End Game: Destruction of Freedom of Conscience

The battle lines are drawn and the forces are set upon the free people of humanity. Conscience and our freedom to that conscience is the last bastion of ideas that unifies all walks of life. Our enemies know this and have secretly engaged in their plans to destroy what is left of this beacon of hope; this rallying call that unites all of mankind and transcends division. In his notes on the State of Virgina, Thomas Jefferson recognized the significant factor of such a basic freedom and writes “[t]he rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit.”

Freedom of conscience is uniquely individualistic and is ubiquitous to all of mankind. It is derived, formed and established through the mere fact we are conscious and we can identify what we hold to be truths. These truths, or rather, as Jefferson penned in the Declaration of Independence, are self-evident. Even without adhering to a god or gods, such truths are there. To speak your mind freely, to worship any god you deem to, to be secure in your own home, to be able to seek out your own American Dream, however you see fit, are all self-evident as they are part of being human.

What is freedom of conscience? It is our minds, our thoughts, our private matters we hold dear to us that we expect to remain private unless we deem it otherwise. In a recent article by Peggy Noonan, Mr. Hentoff, a stout libertarian, puts it this way. “…there are particular constitutional liberty rights that [Americans] have that distinguish them from all other people, and one of them is privacy.” That privacy is bound to the very fact we are human, we are conscious. We choose what is and what is not private when we express our thoughts, create works of art, develop new technologies, start businesses, and interact among each other.

The governments of the world, and particularly my own, have been hard at work on diminishing this freedom. To do so, lines of division are drawn to place otherwise normal people into separate camps. For example; pro-life/pro-choice, religious/secular, republican/democrat, etc, etc. While these divisions occur naturally as people are free to develop their own conscience on these matters, it is very evident that the government is deep in sophistry and subterfuge. It has created great chasm between competing ideas and set upon to destroy those it doesn't deem fit to survive.

This is the basis of the Ninth Amendment in the United State's Constitution. It encapsulates the notion and idea of a freedom of conscience and it is one that we, as a people, have not submitted to the government. Of course, this is the purest notion of what that freedom is and how we should hold it in reverence, it is furthest from the reality. Groups of all kind force their conscience upon others on a daily basis. In the free-market of competing ideas, this isn't dangerous. It is healthy. What isn't healthy is for a government to take sides, regardless of the stance. If the People of California want to have a "Free the Turkey Day" in lieu of Thanksgiving, that is the Peoples' right to do so and that is the right of conscience. Likewise, if the People of Nevada want to have prostitution, it is their collective conscience that deems it okay.

When Government decides we need to think, feel, or be a certain way -- they are directing our conscience in manners in which we never allowed. When the Government decides we need to accept differences, accept diversity, accept anything in which we have decided we do not, that is a direct attack on our conscience. We are told, through subtle messaging and party division to deem the 'other team's' ideas as diametrically opposed to our own. Not only opposed, but that their belief is wrong and ours is right. This division is not unnatural though. Government makes it such by placing us into neat, tidy boxes. This compartmentalization serves to divide a people and discourage the free-exchange of ideas. Instead, it creates decisiveness, derision, hatred, zealotry and idolatry to our conscience -- which if you are following is no longer our own because it is directed now by the State through various methods.

The State has sought to wage war against our most intimate freedom, our freedom of conscience. It is up to individuals to recognize that we have and should never, submit such a freedom to allow any government to dictate how we should feel or be. In some areas, we have already acquiesced such freedoms, but they are not wholly the States yet.

Mark Twain once wrote “It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either.” We might be finding our voice once again but are we willing to understand that each of us has our own conscience and are willing to practice such a freedom without fear of the State encroaching upon it to deem what we have determined to be right and wrong, as their own?

Thank you, O.P., this is what the war directly relates to using some of the same tactics that an abusive spouse uses on their significant other.





I mean, it does not all apply, but definitely the part about feeling afraid to speak your mind and have your own opinions. In the end, consciousness can't be destroyed, it will always exist, possibly in the shadows, but being a stronger force than zombie folk, it is sure to re-emerge.

If you check out my philosophy, it is heavily written in order to combat this exact threat, without any reference to God. The whole point of it is to at least provide some kind of mental defense in a situation where it is needed.

Sometimes, a philosophy can give one the justification he or she needs and the legitimacy he or she needs to move forward against unfavorable odds. It is strange how this works.

My philosophy is written assuming that God is not going to be a legitimate source of power under hard-line atheist rule. It is also, however, written in such a manner that extremist religious forces that defy logic can be defended against.

reply to post by ownbestenemy


Mostly a good post, with some minor notes.

