But you are free after all

There are a few ways to react when you read suggestions like "The Dark Years Are Here," which predicts: "Starting in the next 6 months and culminating in 2011-12 the world will experience a series of tumultuous events which will be life changing for most people in the world. But 2011-12 will not be the beginning of an upturn in the world economy but instead the start of a long period of economic, political and social upheaval that could last for a couple of decades."

And it would be easy to fall into dismay when you find a historical review that says, essentially, that if the words of the Declaration of Independence light a fire in your heart, the flame was extinguished when the Articles of Confederation were abandoned in 1789: "The assertion that Americans gained their freedom through the War for Independence (War for Sovereignty) is a myth, one that is highly useful to the federal State. The assertion that Americans have remained free is one of the bigger frauds in history."

The main things to avoid are discouragement and fear. As George Herbert eloquently put it when he wrote his Dune books, "Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration." And if we are indeed at the beginning of a long period of upheaval, if we have indeed bought into an illusion of freedom, the first thing we need is our wits about us going forward.

Herbert's Bene Gesserit chanted a litany against fear, of which the quote above is part:

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

It's a sound process for cleansing the mind of fear's effects. Of course the future is scary; the unknown always is. But get your mind clear in this moment, and ideas about how to prepare will present themselves.

The rulers of this country have not been especially interested in maintaining citizens' political freedom — certainly not in recent years, by some accounts not for a couple of centuries and by this account not ever. And yet hearts and souls continue to jump at the idea of freedom, and millions of people have come to these shores over the years in pursuit of the relative political freedom afforded here.

I use the qualifier "political" freedom above, because the Declaration was correct: We each were born free. Free will and expression are the default settings of the human soul. Governments may be formed with an idealistic goal to "secure" those freedoms, but what governments do best is inhibit and crush free spirits.

But no government can change your mind. No government can make you afraid without your permission. Yes, a government has few qualms about interfering with your life, your liberty and your peaceful pursuit of happiness.

But you are free.