service. (Connecting with indigenous people is a big part of my life. I believe my grandmother was the granddaughter of someone from the Aboriginal cricket team in England in 1868. Maybe part of my heritage is Aboriginal. I wish I knew for sure. Vertigo.) Police removed me from that prayer.

I am pretty sure that the young police officer informant who instigated this trial was one of three officers who them physically assaulted me (in the words of one eye witness they “slammed me to the ground”) when I protested loudly to them at being removed from my prayer at the entrance to a crowded cathedral. A little later the same informant stood by and did nothing while another officer sexually assaulted me. At the time, I said quite clearly, “For God’s sake you are groping me now. A hand in my underpants.”, but the informant, a police officer standing one meter away, did not do a thing to investigate this report of a crime. Instead he has gone on to put me on trial on trivial charges.

Just after I entered the courtoom today at about ten o’clock in the morning before the magistrate had arrived, I said a prayer in which I invoked God in both Aboriginal (“Under Bunjil, Under Baiame”) terms and and in monotheistic more Abrahamic terms and then said “This is my court today.” or words similar to that. I made that claim because I was confident that I could get the magistrate to look at the evidence and recommend an IBAC (Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission) investigation of Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Andrew Patton for one or more of his own crimes or the crimes committed by his police officers against me. I was wrong. Today. Maybe I will have better luck next time. No way of knowing for sure. Vertigo.

As I sat down again at the front of the court where I believed, based on previous information given to me by court office staff, that there would be a three hour hearing relating to my case, the police lawyer leading the attack on my rights today approached me and told me, as I recall, that I could be removed from the court. I forget her full statement. (I am stressed. Vertigo.) I angrily told her it was not her job to decide who gets removed than the magistrates’ court. w

When the female magistrate came in, everybody, including myself, stood. When the others sat down, I remained standing and angrily told the magistrate that the police lawyer was trying to preempt the magistrate’s role and that one of the police officers had sexually assaulted me last year.

I was told by the magistrate to leave and that I would be called back when she was ready to hear the case. I was then escorted from the court by three impatient police force personnel wearing guns. I was taken out to the pavement on a cold day and told by one of them that I was not welcome in the court. I asked him if he knew what legislation governed his human rights responsibilities in Victoria (he gave no answer) and I also told him that I thought this action of his might deny me a fair trial since the magistrate had said she would call me back for the case. On the day when I was representing myself against police state crap, I stood alone on the pavement not knowing what would happen next. Modern Australian justice. Vertigo.

Fortunately one of my magnificent support people then arrived. He was late, because he had travelled by car from approximately 100 kilometers away and had misjudged the time needed. He went in and got me a piece of paper saying that that case was adjourned about six weeks till June. If he hadn’t been there I could have been waiting hours and ignored.

Praise The Lord Our Saviour, Sustainer and Protector, for those with the courage to give fellowship in times of injustice against police state crap.

Modern life can be so hard. Especially if you are a 65 year old man in Australia trying to do good but thwarted constantly by authoritarian PC crap:

Vertigo.

Geoff Fox, 9th May, 2023, Australia

Women For Freedom # 33 Joan Of Arc

On this day, 8th May, in 1492, a courageous teenage French peasant girl, Joan of Arc, who had been seriously wounded the day before, lead the armies which broke English Siege at Orleans. This was the crucial turning point in the Hundred Years War leading to French victory decades later. It was not easy. It took guts and determination.

She was soon to die in the cruel hands of the English invaders.

For me. Joan of Arc’s passion for her country and the inspiration she gave can be summed up in two words “Freedom Works”.

Geoff Fox, 8th May, 2023, Down Under

Men For Freedom # 2 John Stuart Mill

Libertarian philosopher John Stuart Mill died 150 years ago on the 7th May, 1873.

He knew that freedom of speech underpins democratic society because it involves both speaking and listening.

Mill wrote:

“He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion… Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them…he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.”

One of the reasons that the country of my birth, Australia, is now moving towards being a police state, is the Victoria Police, who routinely decide who is guilty and then seek evidence to prove that presumption of guilt without being open to evidence which suggests their suspect is innocent.

They did it to Cardinal George Pell. By

They are doing it to me.

Tomorrow police who assaulted me are putting me on trial. A police officer put his fingers inside the back of my underpants a few hundred metres from the Town Hall and Lord Mayor Sally Capp ignores it.