These truths, or rather, as Jefferson penned in the Declaration of Independence, are self-evident.

You may be aware of this, but that is not the context Jefferson meant that statement to be taken at all. It clearly refers to the statements that follow it, along the lines of "we hold these truths to be self-evident... that all men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among these the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".

The "pursuit of happiness" might encapsulate your concepts here, but the coining of our own individualistic truths are not the truths that are "self evident"- those that are expressly listed there are. Self-evident is a very specific phrase that was extremely common in the philosophical writings of the day, and has an agreed upon defintion in those writings that Rene Descartes and others came up with, namely that it refers to a truth that proves itself without question, like the statements "All lions are lions", or a less obvious but still very strong candidate, "1+1=2".

I agree with your thesis that the right to act as we feel ethical, where that action does not unecessarily harm others, should be a right reserved to us.

It is my belief that conscription by the draft through selective services is a clear violation of that right.

I would also like to point out if you live your life not afraid of death you are free. And since we are all going to die anyway, it is like an amazing trade-off - especially if you end up with some super exciting death.

I'm not promoting violence at all - just personal empowerment and such.

Originally posted by joeraynor

I agree with your thesis that the right to act as we feel ethical, where that action does not unecessarily harm others, should be a right reserved to us.

This is where it gets a bit tricky. What if the state of Mississippi decides to bring back slavery? Should the Federal Government step in and say, you can't do that? Seems like an easy answer, but what about things that are not as cut and dry? For example, if a state decides to outlaw abortion, one could argue that this would hurt women by forcing them to go through an unwanted pregnancy. Should the state be allowed to do that? The states that have decided to ban gay marriage hurt (not physically, but mentally) those gays who want to get a marriage license in that state. Should this be allowed? It's one thing to argue that a state should be able to have a "save the turkey" day, it's quite another to say that a state should be allowed to trample other people's rights.

Those are all situations where it isn't clear that our right to do as we believe is ethical won't harm others, and in those situations more constraints or ethical norms are needed to answer the questions posed in each.

That an ethical statement does not apply outside its domain (in this case, the domain is cases where it is clear others won't be harmed by the ethical choice being up to the agent) is not necessarily a sign of being unsound.

And you will see more true face of US govt soon.

more restrictions and more control.

Even though west is condemning Muslim countries for their rules , they are taking as much freedom from their people as they can.

There is no country on the planet where people are treated like US.

US govt and NWO supporters once were thinking that they will corrupt the planet and rule the jungle.

But they were dreaming wrong. Their dream doesn't matter. God doesn't want this planet to get all corrupted.

Peace , to peace supporters.

Originally posted by mideast
And you will see more true face of US govt soon.

more restrictions and more control.

Even though west is condemning Muslim countries for their rules , they are taking as much freedom from their people as they can.

There is no country on the planet where people are treated like US.

US govt and NWO supporters once were thinking that they will corrupt the planet and rule the jungle.

But they were dreaming wrong. Their dream doesn't matter. God doesn't want this planet to get all corrupted.

Peace , to peace supporters.

And what if the state of Texas overwhelmingly decides to execute all Muslims who enter the state of Texas, because the Muslim religion is counter to the overwhelmingly Christian religion of the state's citizens (that's not as far out as you might think). Should they have the freedom to do that?

I'm anti-government, because I believe power will lead to wanting to keep that power. Some may want to have power in order to do good, but once they get a taste of power they want to keep it instead, or they find out that they can do little because a lot of influential people (those in other power positions) restrain them from doing so.

The government gives you the illusion of having freedom. Not in everything, we do have a lot more freedom nowadays compared to other governments. And they give us the illusion of control. Voting for example, that's illusion of control.

Influential people have deep roots in our societies, and there are people who want money and power who keep them strong, or naive minds that think they can change society, and become puppets of those influential people instead.

I don't think protesting works that well, unless in a dictatorship. Not in our society at last.

We need to develop some kind of underground culture. A culture that refrains from feeding those powerful people.
I try to do that by not buying from huge companies, instead supporting the smaller companies, but yeah sometimes I don't have a choice.

AboveTopSecret is a great start. Though I sense much fear here, and fear leads to anger, anger leads to hatred, hatred leads to suffering.

Stop going to McDonalds.
Stop going on Facebook.
Stop going on Google. (this one is very hard, I haven't found a way to do it)
Stop voting.
Stop buying Apple.
Stop buying Coca Cola.

It's hard but seek for alternatives. Stop being dependent on the powerful ones. Support people who need the money. Help out people. Educate each other. Let the alternative not become the dominant one neither.

