Founding Fathers

Today I'm taking about the founding fathers. One in particular stands out to me. Ben Franklin is know to us mostly as a founder and the balding man on the 100 dollar bill. The are a couple more things you might want to know about Mr. Franklin.

He was the last of the founding fathers to come out in favor of separation from Britain. He himself said that the Boston Tea Party was an act of violent injustice.  It wasn't until later that he announced that he was for American Independence. After he announced that he still had a number of people doubting his loyalty to America because he had an illegitimate son who was of British loyalty.

So, let's say, hypotheticaly, that he didn't proclaim loyalty to America. Would the other founding fathers have seceded? Most likely they would have found someone else, but what if Ben had started an influential group of British loyalist? If one thing in history was different then everything could have been different.  Think about it.

Modern View on Religion in Colonial America

Time to address one of the most controversial topics on earth. The one you really would rather not talk to your grandparents about. Religion. For some of us it's a subject we tip-toe around for the fear that the person your talking to doesn't agree with your beliefs. Why would you be afraid to talk about what you believe? Pick one of the many examples of bad things that have happen: The Crusades, The French Wars of Religion, The Thirty Years War. These are all very real conflicts that were started over disagreements in religious beliefs. 

Now, why was this post called modern view on religion in colonial America? Because one of the conflicts in the new world was religion. They thought, go to the new world (away from Great Britain) and start a new religion with "good" beliefs. Everyone will agree. It'll be just peachy, right? Well, no not exactly. They still had many issues with religion. The British were still trying to enforce a strict Christian religion on the american colonies. 

Think of this situation like you're in 4th grade again. What did all the kids do when the teacher left the room to grab something? They now have the ability to pass that note, throw that airplane or whisper to their friends. In this case the teacher (Great Britain)  has left the building completely and driven home. The Americans aren't as scared of breaking the rules if the person who truly enforces them is thousands of miles away. 

In the end we all know things worked out, but we still have significant religion issues still. It's as simple as a rude glare. To connect this to my last post, we're still far from perfect or "completely free."  We are not completely free until everyone here drops the self righteous act and realizes we don't really know anything for sure. 

One of my favorite quotes of all time is: "The sign of intelligence is that you are constantly wondering. Idiots are always dead sure about every damn thing they are doing in their life."      -Jaggi Vasudev

Freedom In The USA

The United States is normally credited for being a free country. People talk about the US like it's the messiah of all free countries, but that's not the truth. Not only have we recently fallen to number 20 on the list of the freest locations, but our crime rate is rising. Most crimes in the US in the past 6 months are motivated by the belief that some people should have fewer rights than others, being racist, sexist, etc. 

Hong Kong is currently ranked number one as the freest place in the world with a freedom index of 9.04. The US appears at number 20 with an index of 8.26, and that number is going down week by week. You may be thinking to yourself that the numbers I just told you are too close together to make a huge difference. This is very true. Out of all 152 locations ranked on the national freedom index we are "on top." 

By no means are we one of the repressed countries. We aren't even in the "moderately free" category. We are a completely free country according to the list, but I would like you to recognize that we are not the country we used to be. We are no longer living in THE free country. We are living in A free country.