In 1977, during my senior year in High School, I went to a drive in theater and sat on the roof of a station wagon to see a movie called Star Wars.
Star Wars was set a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away – only it wasn’t. It was about a farm boy from Tatooine – who was really a farm boy from Iowa – who meets a Corellian pirate with a fast starship – who is really a high school jock with a hotrod – and together they set out to rescue a Princess from Alderaan – who, again, is really just some snooty girl from the big city.
And it was just great fun. That movie changed the world.
Then, four years later when I was at the University of Florida, I saw a movie called Raiders of the Lost Ark. It featured a daring, adventurous, brilliant American explorer named Indiana Jones who roamed the world stealing things in the name of science.
And it too was just great fun.
Now, if you’re looking for that spirit of adventure – that sense of freedom and euphoria with just enough of an element of danger to get the blood flowing, then you cannot do much better in the real world than flying a small airplane. It’s been my passion all of my life. So imagine my delight to discover that Harrison Ford — the actor who of course portrayed both Han Solo and Indiana Jones — he and I both share the same passion for the challenge and transcendental freedom that comes with being a pilot.
Now a few days ago, Mr. Ford was doing an interview and casually mentioned how deeply he loved the freedom of flight:
“Learning to fly was a work of art,” said Mr. Ford. “I’m so passionate about flying I often fly up the coast for a cheeseburger. Flying is like good music; it elevates the spirit and it’s an exhilarating freedom.”
Like good music, it elevates the spirit and it’s an exhilarating freedom. Exactly right.
But the days of elevated spirits and exhilarating freedoms are coming to an end here in America. Because Harrison Ford – the quintessential American actor playing the archtypical American rebel and adventurer, can no longer use his own money, his own time and his own freedom to hop in an airplane and fly up the coast for the proverbial hundred dollar hamburger. Not if Wendy Buckley has her way!
Dr. Buckley, proprietor of carbonfootprint.com, located in fine old Worting House on Church Lane in Basingstoke, Hampshire, United Kingdom, has publicly called Mr. Ford’s personally funded search for an elevated spirit and exhilarating freedom “unnecessary.”
She goes on to say that “Flying is a huge source of carbon emissions and making unnecessary journeys by plane can no longer be seen as responsible to our environment. Stars like Harrison Ford need to embrace the huge opportunity to lead by example in the battle against climate change – reduce their overall lifestyle carbon footprint and carbon offset those unavoidable emissions.”
Now Mr. Ford, you will be pleased and surprised to know that Dr. Wendy Buckley herself can help you in this regard because at her website you can in fact purchase absolution at the bargain rate of $25.61 per ton of carbon emitted. What a remarkably selfless and helpful woman.
Mr. Ford, I’d like to speak to you now not as a Hollywood celebrity and not even as a fellow pilot, but rather as the actor that was able to find within himself that exceedingly rare alchemy of rebellious charm mixed with fundamental decency and innocence. I’d like to speak to the person who has captured the American spirit in the characters of Han Solo and Indiana Jones in a way that has never been surpassed, and which brought you – deservedly – the resources to buy and fly your own airplanes and experience the exhilaration that you and I and very few others can actually comprehend.
I am asking that man to do the right thing, to stand up and publicly invite Dr. Wendy Buckley of Worting House in Basingstoke, UK to share a moment of our pilot’s euphoria by taking a very long flying leap off of a very short pier. Mr. Ford, stand up and tell Wendy Buckley to Pound Sand!
From Dr. Jones to Dr. Buckley: just say, “This is none of your business! It’s a free country!”
Remember that little expression? “It’s a free country!” Remember when that was a common response to these petty tyrannies? Remember when any time anybody tried to tell you what you could and could not do we didn’t just whimper and apologize we used to turn to them and say, “Who died and made you king? This is a free country! I’ll do what I damn well please!”
Does this matter? Yes it does. Because freedom of action and personal responsibility are welded together, two sides of the same coin. When we are free to do as we please we become the kind of independent, self-reliant people who will step up in emergencies. And when we surrender our will to other people who live to tell us what to do, we then become dependent on being told what to do all the time.
My brother Steve is a year younger than me. Right around age 13 Stevie used to take a tent, his dog and a shotgun and hitchhike from our home in South Florida out into the Everglades. He’d usually be gone or two or three days. Did my mom worry about him? Yes she did, but on some level I guess she preferred to raise an independent boy who was living his life to the fullest rather than perpetually trying to defend a life-long infant.
