The Pro-Freedom Conspiracy

When a friend offered to lend me his copy of Claire Wolfe’s book The Freedom Outlaw’s Handbook, I eagerly accepted.  I had long read her articles in Backwoods Home magazine and on World Net Daily and I enjoyed her no-holds-barred approach to remaining free in an increasingly unfree world.  Wolfe is likely best known for making the eyebrow raising observation that, “America is at that awkward stage.  It’s too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards.”  

Her sentiment is a bit strong for some folks, but it carries a definite ring of truth to those who are determined to maintain their freedom in the face of ever expanding governmental efforts to rein it in.

Wolfe openly admits that the ideas portrayed in her book are not for everyone, even among the freedom movement.  But she provides some powerful food for thought regarding the erosion of freedom and simple effective steps that we as individuals can undertake to shore up our personal liberties.  

Two of her better suggestions are:

1. Don’t give in to the fear.  2. Don’t assume an expert is an expert.

For the first one Wolfe writes that, “Fear is the most potent of the power-mongers.  They spook us with some threat—which may be real or illusory.  Then they promise to save us from it—as long as we give up just a few more billion dollars, a few rights, a little of our privacy, a lot of our independence, and ultimately all of our freedom.”  An occasional fast from the fear-hyping media works wonders in recalibrating our senses to the world around us.  After just a few days without our poisonous dread supplement, the world starts to look pretty normal.

On the second suggestion, Wolfe addresses a leading source of confusion in our society today; the reflexive deference to anyone cloaked in supposed “authority”.  She cautions against the conditioned response that most of us have been programmed to give since we were schoolchildren.  

Wolfe wisely counsels:

 “Never presume anyone is right—or has more rights than you do—just because he or she is standing in front of a classroom, wearing a uniform, talking legalese, shouting from a pulpit, appearing in the media, or carrying a government badge.”  

This is a tough habit to shake, but a person who is truly determined to live freely will never blindly defer to someone merely because of the position they hold.  Far too many experts are simply functionaries of the bureaucracies they serve and their allegiance is not to the public at large, but to the system they represent.  When those “experts” are defending the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, seatbelt checkpoints, gun control, warrant-less wiretaps or anything else that diminishes our freedoms and expands the power of the state over us, it’s in their interest that we offer our silent obeisance.  Thinking people, on the other hand, know better than to hand over their cherished freedoms without so much as asking why.  

Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau, who literally wrote the book On Civil Disobedience, puts it this way:

“The state is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength.  I was not born to be forced.  I will breathe air after my own fashion.  Let us see who is the strongest.”

Tyranny thrives on cooperation and many of us have unwittingly cooperated our way into what may well become a full-fledged police state.  Claire Wolfe’s Freedom Outlaw’s Handbook offers down-to-earth, practical and often humorous suggestions for those freedom lovers who see the wisdom in maintaining one’s privacy, self-reliance and freedom.

Being part of the pro-freedom conspiracy has never been an easy endeavor.  If it were, far more people would be willing to actively seek their own freedom instead of simply following the herd.  Freedom appears to be on the ropes worldwide thanks to the seemingly untiring efforts of power-hungry bureaucrats and politically correct kommissars seeking to control the public’s thoughts and actions. Even the prospect of abandoning society’s population centers to seek a more peaceful life with simple values is no guarantee of achieving a measure of political freedom.

Those pro-freedom conspirators who are feeling the weight of the challenge before them would do well to read a timely pep talk from Claire Wolfe titled “Finding your own freedom” published in Backwoods Home Magazine some years ago.  In her essay Wolfe makes a powerful case that the personal freedom we seek will not arrive like an ambulance to save us nor will it be delivered by a UPS truck or found by renting a moving van.  Personal freedom, like self-sufficiency, is a do-it-yourself proposition that requires the same kind of daily tireless effort exhibited by those trying to separate us from our freedom.

She points out that a person who is incapable of acting and thinking like a free person will be unable to find freedom no matter where they live.  Wolfe notes that someone who thinks and acts like a free person can still find a degree of personal empowerment, even in a jail cell-- a concept explored by concentration camp survivor Dr. Victor Frankel in his book “Man’s Search for Meaning”.  

Personal freedom requires those who seek it to figure out what we want most in life and then actively pursue it.  It requires a willingness to expect obstacles and to either find away around them or to change course if necessary instead of waiting for a bailout.  Freedom-seekers must also be cautious not to stubbornly sacrifice the good for the perfect when it seems that our goal is always just out of reach.  Being truly grateful for the freedoms we have is not always an easy thing to do but as Wolfe puts it, “If you must have total freedom or nothing…you’ll end up with nothing.”

In charting a course toward greater personal freedom, Wolfe recommends that we start by first establishing what we really want and then set realistic goals and deadlines within the limits of our time, money, skills and outside restrictions for accomplishing our dream.  This is followed by researching and making adjustments as necessary since we are 100% guaranteed to encounter challenges along the way.  

One of my favorite freedom-minded writers by the name of Boston T. Party once opined that to be free one must value liberty more than comfort since, “liberty and comfort are somewhat mutually exclusive.”  However, he does go on to note that “liberty possesses a comfort all its own.”  There’s never been a better time to seek greater personal freedom by becoming part of the pro-freedom conspiracy.

