Why does government keep growing, no matter who we elect, no matter which party is in charge?
Why do freedom lovers, those who truly want limited, Constitutional government, continue to lose the battle?
There are two answers. First, the freedom battle loses — year after year, election after election, decade after decade — because it is poorly funded.
The political parties are well funded, mind you, but neither party truly stands for freedom. Freedom lovers lose because they are underfunded, pure and simple. More on this below.
Second, those who stand for freedom lose the battle to bigger government because the regular people can’t see what is happening. We don’t see armed troops in jackboots marching daily through our streets, entering our homes, and stealing our property and lives.
When the people can’t see this happening, it’s hard for them to get too excited about it. They don’t know what to fight against. They don’t know who the enemy is. They aren’t sure who to fight, or how to fight them.
The Paper Sword
We don’t realize that Soft Power attacks (certain licensing requirements, regulations, agency policies, commercial codes, revenue bills, statutory changes, executive orders, secret agency procedures, exemptions, ex post facto decisions, and court cases) are as dangerous to freedom as Hard Power attacks (invading armies, armed rebellions, political officials with their own armies, or government use of force against its own people).
In history, the regular people often respond to Hard Power attacks on freedom, but they seldom even notice Soft Power attacks until their freedoms are too far gone to recover.
Citizens of nations almost never realize it when Soft Power is attacking them. The biggest irony of this is that throughout human history Soft Power has taken away more freedom than Hard Power. In fact, Hard Power is seldom used until Soft Power has weakened a nation.
Today, we are witnessing a wholesale reduction of our freedoms — nearly all through Soft Power attacks that few people notice.
As one insightful friend wrote to me in an email:
“We don’t know who or what to fight against. I still believe the majority of Americans value freedom…We, as a culture, do not know how to defend freedom in this new age of information, nor do we know who or what to defend it from.
“All the average citizen sees — or is supposed to see — is things going a little darker, a little dirtier, a little more crowded, each day. There is, for most Westerners in any case, no force-of-state brutes-in-boots and uniforms…We see only the results of class stratification and economic divergence…
“The most dangerous enemy is the one you can’t see.”
Americans would stand up and vote to get their freedoms back, if only they understand how much they are under attack.
If they could see their freedoms being stolen by Hard Power attacks at the level that they are truly under siege from Soft Power, they’d change things — and fast.
But the regular people don’t see, because Soft Power is used behind-the-scenes, on paper.
How to Win the Battle
This is why only a nation of voracious readers can maintain its freedoms.
And this brings us back to the first reason freedom is losing: underfunding.
Not only do we need a nation of voracious readers, we need a lot of successful businessmen, professionals, entrepreneurs, and others of means to fund freedom — to fund those things that help the regular people see and understand the impact of Soft Power.
This is the current battle for the future of freedom.
- Will people of means fund effective responses to Soft Power attacks on our freedom?
- Enough to win the battle?
- Will enough regular people take entrepreneurial action and become people of means?
On these three questions turn our future.
Which of these three battles are you helping fight?
Oliver DeMille is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling co-author of LeaderShift: A Call for Americans to Finally Stand Up and Lead, the co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.
Among many other works, he is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, The Coming Aristocracy, and FreedomShift: 3 Choices to Reclaim America’s Destiny.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
I respectfully disagree. I think there is one reason we keep loosing the freedom battle and it is this: We are focused on fighting all the symptoms and forget to join together to heal the root problem, our constitution. Freedom fighters are so split up fighting against symptoms, that we forget what we are fighting for and will often even fight each other because we might disagree on 1% of the symptoms. If all of us simply joined together in working to restore the constitution (by passing amendments, because that is the only peaceful way to do so), then all of the symptoms would become trivial.
Your second reason comes close to this as we are indeed blind to the root problem because the symptoms are so difficult to look past, but I feel that it slightly misses the mark.