A few months ago I heard in passing that Steve had been on his way to work one morning when he passed a car that was on fire with the driver still inside. He pulled over, grabbed his crowbar, smashed the window and with the help of another passing citizen pulled her out and saved her life. He never thought to mention this to me. I found out about it second hand a few days afterward.
Or parents raised all of us in the way that most American kids used to be raised: to be free and independent and capable of acting on our own initiative when the moment called for it. We rode in the back of pickup trucks and station wagons, we played on monkey bars and carousels and big old swing sets that we used to endlessly try to go all the way over on. We got hurt, and banged up, and we learned our lessons, and our survival rate did not seem to be significantly lower than the kids today, who, if they go outside at all, play non-competitive games on rubberized surfaces with anxious parents hovering a few inches away ready to catch them before they hit the ground.
How are these kids going to turn out? Well, a couple of months ago, I had to have my car towed from my parking garage. The man with the tow truck, named Eddie, pushed from the front while I pushed and steered from the side and after we got it on the truck he thanked me for the effort, to which I replied, “what am I going to do – just sit there and watch? Well, as it turns out, most men in Los Angeles do just sit there and watch. If it’s raining, these grown men will sit in the car while Eddie pushes – for a hundred yards down a slippery street. His number one call is to go out and change a tire: change a tire for grown men who just don’t know how.
So what does this have to do with Harrison Ford and Wendy Buckley? Well, Americans like Han Solo and Indiana Jones are free men. They are brave, resourceful and kind. And they take the initiative – that’s what Americans used to know how to do in their bones. . They do not wait to be told what to do because they do not have to be told what to do. They know what to do.
Back in Dr. Buckley’s home, Great Britain, a little girl recently burned to death in her apartment as a result of what started as a smallish fire. A few brave men tried to enter the building to save her life, but they were forcibly prevented by the police – who not only did not go in to save her but in fact barred the way of the men who tried to.
When it was over, the police were congratulated by the police chief – a man no doubt after Wendy Buckley’s heart – who after all only wanted to prevent the additional loss of life that may have occurred should those men had attempted a rescue.
So the question is, ladies and gentlemen, which kind of world do you want to live in? A world where a little girl dies in a fire, along with perhaps two or three other heroic men who tried to save her? Or one in which that girl’s one chance at life, and a future, and children and grandchildren, was taken from her by policemen guarding her from individual action on behalf of the safety-minded nanny state… this horrific, faceless state identified only by the condescending smile of those acting out of the greater good… that cradle-to-grave, busy-body, do-gooderism that condemned that little girl to death and prevented by state force the free-will decision of those heroes who chose to risk their own lives to save another.
That kind of society is coming here. That ethos is growing daily here – in the last bastion of human freedom and initiative. Each year, fewer and fewer people – good-hearted people – will take the initiative to enter a burning house or car – or even change their own tires – because we allow people like Wendy Buckley to tell us what we can and cannot do with our own time, our own money and our own freedom.
If we surrender to these people, personal freedom and bravery – they are welded together – will wither and vanish, just as it did in the Soviet Union when this same sort of people finally got the power they live for. When Han Solo made the Kessel run in twelve parsecs, no doubt some bureaucrat was there to say that the Kessel Run should never be made in under 18 parsecs as it’s wasteful of fuel destructive to wormholes. Would Han Solo take that? Wasn’t the entire point of Star Wars the fight to make it a Free Galaxy? What the hell is the point of a Free Galaxy if you can’t do the Kessel Run in twelve parsecs when you feel like it? If you want to be a slave to the Imperial Bureaucracy, just come out and say so.
You’ll no doubt be pleased to know that the Heritage Foundation has, for the first time ever, has downgraded the United States of America from being a free country, economically, to being Mostly Free – in the same company as Chile, Bahrain, The Netherlands, Mauritius, Lithuania and Botswana.
(click to enlarge)
Oh, and culture lovers, just in case you can’t see the obvious: the reason the first three Star Wars movies were so terrific, and the second three sucked so bad, is actually very simple. The first three were about rebels, shooting guns and driving fast, and speaking with American accents. The second three were about politicians, discussing treaties and holding court, and speaking with British accents.
It’s coming. But we can stop it. If we have the will, we can stop it. We can still do it, if we chose to: here in the land of the mostly free, and the home of the occasionally brave.
You simply *must* run for office.
Bravo, again.
