Category: Opinion Opinion letters by Various Authors
This section addresses the issues of U.S. and global politics. Its starting point is driven by historic events that have set the stage for a new American ideal, based upon faith in the "Ten entitlements" rather than on the "Ten Commanments".

THE NEW FREEDOMS
by Richard R. Tryon
May 31,1993

Origin:
The “Four Freedoms”

“The Four Freedoms was a list of basic human rights formulated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Jan. 6, 1941. In his State of the Union message to Congress, Roosevelt identified them as freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Later that year they were in large part incorporated into the ATLANTIC CHARTER, a joint British and American statement of aims for a peaceful world. The Four Freedoms were criticized by some as being too vague to serve as a guide for practical statesmanship.” Source: Grolier Encyclopedia.

Now, 52 years later, we can see that Congress and the Supreme Court has moved to show that these “vague” freedoms have finally been almost fully implemented into our social fabric and legal rule of law.

The first, “Freedom of speech and expression” is now permitting the most obscene ideas of 1941 to be broadcast in thousands of daily TV and radio expressions of music based upon the foulest of language, and grossest forms of human ability to pervert all expression into being not only acceptable, but fully protected by the Court’s inability to contain it. Six year old children now must witness rape, incest, and murderous mayhem as a daily TV excitement. So far, sodomy, hasn’t been performed in full living color, while the participant are being murdered or tortured, but this wonderful “freedom of speech” will be defended as the rational to accept whoever uses the scene to sell soap on TV, and experienced on the school buses.

“Freedom of Worship” was an idea in 1941 that related to the founding father’s conviction that the U.S. should be a place where all religious thought should be tolerated. The state should not pick and support any one as an official religion, but tolerate all. Now, of course, the Court has jumped on the simplistic notion that any public evidence of religious thought constitutes encouragement of an official state religion. Profoundly ignorant, the public can’t understand that “In God we Trust” on our coins is not an official state religion as it doesn’t favor any individual Church or body of religious thought. The Court is heading for the ultimate conviction that the government must not support any thought that can be said to be part of a religion under the separation clause of the First Amendment.

The 1ST AMENDMENT provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise, or abridging freedom of speech or press or the right to assemble and petition for redress of grievances.” It was never intended to be misconstrued, and it never entered anyone’s mind at the time that it could be so badly interpreted, but modern thinking revels in the ability to twist the founding father’s words to suit the current fashion.


“Freedom of want” is the hallmark of all Marxist thinking. The State is responsible for the care and feeding of the people from the “cradle to the grave”. No matter that we go broke because the people who could provide risk capital for the creation of new types of work (read jobs) are instead paying their capital to the government so that government can create the jobs (read transfer of capital to those looking like they are doing something known to bureaucrats as useful activity for some period of time). Fifty-two years later, Roosevelt’s idea is now a reality. If anyone in the U.S. dies of starvation today it is only because they have been hidden from public view. Known cases are very rare and always have been.

The fourth, “Freedom of Fear”, was intended to relate to a dream of world peace monitored by a U.N. that would use diplomacy of the English vintage type to get the people of Bosnia to stop killing one another over ancient arguments and quest for control of land that conveniently can be traced to ethnic or racial groupings. If diplomacy doesn’t work, then a safe military force needs to be employed. Stalin knew how to keep the peace with help from Marshall Tito and his professional killers. Threat of nuclear destruction of first small towns, and then larger cities, backed up with deeds might get the warring parties to behave, but then who wants to push the button?

So, we limit our notion today of “Freedom of Fear” to support of the NRA’s misuse of the “right to bear arms” language of the Second Amendment that “guarantee the people's right to bear arms and limit the quartering of soldiers in private homes. “ No matter that it was written to permit the establishment of home militia’s to defend against governmental excess. Today it means that machine guns in the home, hand guns in the pocket or car are conventional rights and we see murder as a rapidly growing event as a result. But, then it is the fault of the people who pull the triggers, not the people who support the industry of making the guns, so the Court doesn’t move nor does the Congress against this important freedom.

So, we thank President Roosevelt for setting into motion the whole liberal ideology that today sets the stage for a new set of laws that will in time supersede the ancient Ten Commandments (Not even known to most people), and the “Four Freedoms” of 1941 with the ultimate of the Great Society’s social engineering dream:
















The Ten Entitlements
as of July 4, 1993
(subject to change by Congress)

What wonderful news! Our teenagers are inheriting a world with a new set of understandings that can be called the Ten Entitlements: These are based on the two most important accomplishments of the past fifty years:

The first of these Entitlements is the greatest and the second is like unto it; and all the rest depend upon them. It comes from F.D. Roosevelt’s words changed from “Freedom of Religion” to “Freedom From Religion. Although Roosevelt may have enjoyed a sexual liaison to escape from Eleanor, he didn’t openly support the “gay rights” movement now being encouraged by Clinton.

