America is losing its spirit of Freedom and Liberty

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Listen, I know we did this on us last week, but prior to 4th of July on the radio, showing the podcast, but you know what? I’m gonna delve into it a little bit again. I’m giving it a little bit more thought. First and foremost, on a positive, a good note here, I got a great letter from a client, a listener obviously, here, the program that sent me, it was basically responding to my rant last weekend.

on the radio show about my take on the country and actually sent me a paper that this gentleman wrote in the third grade. In the third grade, his mother had saved everything and this was written January 28, 1964. I like it here.

I like the United States of America. I like the way we all live without fear. I like to vote for my choice, speak my mind, raise my voice. Yes, I like it here. I am so lucky to be in America and I’m so thankful each of the year. I can do as I please, cause I’m free as a breeze. Yes, I like it here. I can climb to the top of a mountain, so high and lift my head to the sky and my, how grateful I am.

For the way that I’m living, I’m working and giving and helping the land. Oh dear. Yes, I like it. I like it. I like it here. It’s almost got like Dr. Seuss type of cadence to it. But I mean, this is, again, 10 year old, it’s pretty darn good. Pretty darn good. And it broke me saying, you know, that paper like this can never be written today unless it all include all kinds of woke agenda and progressive ideologies that are being indoctrinated into kids.

and share it with you. You allowed me to share it with you here. And again, I’ve talked about this before. I’m gonna basically pose the question. And I ask it all the time. I ask it all the time. And I say, I’ve been doing this for a long time here on the radio and prior to that, and have had my daily drive time programs as well and interacted with the public.

And I always ask the question, I say, do people really wanna be free? Do people really wanna be free? I know we saw it yesterday. I mean, fireworks and flag waving and all this stuff that’s going on. Carrie Carlisle from the Miss Institute wrote a piece on this, wanna share some of it with you. July 4th is upon us. Many Americans are excited to celebrate their so-called

independence. Why? How is July 4th be any different from the one from 2020? Haven’t the three years revealed that Americans not only take liberty for granted, but readily reject it? Is it not the least bit curious that some, if not most of those who will be sending off fireworks also begged to be locked down and masked? Oh, wasn’t that long ago, people?

wasn’t that long ago. Yes, the frauds that are public health and democracy have been exposed over the past three years, but what’s changed? Doubling down on idiocy seems just as politically profitable as exposing it. So perhaps the talking heads have no interest in solutions. They’re acolytes who’d rather be coddled than be free. Likewise have no interest in solutions beyond believing whatever makes them feel comfortable.

And a couple quotes for you. St. John Menken, 1880, died in 1956. The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe. Humanity does not care for freedom. The mass of the people realize that they are not up to it. What they want is being fed, led, amused, and above everything, drilled.

One of my favorite economists, Joseph Schumpeter, stated that. Again, he’s the guy behind creative destruction that we talk about all the time. It’s James Buchanan. Persons who are afraid to take on independent responsibility that necessarily goes with liberty want to be told what to do and when to do it. They seek order rather than uncertainty. An order comes at an opportunity cost they seem willing to bear.

Most people, this is Peter Hitchens, quite like being afraid of something, and many dislike freedom and the responsibility that comes with it.

Again, freedom. People talk about freedom all the time. And I’ve said the same thing. I said freedom is not easy. And I had many great conversations. Again, it was a great thing about Fort

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I’m thinking to myself, I said, you know, maybe, maybe we should rather than look at things through a left and right spectrum, maybe we should look at things from maybe change politics from freedom, freedom versus subjugation.

And I’ve mentioned this before. That’s why I’m not a Libertarian fellow. I’m not a member of the Republican or Democratic Party. I can’t. I left the Republican Party years ago. I constantly make fun of Republicans all the time. Large lot of them there in Washington, DC. They claim to be conservative. They say, freedom and play their country songs. Proud to be an American. We’re at least fine. Oh, I’m free. And they’re not.

They’re country club Republicans and the difference between that group and Democrats is minuscule. Minuscule. Because they like control. They like control. And again, it’s their thought process. And again, I was explaining this to people. Are they wrong? At some point in time, I questioned, I said, are they off? See, to me,

I think, I feel that the goal is for a person to truly enjoy life and, you know, expect, get the most out of life. It is to live a life of freedom and overcoming obstacles and achieving goals. You know, that free will that we have as human beings, and we have to go out there and do it. And it’s, again, it’s not easy.

It can be scary but again both Republicans plenty Republicans plenty of Democrats out there They don’t think like that They feel it is their duty that you know what we’re again We’re here to take care of all the people that do not want freedom And again, i’ve been doing this a long time i’m gonna be honest with you many don’t

Many don’t. Years ago, years ago, now it’s becoming up, well, it was a little bit of a topic and it went away because the two leading candidates for the presidency right now, they have no desire whatsoever to do anything about the social security time bomb that’s ticking at this point in time. The last person that actually did try to do something about it was George W. Bush, and he wanted to take 2%. 2% of that 14% that you pay and your employer pays

Basically establish an account where you could actually keep the money and invest it on your own. Neil Bortz posed this question years and years and years ago. I remember on his program. How many people out there? Listen right now. Or if you just do man on the street interviews, you would go around and say, you know what? How would you like it to keep your entire paycheck? Obviously, government’s gonna take their taxes, but how about we get rid of the whole payroll taxing and you keep it?

And you know, guess what? No more social security. You keep your money and you invest it and you do what you think is right with that. I don’t know, people don’t want that. And I’m gonna be honest with you. If I think about it, even though I would want it, I know how much I’ve been paying in over the years and what I would have been able to do with that money, investing it and what I’m gonna get down the road.