Well said, but I’m not sure that Harrison would stand in your corner on this. He did do a narration for a radio ad for Earthshare.org
“That ethos is growing daily here”
That ethos is a weed that grew unchecked until 9-11, when individuals were violently reminded that they are responsible for their own safety and freedom.
It’s grown back, fertilized by the ‘safety minded nanny state’, and will choke out more little flowers unless it is cut down.
I look forward to your essays. Keep chopping those weeds Bill.
Get the movie “Six days, seven nights” and see Ford actually flying (not a stunt double) a DH Beaver. He liked the plane so much he bought one for his own.
I’m never quite sure where we are this time, at this crossroad of freedom vs slavery. There is so much vicious race-baiting and lust for vengeance that is stirred up by power-hungry wolves who care not for their sheep that I wonder if all our soliloquies aren’t just an anointing for burial.
Bill i watch you on PJTV and enjoy your articles all the time…Your words speaks truth and America will be the worse if we don’t stop the nonsense and mutilation of our freedom to do as we damn well please…
Freedom is only one election cycle away and
we better get it right the first time…
Bravo, Bill! I’ve decided to start a Google Bomb against Dr. Buckley’s web site, so please join me in linking to carbonfootprint.com as Pound Sand.
“How we burned in the prison camps later thinking:
what would things have been like if every (soviet) police operative,
when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive?”
…if during periods of mass arrests people had not simply sat there in their lairs (apartments),
paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase,
but had understood they had nothing to lose and had boldly
set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes,
hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? …the organs (police)
would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers
…and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst,
the cursed (Communist government) machine would have ground to a halt.”
“seditionist” Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Nobel Prize winner,
who spent 11 years in communist concentration camps.
Well, I’m inspired by Dr. Wendy Buckley’s clarion call. I’m inspired to go get a pilot’s license, buy a plane (maybe a Stearman or a Pitts or, seeing as a fella can dream, maybe a T-6), and name it Blessed Wendy…
…because It Would Be Wrong to build a SLAM, name it Blessed Wendy, and light it off in the direction of Basingstoke.
I think we are approaching a tipping point. Many people see these things happening and do not know what to do or how to react. How do you deal with the petty government tyrant who tells you not to do, or not do, this or that? In general, when it is small stuff, you just do as you are asked and grumble about it. Now we are getting told more and more big stuff. Soon we may not be able to fish in our own waters unless it is approved by Obama or some UN aparatchik, or fly unless it is a government approved mission, or speak out against government action without endangering ourselves. One day someone will break and act out and this obedience will end. The news will spread and it will become endemic and then things – big things – will happen. I don’t know how or when or where it will happen, but I feel it’s coming soon. The tipping point is approaching like a fast moving freight train . . . Let freedom ring!
I recall reading a few days ago about Ford flying up the coast for burgers and thinking “what a jerk.” Thanks to Bill’s post that temporary lapse into lib-think was mercifully brief.
Bill and I (can I call you Bill?) are of the same vintage and I fondly recall that senior-year double date at Star Wars with my best friend and our current girls. The girls were a bit annoyed that we didn’t pay them any attention during those wonderful two hours. And I also recall the hours and hours and HOURS he and I spent driving and talking. Just driving and talking and reveling in the exhilarating freedom that a driver’s license and a functioning automobile gave to a couple of teenage boys. It’s the same feeling I get on my bike today, with or without the rest of the pack. So, yeah, Dr. Buckley, go pound sand. And I give a better price on carbon credits than you do anyway.
Nice list to Heritage. Couldn’t help noticing that out of the seven totally “free” countries listed above the U.S, at least five (Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland and Canada) have universal health care.
So much for the notion that UHC is automatic freedom-killer, or even an automatic economic freedom killer.
My God, what will this country be if the cool, privileged jocks won’t be allowed to ride around town in their hot rods?
What a waste it is, to devote oneself to the acquisition of money and greatness in order to enjoy the thrill of piloting an airplane.
Oh Bill, about the poor girl in a fire, the exact same thing happened to me couple of months ago. I tried to rescue a starving Haitian orphan by taking her out of the country and giving her a nice home with a nice hot dish every night and a schooling in the language of civilization.
Turns out I had to put up with a bunch of paperwork from colored people.
I missed the tag so I hope this is helpful to others as dull-witted as myself:
http://www.conservation.org/Pages/harrison_ford_may_2008.aspx
It’s more likely that Wendy is Harrison Ford in drag.