1. We are entitled to know that God is not really dead, it never existed. Separation of Church and State requires elimination of any public reference that can be remotely connected to any meaningful thought that could connect people to any philosophy, as all such can be labeled as part of a religion. Atheism is not to be labeled as a religion even though philosophically it is one of nihilism or denial.

2. The purpose of life is to pursue your governmentally mandated rights of support called the five freedoms:
a. Freedom of want - free food stamps, and condoms.
b. Freedom from fear - free health care and the “right to carry a gun”.
c. Freedom of sexual choice - whatever pleases you is normal and defended by all.
d. Freedom from “real” work but with the right to take cash from a government created job.
e. Freedom to exercise via the right of civil disobedience the means of stopping any unwanted governmental action.

3. Youth are entitled to the school of their choice that is paid for by someone else. It is a place for discussion with ones peers (rap), social play (fun, physical sports), experimentation in discovery of social and sexual orientation (health), and for the learning of ways to avoid pain from the bad guys (Fuzz or Pigs). The teachers enjoy tenure and enjoy automatic promotion too.

4. We are entitled to employment and recognize that it is sometimes an easy way to get cash for essentials not provided by government like:
a. Cars
b. Drugs

5. We are not concerned that we are not entitled to all property, as most property is not worth owning, but it may be taken and used,and discarded without fear, as needed, from those dumb enough to own it.

6. Some things are worth owning like cars and kids. You are entitled to abuse either as long as you can or until they fail to perform and are discarded. Taxes will provide for redistribution of income to partially support your need to feed both.

7. When all else fails, you are entitled to prison, as a refuge, even though such is to be avoided, unless you need time, with total State support, to recover before moving on again with your own agenda in the pursuit of pleasure.

8. All are entitled to Communal shelters and medical service for protection from weather and illness as these are guaranteed rights for those not interested in maintaining private housing. Public taxes must be used to pay for this right.

9. You are entitled to know that: Shared property rights between consenting, same sex adults may legally be called marriage and allowed the same property tax shelters including Estate exclusions, as provided other normal marriages.Some states may find a new word for same sex marital combinations SSMCs. Determining legal responsibilities upon termination of the legal union will keep a lot of lawyers busy for a long time.

10. AIDS is an accident to be avoided, but not to worry, the government will find a cure in time and you are entitled to it.

RESPONSES and issues or opinions...

The following letter by
Richard R. Tryon on March 11, 2000

was sent to one Robert Becker, editor of the "Viewpoint" section of the "San Juan Star". Its subject is not only timely for Puerto Rico, but for the rest of the world too.
Why? Because PR is the only prosperous island in the world with 3.8 million people on it that do not know how to relate to the U.S., the world's most feared and respected, and coveted nation.

Just two days ago, some 90 would be immigrants from the Dominican Republic paid to take a ride in a small wooden boat that managed to successfully get a few of them to the beach on the island of hope called Puerto Rico. Many died, a few were captured and some may now be hiding or with friends on the island.

These people are prepared to work for their living and only want a chance to do so in P.R. rather than in the D.R. How strange that some on the island are working to get the U.S. to declare PR an independent nation against the will of 96% of the people of PR.

They may have found the way to do it! This letter will explain how they are using the "Ten Entitlements" to replace the "Ten Commandments" as their beacons to guide them to the future. Strange as it may seem, they have successfully enlisted help from the Episcopal Bishop and two leading Roman Catholic bishops as well. Men who think that they are fighting for human rights, peace, justice, health and love for 9,600 people on the island of Vieques.

Their campaign is going well. They have stopped the U.S. Navy from using its lands on Vieques as one of the many military training bases in the U.S. where live ammunition is fired to allow our nation's soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines to learn how to live with such awesome weapons.

The firing range on Vieques has been used since 1941 when WWII required such a place to train. It was purchased by the Navy although a mid section of the 22 mile long island was left in private hands to house a few hundred residents. They have fished and grown crops for fifty years and some have worked for the U.S. Navy while their population grew to some 9,600 souls today.

The church leaders have picked up on allegations that things like accidental use of 200+ shells that had uranium tips were used on the range of Vieques in the last year. Somehow these extra expensive shells, with tips that will penetrate heavy armor are thought to be dangerous to people living 10 miles away from their point of landing on the range! Handlers, and people who made the shells are apparently not threatened, but those living ten miles away are thought to be experiencing a higher incidence of cancer because when the shell penetrates a tank the tip creates a dust that is slightly radioactive. Although this has been shown to be not true dangerous, if the U.S. Navy used something that involves the word uranium, then many people will accept that it must give off radiation that kills!