Money is NOT the issue. Conservatives have a great deal of money, and if you don’t think so then I’m sorry sir, but you are blind. The reason it may SEEM that we don’t have enough money is because the money is again being spent on symptoms rather than the root problem. And I for one know that God will provide the resources when the people are ready. Indeed, that does not mean we should be slack and not seek to be successful businessmen, but I do not believe that is the problem.
I agree with the article because most Americans are uninformed and will stay that way until circumstances affects them personally. We don’t see enough examples of people standing up for there freedoms because of the strong arm of the government shoving them back into a pigeonhole, ridiculed and shamed, especially the younger generation who hasn’t experienced the kind of patriotism their elders have. The biggest problem is the secret combinations between both parties, and Corporations with the promise of money and power, enacting laws and judges to keep the people in control. When you control the laws and judges, you control the people.
I love this article. The main problem with freee market capitolists is that we are too busy producing to spend time educating ourselves and our neighbors about the soft attacks and the real solutions. The reason that money is required is that the majority of Americans only get their education through main stream media and paid advertisments. In my opinion though, the freedom movement can never win on that platform since main stream media is wholly owned by elitests that use it to centralize power. In my opinion, LIfe Leadership creates the most viable solution to the challenge of getting the freedom message to the masses. This is truly not designed to be a plug but just a siting the unique opertunity that we have to monitize the movement of freedom down to the individual activist level in order to create hundreds of thousands of professional freedom activists that are paid to study, teach, and recruit others to do the same. I really see it as our greatest hope. I appreciate Oliver’s contribution to Life’s content and I have never been so optimistic! Fired Up!
David, I agree with you. Conservatives spend a lot of time griping at each other instead of working together. I already wrote an article on this. Conservatives do have a lot of money, but most of them spend it on politics and symptoms – not the causes of freedom. You’re right! That was my point.
My other point was the same as Jefferson’s: When a lot of citizens are independent business owners, they tend to stand up for freedom more than when almost everyone is an employee dependent on a paycheck. The focus in most schools is over 99% on jobs; we need a voice for entrepreneurship too.
And there are no free nations in history where a majority of the voting citizens aren’t entrepreneurs. If that’s not your mission, don’t think I mean for your to change lanes. But you do still need to support entrepreneurs and teach the value of entrepreneurship to the rising generation.
In the founding era over 80% of voting citizens were independent entrepreneurs and owners – and it had a great impact on how they voted. With less than 3% of today’s citizens as successful business owners, we vote very differently.
Every election we vote for politicians promising more government programs. It’s not that we need more money, it’s that we need more entrepreneurs and owners who make money – and use it to support freedom, not politics. Causes, not symptoms.
Good insight! ~Oliver
Oliver, once again… you nailed it on the head. More people need to become entrepreneurs, so that they can have “true wealth” (Time and Money… not just one or the other). With this time the can learn more, and influence others more (with their Time and Money). Those of us that have already become entrepreneurs, as a whole may have a lot of money already, but as David states above, “ We are focused on fighting all the symptoms and forget to join together to heal the root problem…” …Though I don’t think that the root problem is the constitution, but something even deeper than that. Most people don’t really want to be free, because they don’t even know what freedom really is. They think freedom is something handed to them by government, or even endowed by God. To some degree, this is true, but in reality TRUE freedom is something that is seized upon by the individual seeking it (when it is offered). And God is offering it to everyone within the borders of this great nation. To fully understand my comments, one would have to know the subtle difference between Liberty and Freedom. (Research Liber, or Liber Education for further information… It would take too long to explain it, and if you really want it, you will reach out and SEIZE it.)