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They don’t want the responsibilities. I’m going to tell you most wouldn’t. I bet if they actually pose that question, it would probably be 60 to 70% would want no part of that whatsoever. And I could almost guarantee as well if that did go through, how many people would just not do it? They would not save. They wouldn’t be responsible. They would spend their money.

haphazardly. Again, freedom, you want it when? You want it when? You like talk, Americans like talking about it? Oh, they like, we like patting ourselves on the back. I love throwing the world, we’re democracy around all the time. We’re not a democracy. Democracy is not nowhere to be found in the United States Constitution. Okay? Nowhere to be found. Democracy.

Quite dangerous. But think about it for a second. I mean, you think about how far we have come, the size of government. It popped into my head. Do you remember, it was a Barack Obama, when he was running against Mitt Romney, he had a campaign. It was an advertisement. It was some internet thing. It was called the life of Julia. And it did.

It was Obama’s vision of America. This is a woman named Julia. It shows her from cradle to grave and all of the government programs and handouts that Julia gets throughout her entire life and they throw in all the liberal crap, trap, crap, that she’s got time to volunteer at her local community garden and she starts her own web company. Oh, she has a child, decides to have a child at 32, no mention of

father in that equation. But again, yeah, you’re in our trial, getting all sorts of handouts and giveaways.

Julia doesn’t want to be free.

do it as one and be free. And let’s be honest. I would say, just getting into the vision of America, I would argue that probably more than 50% of the country.

would rather just do what they’re told and rely upon the government. Look at how popular, oh, Obamacare, look how many people out there getting subsidized by, we the taxpayers, for their healthcare. I go back to what I was spending for healthcare prior to Obamacare and what I’m paying now, and it’s obscene.

It’s absolutely obscene. I’ve said this before here, and I, you know, it’s what I want for my kids. And again, my kids grew up in this household, and they’ve got two parents that love them very much, and we’ve taken them places, provided for them. I question myself sometimes, have I been hard enough on them? They didn’t.

You know, work as much, you know, they did more sports than they did work, actual work out there, you know, now I see my eldest son busting his butt this summer and, uh, you know, doing all million different jobs. And I said, okay, maybe, you know, hopefully he got what rubbed off. Um, but, you know, I, I want my kids to grow up in a world where freedom, freedom is the, um,

Freedom, you can succeed beyond your wildest dreams, but you also have that freedom where you’re gonna fail as well. You make bad choices, you suffer the consequences. We’ve all made bad choices in life. I’ve made bad choices in life, and I’ve suffered the consequences. If you make good choices.

Guess what? You should be able to enjoy the rewards behind those good choices.

Again, the world can be frightening. What’s around the corner? What’s next? You know, a lot of people, they don’t want it. They’d rather just sit there and get things handed to them. I wrote that column years ago about the waiting place there from Dr. Seuss. It’s people just waiting around for something to happen or some sort of handout or some sort of giveaway.

They don’t want to deal with the unknown. And yeah, it can be frightening. But man, can it be rewarding? And that’s what makes life really rewarding. I had this conversation this past weekend talking about I got a high school reunion that’s coming up shortly. And I haven’t been on a high school reunion since my tenure a long time ago.

And I have people that I’m pretty close with back from high school, but I also had a large spot of friends back from that point in time. But when I left Albany, when I left, you know, went to school, went away, and then, you know, moved on to New York and started building my own business and whatnot.

I remember the jokes, you know, because of all the hours that I was working and putting in and waiting table, doing all these different things, trying to make it and grinding through. And a lot of my old friends and football buddies from high school, lacrosse buddies from high school, they were content. They were content, you know, just working for the state. I just wasn’t for me. Wasn’t for me. And again, I…

as you get older and you start doing that, they drift away. It’s almost like they resent you for what you’re doing. And it’s odd, it really is. And I, yeah, and as I said, 4th of July, I reflect on this all the time. Because I say, you get that left and right dilemma. And I try to bring human nature into it as well. I try to bring my faith and religion.

The Bible teaches us and yeah, we’re supposed to be. We’re supposed to be charitable. We’re supposed to pick people up when they’re down and help to lift them up. But to me, I always thought that, you know, what God wants of us is to help these people to go out there and succeed. This is why for me,

You know, we have clients and they’re doing well and I’m watching success over the decades or when I’m coaching. And, you know, I, you know, I get a message on my birthday, you know, a few weeks ago from, you know, from kids, kids that are, you know, doing all these wonderful things that I was their coach back in, you know, 2022, 2002, 2003, when I first started the lacrosse program down in Florida, I’m seeing it. I’m watching on ESPN.

The national championship, there’s players that I used to coach and the success that they have. Our goal should be to be lifting people up. Lifting people up. But again, they have to want it too.

They have to want it to. And again, I think there’s just on both sides of the political spectrum. Again, this is how we work here in this country. Got Republicans, Democrats. Um, yeah, it’s, they, they almost treat human beings like rescue pets. It’s like their job is just to, you know, give them money, take care of them. You know, they’re just, you know, they’re not capable of doing anything else. And, you know,

I think that God gives each and every one of us a certain talent, certain ability, that we’ve got to figure out what that is and we have to go do something with it. And getting people addicted to handouts and giveaways and all these things, it’s a narcotic. It truly is, it’s a narcotic, not good for this country. Again, my belief system, my belief system, anyway. Again.

I’m gonna probably talk about it this weekend again, because this topic, it hits nerves of people. And I get messages and whatnot from this. So we’ll probably continue this weekend on the radio show as well. Watchdog on wallstreet.com.