Actually, what Ford would first do (in a perfect world, anyway) is fly over to Britain, stop by Ms. Buckley’s house, and invite her for a flight. Up the coast. For a cheeseburger.
Then, after the inevitable refusal, then he could tell her to pound sand. But at least he would have tried to bring some joy into that pathetic person’s life.
Thanks, Mr. Whittle, for your always excellent articles. I think I am going to take you up on your request to write out the Declaration of Independence.
Joan of Argghh I hear you
It seems the fights and arguments are no longer about helping those in need, but simply about winning an argument, and glorifying your personal party. I can’t remember the quote exactly but one of the founding fathers stated something along the lines that, when the hearts and moral convictions of the people change our constitution will seem ineffective. What I have seen just over the past decade is such a decline of personal responsibility among the average American. It seems everyone feels like they should be entitled to some sort of special treatment due to the cards they were dealt in life, or whatever. It doesn’t help either that our government is creating programs that are moving us closer and closer to America the land of welfare, instead of the land of the free. I’m just babbling and speaking as a fool a bit, but I know what I say hold some truth. To be Obese, or drunk or having a child without proper living conditions is no longer looked on as a result of bad decisions on account of the individual but a certificate of entitlement. “I’m pregnant with my second child and I don’t have enough money to support it, I need a check.” Government says “sure it’s not your fault you have no self control your only human.”
With the situation of the girl being burned to death and the police stopping the men from entering the house, that is ridiculous. Seems to me possibly that story could be reported in America sooner or later. If we are not quite there, we are making our way down that path with everyone being politically correct and all. We can no longer call a spade a spade in this type of environment. Truth is being thrown out of the door of America along with manliness and fundamental morals that have shaped and molded our nation. People are deceived it seems, I hope and pray the American people wake up sooner or later.
I understand the concern. And frankly, I’d love to see Mr. Ford tell the lady to mind her own damn business. (Perhaps he could fly a banner behind his plane, to ensure she gets the message.)
On the rescue situation, I cannot disagree more. One of the first things I was taught in emergency response training is to avoid becoming a casualty yourself. You aren’t going to help anyone by dying in a rescue attempt. The carbon monoxide in a place on fire can take you out quickly. The firemen have SCBAs and can go in safely. The kind of response who recommend GETS PEOPLE KILLED. This is not hypothetical stuff like global warming, this is based on actual fatalities. Usually, most of the people who die in a confined space / hazardous atmosphere accident are would-be rescuers who lacked the right gear.
However, if you have the gear and ability, you should act.
Dr. Buckley, proprietor of carbonfootprint.com, located in fine old Worting House on Church Lane in Basingstoke, Hampshire, United Kingdom, has publicly called Mr. Ford’s personally funded search for an elevated spirit and exhilarating freedom “unnecessary.”
Well, YES, Dr. Buckley.
I’ll bet that you could demonstrate that dreaming is also “unnecessary” and probably causes you to sleep more and have less time available to do “necessary” work.
I have no idea of how to properly thank you.
-
“…in the same company as Chile, Bahrain, The Netherlands, Mauritius, Lithuania and Botswana…”
Being Dutch I almost took offense to that.
Were it not for the fact that we are today RECOUNTING the votes of the last municipal elections in Rotterdam, our second largest city, because of widespread irregularities.
Next elections in June we’re going to need international observers.
To OmegaPaladin: Thank you for your concern, but shouldn’t it be my decision whether or not to go rescue the girl rather than yours? To push it to the extreme; what if it was your little girl in there? Are you going to wait for the Fire Department?
To Paul_in_Houston – oh I have a very good idea of how to thank him.
Heinlein wrote often of what constitutes a man.
Here’s a group of people who are getting off their butts and making a difference:
“Are you frustrated at the loss of freedom and responsibility in America, while the growth of government and taxes continues unabated? Do you want to live in strong communities where your rights are respected, and people exercise responsibility for themselves and in their dealings with each other?”
You just might feel strongly enough about this to be willing to pack up and move out of the socialist megalopolis you currently find yourself in and move to a place that already has a head start…
“The Free State Project is an effort to recruit 20,000 liberty-loving people to move to New Hampshire.”
“It has the lowest state and local tax burden in the continental U.S., the second-lowest level of dependence on federal spending in the U.S., a citizen legislature where state house representatives have not raised their $100 per year salary since 1889, the lowest crime levels in the U.S., a dynamic economy with plenty of jobs and investment, and a culture of individual responsibility indicated by, for example, an absence of seatbelt and helmet requirements for adults.”
http://freestateproject.org/
Take a look at the possibilities, more victories there can spread into the rest of the country and wake up more people who can actually enjoy their liberty rather than just blog about it. (not a diss to the bloggers, they are ESSENTIAL!)