Trading on such fears, the church leaders and the leaders of the Independence party have managed to fool all of the major party leadership in PR into taking the same side of the argument. After all, you must be for PR first!

This letter then shows the dilemma that has arisen and the task now before the media and the leaders of the island.

How nice to see your paper finally rising to the challenge of trying to save PR from its worst possible nightmare! Rubén Berríos needs to do nothing, say nothing, just sit on the beach in defiance of a U.S. The U.S. Navy is stopped dead in its tracks by a modern day civil right- one of my Ten Entitlements. Yes, the majority of the people now feel that among our natural entitlements is one called civil disobedience or the right to stop the elected government by any minority that manages to excite the support of enough of the people to make the officials cringe at the thought of doing their job!

Susan Soltero’s piece today on citizenship clearly shows the need to make major effort to avoid catastrophe at the hands of the U.S. Congress. How many letters and calls from anxious parents of Navy personnel, lacking live ammunition training, will it take before those elected to office react? If the U.S. Navy and the U.S. President can be defied by a man camping on the beach because all officials fear a massive reprisal, if the order is issued to clear the beach, Congress will react! Professing love of U.S. citizenship may win the vote in PR for something other than independence, but it will have little impact on an aroused and angry Congress.

Berríos is close to a win-win situation. If he is left on the beach, Congress will move to leave PR to him, convinced that the people want independence and his leadership. If taken from the beach, and sent to jail for trespassing, he also wins because now his minority party will become a majority party of patriots who put PR first without considering the consequences. Too late, 3.8 million mainland Puerto Ricans will discover that their support of the bishops call for peace, justice, health, and love for Vieques has achieved unintended consequences!

Frank Ramos also wrote today to note that “PR is adrift...” His commentary correctly sizes up the danger of the current situation after noting the enormous changes of the last twenty years in the attitudes of the people. However he leaves open in one sentence the perennial hope that somehow a permanent commonwealth status can be achieved. He obviously fails to realize that every state in the Union would be happy to trade in their permanent union status for what the PDP wants! Fortunately, the founding fathers did not provide for a permanent status of any territory. They must have felt that if any grew to the size to be able to enjoy the advantages of the tenth amendment while becoming a permanent state of the union, then the people of that territory should have the right to call for such admission to the union. Thirty-seven territories have become states to date. Two- Cuba and the Philippines have become independent nations. PR may be the next.

Unless a new march is organized to show that the mob rules; or that it takes a picture of 100,000 people marching to have Berríos removed by the authorities who are afraid to touch him, he will win! The Navy will leave without a vote in Vieques, and 9,600 people on the island and countless more on the mainland will have to figure out how to live without the benefits of the work for the Navy. Of course, that will be trivial contrasted to the needs generated by the loss of all federal benefits as well as that so-called coveted U.S. citizenship. Yes, citizens who fail to support national responsibilities such as basing military training, risk being declared as being unpatriotic. Contending unproven health or environmental damage is not grounds for civil disobedience. But, once Congress admits that it too responds only to the size of the crowd marching, then we will have cemented in place an even stronger acceptance of the right of civil disobedience as being superior to the powers vested in our elected officials. Readers can find the source of this entitlement at under the book heading of Opinion and select the item on Politics-The Millennium of Entitlements. It is like the due process clause in the 14th Amendment- an add-on to Entitlement #2 on guaranteed freedoms. It reads:” Freedom to exercise via the right of civil disobedience the means of stopping any unwanted governmental action”.

Perhaps in the future, we can achieve the same result with internet polls where all can ‘march’ without having to take the time to go there. A ‘virtual reality’ crowd will speak much louder than a sample polling of a few hundred people. Decisions then will be made without careful deliberation- just write a simplistic sentence or two and get the people to vote on the net! The old town meeting concept will then eliminate the need for a legislature. Maybe the Courts can be replaced too?

You may print this if you like, or just pass it along in case the writers or decision makers wants to rebut. Perhaps some will be brave enough to call for adherence to the old fashioned concept that we should elect people who can think and act in our behalf in a way that we can accept or vote them out of office.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. There is one way to get Berríos to move without federal force doing the dirty work. If the march to show a PR preference of statehood over independence is a big showing, to show that, if and when Congress assists by calling for such a choice without the ‘none of the above’ consideration, the impact on the beach would be a voluntary acceptance of defeat at the hands of the people of PR, not the U.S. Navy. Berríos would fold his tent and slink away to go back into the position of being a loser once again. If he fails to move, then the mandate of the people’s march showing the preference of statehood over independence would give the government the courage to have its own police quietly dismantle the beach settlement and remove the occupants with full TV and radio coverage!