Freedom, and Losing it...

"Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

                                                                               - Benjamin Franklin, 1775

We've been born into a society that requires us to give up some of our essential liberties to peacefully reside in that society.  Requires us!  No option!  Don't like how things are, vote! 

And to conform to more than a combined 1,000,000 city, state and Federal laws while doing so, any one of which could put us in jail.  For a long, long time.

Have you ever noticed that breaking the law can carry with it a stay in the Gray Bar Hotel?

Not in Taxifornia, of course.  We don't jail our criminals.  We let them out on a no-cash bond, presume they'll go forth on the straight and narrow, and then never see them again.  

Hellloooo!

However, for some people not named Biden, in some of our Great States, you break the law, you lose your single most important possession own: your FREEDOM!

Not your cash.  Not your house.  Not your stamp collection.  Your freedom, as our military often reminds us, isn't free.  It costs us.  Time, effort, energy and sometimes money.  And may at certain times require us to defend it.  With arms!

And we have to pay that price in any number of ways.  Often by not doing something we enjoy, just because "those in charge" find it uncivil, unfair or unpalatable.  Like doing "donuts" in the parking lot at City Hall.  Or by the doing of something we find unpleasant, like putting on a mask when we know it's all bullsh*t.  But some of us decide the law shouldn't apply to them, and they can get caught up in the wheels of the Justice System.  And can go away for a long, long time as a result.  

Doubt me?  How about the folks who just meandered through the Capitol Building on January 6th, 2021, snapping pics and waving to the Capitol police?  Many of them wound up spending several years in the Capitlol Jail.  A place reportedly several magnitudes worse than Riker's Island.  Years.  

Think about that.  Your fellow citizens, being punished, for not breaking the law.  For exercizing their freedom.    

There's that word again...

Break a little law, and spend a little time in jail.  Maybe you do a five-finger discount at the Circle K.  That might get you a day in jail.  Steal a car and go for a joy ride?  You get maybe 90 days in the county jail if you're someplace besides Taxifornia.  Here?  You'll probably get bailed out by Kermala Harris' bunch of SJW's.  

Or you wind up gettin' snagged with a little maryjowanna in your jeans  and you get a year in Texas.  Most likely served on probation.  For a felony.

But how about you grab those wheels and then rob a bank and go on a hour-long chase with the fuzzz, all broadcast live on TV,  and then slam into some poor family and kill two or three of them...

You're going away!  For a long, long time!

I did a little research on this subject, fellow Pilgrim, and I think you might be interested in the results (that's whatcha' do when you're an old guy with a bad back).  For instance, there are some 2,300,000 cells in the U. S. of A.  That would include city, state, Federal and American Indian lockups all around the Fruited Plain.  And Glory Be, there are just about 2,300,000 prisoners in our cells here in 'Murica.  Some 22% of all the prisoners in all the jail cells in all the countries on Earth.  Yup, we lockem' up here.  Wholesale.  

Which brings me to ask, which came first, the prison, or the prisoner?

Let us close with a prayer than none of you ever wind up beneath the wheels of The Law.  For you will get chewed up and spit out, left poorer and minus the suntan.  Even if you emerge victorious on the other side of any judicial action, i.e., warrants, arrests, charges filed, lawyer hired at $500 an hour, court action and any subsequent incarceration, you'll be a mere shadow of your former self when it's all over.  For that's what the Gubmint does to its citizens when they don't kowtow to its wishes.  Which should be our wishes, but oftentimes aren't.  So I leave you with this thought, from a guy who has personal experience in the matter:*  

Forget your wealth, do whatever you can do defend your freedom.  For that's your most important asset... 

*  Hustle a little pool, take a little green from some poor schlub, be forced to defend yourself therefrom and get arrested for attempted murder.  Yeah.  Worked out okay in the end, but sure made me value my...wait for it...freedom!