The same is going on with fuel for private vehicles. Fifteen years ago I remember leftward-hurtling liberal friends ranting about how the USA needed and deserved $5.00-per-gallon gasoline.
“Our government should raise the taxes on gasoline, and force everybody to pay what it really costs!”
Oddly, when gasoline was selling for $4.00 per gallon for most of a year, I don’t recall a SINGLE pointy-headed liberal expressing satisfaction or triumph. Instead, I heard them complaining, and bitching, and claiming that the Republicans were jacking up the price and pocketing the difference.
Can you find a single Left-leaning person who will acknowledge that the family of Al Gore, Jr., has owned for many decades a major share of Occidental Petroleum Company; that Al Gore Senior was a member of the Occidental Board of Directors, and that during the Clinton administration, the Department of Energy awarded the $Billion development contract for the Elk Hills Strategic Reserve* oil fields to … That’s Right!Occidental Petroleum Company!!!!
Stinking Lying Hypocrite Crooks. Moral Lepers, every one. Perfect companions for the likes of swimming champion Teddy Kennedy.
* Strategic Reserves — These were among the oil fields kept from commercial development for decades since the 1920′s to ensure that the US military – especially the Navy – would have fuel in the event of a crisis.
Certain trans-national progressive morons have abandoned this policy, increasing our dependence on the good will of some middle-eastern nations who despise us for petroleum.
“So the question is, ladies and gentlemen, which kind of world do you want to live in? A world where a little girl dies in a fire, along with perhaps two or three other heroic men who tried to save her? Or one in which that girl’s one chance at life… was taken from her by policemen guarding her from individual action on behalf of the safety-minded nanny state…”
With respect, I would suggest that maybe one’s answer to this question differs radically depending on whether or not you’re the child or wife of one of those “heroic” men, whose primary responsibility should be to look out for their families, not to risk and maybe lose their lives and jeopardize their family’s welfare by pointlessly attempting something for which they’re neither trained nor equipped. There’s a difference between being prevented from exercising your due responsibility, and being prevented from assuming an undue authority in which you can only aggravate danger rather than resolve it.
I’m all for celebrating personal freedom, courage and responsibility, but that does not, never has, and never will include the “right” to disregard the consequences of using that freedom foolishly or erroneously — or the “right” to be immune to restraint by those who want to protect others from those consequences. Even John Stuart Mill favoured using force to stop people crossing a bridge known to be unsafe, especially if there were also people under it at the time.
(That said, there is also a difference between restraining someone from doing something known to be dangerous and destructive, and restraining them from something that might be dangerous and destructive — for a whole range of values of “might”, “dangerous” and “destructive”. As with so much else, it’s all in where you draw the dividing line.)
I pray it is never me or mine that needs help with some of you folks around. Pathetic.
> (That said, there is also a difference between restraining someone from doing something known to be dangerous and destructive, and restraining them from something that might be dangerous and destructive — for a whole range of values of “might”, “dangerous” and “destructive”. As with so much else, it’s all in where you draw the dividing line.)
Emphasis on the word “You”, sirrah. No, not YOU, YOU — Each and every YOU out there. That’s the only person who gets to draw that line.
Also — saying that the men in question should consider their families is presumptuous —
a) do they have families? Perhaps they were single males.
b) there is a societal reason why such altruism exists and works, and it ties to the iterated prisoner’s dilemma. Such unselfish behavior has survived in us as a species for a reason. It increases the survival chances of everyone as a group. If it did not, the impulse to help someone not of one’s own genome would long since have disappeared from the gene pool.
Could someone please point me to a place where I can find the news item regarding the little girl who burned to death? I have been trying to find it to no avail.
Thanks!
Bill,
I also completed senior year at Pius High School in 1977 and was thrilled by the movie Star Wars. I think I saw that film 20 times that summer, each time more enthralled by the animation, story, and maybe Harrison Ford.
As I see our country slip more into a nanny state I want to join the fight and reclaim some common sense in this country.
I have watched the government in small ways take over education, the environment, labor, health care, and other facets of life and now it has come to the point where they feel entitled to give us direction on every part of live. My children are taught about global warming as if it is a religion, the teacher writes me that my home made cookies made with love are not approved healthy snacks,(but the hot lunch of pizza and nachos is fine). I have to use crummy gasoline with ethanol that clogs my lawn mower because…? I’m not supposed to burn my leaves or soon use my fireplace.