IMPORTANT Protesting can help in a way. But don't resort to illegal ways. Don't resort to violence or vandalism. We don't life in such a authority, and this authority knows how to use it against us. When people resort to violence or vandalism the media will say "look at them, they have no respect to your possessions or people"

My dream is that we develop a underground culture of educated, strong-willed people, that slowly consume those in power and let them fall from their throne. Think of this from Fight Club:

"Look, the people you are after are the people you depend on: we cook your meals, we haul your trash, we connect your calls, we drive your ambulances, we guard you while you sleep. Do not # with us."

Know that they depend on us for their power. We can continue to feed the fat guy or stop giving him food.

I would submit that since consciousness is not a physical attribute it can never be denied its freedom. They could win the battle of physical freedom but they could never begin to control the freedom of one's thought. And it is that thought that controls the physical world.

History is replete with failed controls.

Originally posted by darkbake
Thank you, O.P., this is what the war directly relates to using some of the same tactics that an abusive spouse uses on their significant other.

Which might maybe more aptly called "insignificant other".

reply to post by ownbestenemy


It is not just in the States that this is happening but also in most of the once developed world, we are being systematically stripped of our rights and freedoms and this as well as being a possible coup from the top down may very well be the enactment of a 1970's directive to control the population in view of the projected growth outstripping the supply of resources and whatever it's origin this in undoubtedly an organised and highly structured covert plan to suppress the population of these once democratically powerful populations and seed that power into a few select hand's,.

Nothing new in this but they are doing it now and to us.
S+F

I believe it was alternative 2 or a variant on it leading to population control and if it fails a mass release of viral strains with the inoculation rationed to only those seen as valuable to the new order with a strengthening of the military and police to minimize chaos during the infection stage.

from
www.news.com.au...

Joint War by MSM and Labours rebirthed leader Kevin Rudd going into the Australian Federal Elections October 2013



"Under a re-elected Rudd Labor Government, all children will have to be fully immunised in order to receive the Family Tax Benefit Part A end-of-year supplement.

"Parents who register as 'conscientious objectors' 'conscientious objectors' will no longer be eligible to receive this payment. Exemptions will apply on medical and religious grounds only."

Originally posted by joeraynor
reply to [url=http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread965409/pg1#pid16816306]post by

These truths, or rather, as Jefferson penned in the Declaration of Independence, are self-evident.

You may be aware of this, but that is not the context Jefferson meant that statement to be taken at all. It clearly refers to the statements that follow it, along the lines of "we hold these truths to be self-evident... that all men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among these the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".

How is my usage out of context though? Here is what I wrote, in its entirety:

"Freedom of conscience is uniquely individualistic and is ubiquitous to all of mankind. It is derived, formed and established through the mere fact we are conscious and we can identify what we hold to be truths. These truths, or rather, as Jefferson penned in the Declaration of Independence, are self-evident. Even without adhering to a god or gods, such truths are there. To speak your mind freely, to worship any god you deem to, to be secure in your own home, to be able to seek out your own American Dream, however you see fit, are all self-evident as they are part of being human."

I was not taking Jefferson's words out of context as the context is that those ideals, those Rights, are self-evident; obvious; apparent. Just because he didn't say that Freedom of Conscience is self-evident, it was among them, as highlighted by the fact that no Government or even document could ever enumerate all that which the People held to be a Right.

The "pursuit of happiness" might encapsulate your concepts here, but the coining of our own individualistic truths are not the truths that are "self evident"- those that are expressly listed there are.

This thinking that you present is why I also highlighted the Ninth Amendment. The Amendment that James Madison put in to show that just because certain rights are listed, doesn't mean it is an exhaustive list nor does it mean the government can encroach upon those Rights unless they have been given tacit authority to do so.

Self-evident is a very specific phrase that was extremely common in the philosophical writings of the day, and has an agreed upon defintion in those writings that Rene Descartes and others came up with, namely that it refers to a truth that proves itself without question, like the statements "All lions are lions", or a less obvious but still very strong candidate, "1+1=2".

It isn't any different than it was then. "obvious, apparent" are exactly what was meant then as it is now. It is self-evident that we are sentient beings. That we are conscious beings. That we are capable of free-will. That we are capable of self-government (could be argued).

When Jefferson wrote those words he also included 'among these...', leaving to reason that there are other Rights Man holds that may not be listed that are just as self-evident.

It is my belief that conscription by the draft through selective services is a clear violation of that right.

I agree but if the People have given that Right to the Government to exploit, than it is no longer the Government that is in the wrong, but the People who have allowed it to happen.

edit on 20-8-2013 by ownbestenemy because: (no reason given)