I will fight for my rights as best I can.

And for justice in the Pell case.

I have to.

As Mill wrote:

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse ……..

……. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free …….. “

God Bless Freedom

Geoff Fox, 7th May (American time), 2023, Down Under

Women For Freedom #32 Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher became the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on May 4, 1979.

She fully understood how freedom is at the core of the many factors we must consider in protecting national strength. Her words prove it:

“I love argument. I love debate. “

“Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the highroad to pride, self-esteem, and personal satisfaction.”

“I am not a consensus politician. I’m a conviction politician.”

“To wear your heart on your sleeve isn’t a very good plan; you should wear it inside, where it functions best.”

“It pays to know the enemy – not least because at some time you may have the opportunity to turn him into a friend.”

“……… no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours.”

” …….. human progress is best achieved by offering the freest possible scope for the development of individual talents, qualified only by a respect for the qualities and the freedom of others ……… “

” …….. we must build a society in which we encourage rather than restrict the variety and richness of human nature.”

” ……… there is no freedom where the State totally controls the economy. Personal freedom and economic freedom are indivisible. You can’t have one without the other. You can’t lose one without losing the other.”

” The signposts of socialism point downhill to less freedom, less prosperity, downhill to more muddle, more failure.”

And, perhaps most importantly, the prayerful words she brought to Number 10 Downing Street and spoke on the doorstep there on May 4, 1979:

“Where there is discord, may we bring harmony;
Where there is error, may we bring truth;
Where there is doubt, may we bring faith;
And where there is despair, may we bring hope.“

God Bless Margaret Thatcher

Geoff Fox , May 4, 2023, Down Under

The King Assassination Riots – A Lesson For All Times

The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, on the 4th April 1968, was an extremely sad and tragic crime, which lead to many very violent criminal reactions on April 5th and the following few days. In the King assassination riots, there were 43 deaths, over 3,000 injuries and over 20,000 people arrested.

President Lindon Johnson said of that extreme reaction: “What did you expect? I don’t know why we’re so surprised. When you put your foot on a man’s neck and hold him down for three hundred years, and then you let him up, what’s he going to do? He’s going to knock your block off.”

King can be said to have predicted the riots with these words: “…….  in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones. Violence is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all.”

Lord Please Bless Our Freedoms With The Good Sense To Keep The Peace And Not Kill Out Of Hate

Geoff Fox, 5th April, 2023, Terra Nullius

Donald Trumps Next Great Building – A Comprehensive Coalition For Freedom

The Social Contract is broken.

The Bragg-Daniels attack on Donald Trump is the quintessential modern act of PC stupidity’s destruction of a society.

If it succeeds.

But yet again, President Trump’s vicious enemies have under-estimated and misread the master campaigner they seek to destroy.

The man is a builder.

From way back.

And now his astonishing creativity has the chance to build the single best thing to Make America truly Great Again.

A broad-based coalition for freedom.

These are some of the people I believe President Trump should invite now to agree to be part of his next administration (left to right):

Tulsi Gabbard, the former Bernie Sanders Democrat. She is now a CPAP star. Pat Buchanan recommended her to replace Bolton in the first Trump Administration. She looks great. She speaks great. And, in my opinion, she thinks great.

Mitt Romney. If Trump makes peace with the RINOs, he returns to The White House. Romney has just stated Trump is unfit for office, but magnanimity to Romney from Trump now extends Trump’s base. If a totally united Republican Party standing for freedom goes to the people in 2024, the Trump Democrats stand a chance of outnumbering yesteryear’s Reagan Democrats and potentially delivering landslides in all three houses.

Nikki Haley, former Governor of South Carolina for six years until she became Trump’s ambassador to the U.N.

Elise Stefanik, who was 30 years old when she entered Congress.

Governor Ron DeSantis, a very strong candidate for the VP spot on the ticket and, if willing, a certainty to be in Trump’s Unity Freedom Cabinet.

Marjorie Taylor Greene a very conservative woman from Rome, Georgia.

Senator Ted Cruz, the first Hispanic-American to become a U.S. Senator from Texas.

Kari Lake, a media star and Trump loyalist.

Senator Rand Paul, the very talented and highly moral son following in the footsteps of his truly immortal libertarian father, Ron.

A broad coalition for freedom like this would be unbeatable in 2024.

Can The Donald build it?

I hope so.

Geoff Fox, 5th April, 2023, Down Under