Most entrepreneurs do know what freedom really is, because they are living it. They may not understand “Liberty”, but they most often do understand “Freedom”. Their paycheck doesn’t stop because the “Boss” (an entrepreneur of sorts – in most cases) takes a different path. They own their paycheck. Most people that have a “Job” don’t even know what freedom really is, because they have never ever really had it. They pat themselves on the back, and cheer every 4th of July, and then as loyal subjects get back to their masters business. They then send their kids to be raised by someone else, and come home so tired that all they want to do is “enjoy some recreation” with their kids. They live their lives from job to fun, and then from fun to job. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And now it has gotten so bad that both parents (if they are even still together) have jobs. It has been said, “If you win the ‘rat race’, you (and your kids) are still (a) rat(s).” This has now gone on long enough that by the time someone reaches adulthood, it is very likely that they will “go to School” to “get an Education”, and instead of “getting an Education”, they will have “received sufficient Training” to “get a Job.” Then they will work the next 45 years or so (funding someone else’s dreams). And if they are lucky they can live off of Social INSecurity or become a greater at Walmart. This is even the case for many doctors and lawyers who rack up so much student loan debt that it takes them decades to pay off.
Now, before I am miss understood, I am not against “Jobs” though it may sound that way. For some people, that is where God has called them. But for many, the only reason that they still have a job, is because they are too cowardly to break free, or to even learn HOW to break free..
In essence, the “freest nation in the world” is no longer free… not because we couldn’t be, but because its people choose not to be (granted many of these choose this path because they don’t know better). This is a tough pill to swallow… I know… I had to swallow it too. At first it really angered me, because it made me feel disrespected and inadequate. But until the “average” citizen can look the facts square on, and choose the path of freedom (almost synonymous with entrepreneurship) they will continue to slide down the path to bondage. The “Parable of the Talents” in the New Testament fits very nicely here. I suggest that the reader look it up, and re-read it. It will probably surprise you.
Samuel Adams put it this way:
“If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude, better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you… “
(We should love liberty enough to obtain wealth, so that we can use the freedom that wealth brings to do good.)
Ben Franklin Stated something to the effect of:
“People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security *(I would interject a steady paying “secure” job) deserve neither and will lose both.“
Once again, if God wants someone to work a “job” I make no comment about that. Frankly, he knows a lot more than me, and is “way above my pay grade”.
In short, the problem with America is not at the top, it is at the bottom. The American problem is the American Home. The American Home problem, I believe, is the American Job. And the American Job problem rests squarely on the shoulders of each person who has one, and each person who promotes the “Jobs” agenda.
“The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves.” (George Washington)
Are you ready to be free??? Well then, you will need to get your liberty first. And, I might add, Oliver DeMille is an excellent mentor if you want to achieve liberty, and in so doing seize your freedom.
It is hard to believe that we will ever have enough money before it’s too late to save our freedoms. It is hard to believe that we will ever reverse the “get a job” trend taught to at least 97% of our rising generation, among many other damaging trends, in time to save our liberties.
Educating the populace and voting in the “right” people does not work fast enough. We see nothing but decline at the poles and no matter who we vote in, DC is too big.
We must unite behind an Article 5 Convention of States. To those who are too scared of the citizens who voted in Obama twice, or too scared that the power of DC will control the convention and reduce our freedoms even more, I would remind them of the fears our founders faced for the treasonous risks they took in ensuring their (and our) freedoms: To be hanged by the head until unconscious. Then cut down and revived. Then disemboweled and beheaded. Then cut into quarters; each quarter to be boiled in oil – the remnants then scattered abroad so that the last resting place of the offender would remain forever unnamed, unhonored, and unknown.
Are there fears? Are their risks? Yes! Our founders knew more about them than we do, and yet they stood up to them! The other options we talk about just won’t do the job fast enough. United we stand, divided we are falling!
It’s time to unite under and Article 5 Convention. There are enough people who want to reduce the power of the federal government, right and left wing, which is what the current Convention of States project is pushing through.
Before responding to this post, I would urge you to educate yourselves on the arguments for and against an Article 5 Convention by watching Micheal Ferris debate John Birch Society leaders at this link: http://conventionofstates.com/michael-farris-debates-leaders-john-birch-society-oklahoma/
Great comments! Love this article and love the discussion!