If health care passes, I may have to pay taxes for abortions and the slip into euthanasia. I work with the severely mentally ill, along with the elderly, they will be the first to be denied care.
Thanks for letting me rant. I enjoy PJTV and have gotten other family members turned on to it.
Thanks for helping me connect with others who want to enjoy their life without interference and intrusion in the land of the mostly free.
Good bit of writing there bro, it was actually my trusty truck jack not a crow bar. I miss that time alone in the swamp. Im pretty sure now you need a off road permit ($$$$$) and need to check in and out of a ranger station to step foot off the road into the glades. WTF is happening to us? In 16 years when my boy turns 18 he will probably be required to get a bar code on his forehead!
I am a policeman, have been for 15 years, and am very proud of my chosen profession. But is my job to save innocent life, not to stand in the way of others trying to do it.
If someone ever tries to get in my way of saving a life, policeman or not, he is going to find himself knocked flat on his ass, wondering what happened.
Voluntarily risking my life to save someone else is MY decision, MY responsibility, and is indeed my life, to risk or not as I see fit. And I do not want to live in a world where this isn’t so. I guess that rules out the UK, but we can still win this one here if the good men of this country wake up and realize that we are in a fight. I think more and more are doing that now. Let us invoke the blessings of almighty God upon such efforts.
To tie the two halves of the discussion together, I seem to remember that Harrison Ford is also credited with at least two saves of lost hikers. He volunteered his time flying his own helicopter to search for and rescue the people lost in the Tetons near his home in Wyoming.
Bill;
I agree completely with you, but as you and I both know, living here in the left-coast land of the fee and home of the slave, people are not even allowed to keep cherished old cars for the occasional Sunday drive, without having to spend endless time and treasure trying to find no-longer-available emissions parts to keep 30-year-old cars performing to like-new standards for the couple of hundred miles a year they get driven.
How long before it is decided that your beloved aircraft must conform to standards arbitrarily set “for the good of all…” and your wings are clipped?
Every pilot in the state of California should have been on the necks of their legislators when the previous 30-year rule on smog exemptions for automobiles was capriciously overturned by the CARB, and the new “76 and newer shall never be exempt” was put in place.
“When they came for my neighbors, I did nothing…”?
So … does that mean that driving is more fuel efficient when you’re gridlocked on the 405 than flying overhead. Some how I doubt it.
As for the unfortunate incident with the fire in the UK. The police should’ve been the ones leading the rescue. If an innocent child was about to be burned alive and I was the best hope of her survival; I would rescue her OR DIE TRYING.
There’s a saying that “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” Just replace the words ‘evil’ with ‘a tragedy’ and ‘triumph’ with ‘happen’ and I think it’s still applicable.
Oh and I think that the Millennium Falcon needs a “POUND SAND!” bumper sticker now.
Good stuff as usual, but I have one MAJOR quibble:
While I agree that any man should know how and be able to change a tire, free will is the overriding concern (and the general topic of your missive).
Does free will end when it’s raining?
If I choose to SPEND MY HARD-EARNED FRNs to be able to sit in a warm car and let someone else get wet, dirty and cold doing the grunt work, WHY NOT?
Further, without such being common, our tow-truck-driving-hero would be out of a job – the job which HE, EXERCISING HIS OWN FREE WILL – sought, pursued and accepted/contracted!!
So, while it’s pathetic to us, it’s a 100% proper exercise of free-will on the part of everyone involved!
Don’t get me wrong – I’m like you. I can’t sit and watch others work, mostly because my Father would quickly explain what I was doing wrong in the only way he knew – with his fist, the back of his hand, or a stiff leather belt. After too many decades on my own I STILL get that skin-creeping feeling of impending pain…
The bottom line is that we were brought up RIGHT. The METHODS were wrong, but the LESSONS were RIGHT ON!
Respectfully,
DD
I think Mr. Ford won’t understand the extent to which he is complicit in destroying mens dreams and their quest for freedom until he is put out by the restraints he wants to avoid for himself but seeks to impose on others.
Not until he is unable to scrape together the carbon credits to fly his plane will he understand what he has done to others. Perhaps he is full of himself, and thinks he is special enough to fly a plane for fun. Perhaps he just doesn’t recognize the hypocrisy of his positions.