The Terror Vacuum

Note to the reader:  This is a departure from the usual serious tone of my blog.  Unless you know me personally, you might not realize that I have a playful side and love a good laugh.  Especially at the expense of one of my siblings.

Throughout the history of mankind, some of the most fertile ground for pranks and practical jokes has taken the form of sibling rivalry.  Long before TV shows like Malcolm in the Middle raised such things to an art form, youngsters living under the same roof have continually sought unique and creative ways to torment their fellow travelers.  Such mischief can take the form of simple pranks like short-sheeting someone’s bed to more elaborate schemes such as immersing a sleeping sibling’s hand in a bowl of warm water to set them back a few years in the bedwetting department.  The victim’s reactions can vary from having a good laugh at oneself, to mild annoyance with the prankster to murderous rage that can only be conquered through intensive therapy and pharmaceutical intervention.

But occasionally a practical joke is conceived and hatched that serves to raise the bar of prankdom within a particular family line.  This is the tale of one such prank.

In the summer that I was seventeen, I had the misfortune of coming down with a case of full-blown mononucleosis.  What started as a sore throat quickly turned into a massive systemic infection that left me, for the only time I can remember, feeling so sick that I wondered if I might actually die.  It took me weeks to recover my strength to where I could resume my normal activities and that left a prankster minded 17 year old boy with a lot of time on his hands.

At one point of my recovery I was sleeping somewhere in the neighborhood of eighteen hours a day with my waking hours taking place literally around the clock.  Late one night as I was trying to get back to sleep, I heard my sister Julie trip over the vacuum cleaner that had been left in the darkened hallway just outside of our respective bedrooms.  The noise of her knocking over the vacuum cleaner was to me the equivalent of an apple falling on Sir Isaac Newton’s head and the idea for a particularly innovative prank popped into my head at that moment.  I smiled to myself as I went back to sleep and allowed the idea to germinate overnight.

The next day while the rest of my family was going about their daily business at work or at play, I hauled the vacuum cleaner into Julie’s room and making sure that it was switched on but unplugged, I carefully placed it underneath her bed.  At this point I should explain that we were dealing with no ordinary vacuum cleaner.  This was my mother’s 25 year old Kirby upright and was not only one of the sturdiest vacuums ever built, but it was also one of the loudest vacuum cleaners I’d ever heard.  It would fire up with a roaring whine that could spook even seasoned flight deck crewman on an aircraft carrier.  For years it had terrified our family pets and had even frightened me as a young boy when I somehow got the notion that it could suck up small children if it chose.

Loud doesn't even begin to describe it

Once the vacuum was securely hidden under Julie’s bed, I carefully strung the cord behind her nightstand, out the door, along the hallway and into my bedroom.  It took a bit of trickery to camouflage the cord so Julie wouldn’t see it, but by unscrewing the light in our downstairs hallway the resulting darkness made it pretty tough to spot.  The cord stretched to just inside the doorway of my room where an electrical outlet was located.  Now all I had to do was bide my time and wait for Julie to go to sleep.  Because of my weird sleeping hours, it was fitting that I found myself wide awake at 2am; long after everyone had gone to bed.    

It was go time.

I slipped from my bed, turned on the light and knelt down by the electrical outlet with the vacuum cord in my hand.  I was already giggling uncontrollably with the anticipation of what was about to happen.  I plugged in the cord and left it plugged in for a couple of seconds then quickly unplugged it.  In the other room I could hear the Kirby come alive with its characteristic roar and then just as quickly fade back into silence.  In my mind’s eye I could imagine Julie’s eyes fluttering open and her heart pounding as it would when one is suddenly startled from a deep sleep.  

At this point I waited.  I wanted to give her just enough time to convince herself that whatever had woken her up was simply a figment of her imagination; a weird dream involving some unexplained sound.  I was shaking so hard with suppressed laughter that it took great effort to plug the vacuum back in again for the grand finale.  So about the time I figured her heartbeat had begun to slow down to normal, I plugged the vacuum in and let it run for a good long spell occasionally unplugging it and plugging it back in again for added effect.  

It should be noted that the Kirby upright had a large fabric bag that ran the length of its handle and as the vacuum cleaner ran the bag would inflate.  What this meant to my sister was that in addition to the horrendous noise underneath her bed, it felt as though there was something alive moving around down there as the bag inflated and deflated while pushing up against her box springs.  She was absolutely paralyzed with fear.

After about 30 seconds of sheer terror, Julie overcame her paralysis and dashed into my room sobbing, “There’s something under my bed!!”  I was so weak with laughter that I couldn’t even stand up let alone speak clearly, so I simply handed her the cord for the vacuum as if to say, “Here, this should fix it.”  With that, I turned off my light and crawled back into bed where I giggled myself to sleep secure in the knowledge that I’d just given Cain a run for his money as the world’s worst brother.

To Julie’s credit, I found the vacuum cleaner under my bed a few days later in an obvious attempt to exact an eye for an eye.  But as anyone who has pulled off a serious caper can attest; part of the price of success is learning to sleep with one eye open.  

Though it will have been 28 years next summer since the night of the vacuum terror, I still sleep with one eye open.  You see, I have children who love pranks.  And it’s entirely possible that some of them might just try to best me. After all, history does have a tendency to repeat itself.