Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

  Simple word, not so simple concept. 

You can have freedom from want and that is your basic Communist ideology.

You can have freedom to fail and that is democracy, but it gives you the ability to strive for better and reach higher goals, it does not feed you to stay at home and let you rot in place.

We have had freedom and we keep getting it modified when we have a major shift in which party holds the White House. When one party is there we see lots of tax cuts for the wealthy, more effort to limit unions, more debt for college students and home buyers, less concern for women, the elderly and veterans. The other party does just the opposite and usually reduces the national debt in the process.

  The use of a process of redistricting voting areas and the electoral college is the usual way one party gets in. Sometimes it is because they have selected a very popular person as the nominee but very seldom is it because they win the popular vote. This is one reason the electoral college needs to be abolished as it was established to deal with illiteracy.

  Our freedom to feel safe in our communities came from the knowledge that our police force was there to help and defend us. Today most of us do not know the name of a single police officer on the force in our own towns. We never see them on the street unless they are confronting someone and that is not a good time to introduce yourself. Every town seems to have a parking lot full of cars that are marked as police cars just waiting to go into service and yet the police station has no one in it as they have a remote dispatch office somewhere else. Move often than not you learn the name of a police officer because they are involved in some sort of trial over wrongful beatings or something on that order but not because they were on patrol downtown and you got to talk to them.

  Women in this country have had the freedom to make determinations about their health for over 50 years, but in some states they no longer have that freedom. The state has taken it away because a bunch of men have made the decision that the women are committing a crime if they choose to not carry a fetus to birth. These are the same men that will most likely not stand up and pay any support for that child once it is born, but then that is another issue.

  The right to vote has been fought for and won, and yet we are back to taking away votes because of ____________ name a reason, mostly because it was not cast for the person of choice that the someone wanted to win. Mail in ballots not valid, have to go to polling places, can’t have drinks with you, have to stand so many feet apart, and on and on. 

  In an effort to protect, we make some really dumb laws. Teens can drive at 16, younger in some states if they live on a farm. In most states teens can not consume alcohol until they are 18 and now they can not smoke until 21. Sex is an issue that has not been addressed and the reason is probably because no one knows how to discuss it intelligently without getting embarrassed.