“For what avail the plough or sail,
or land or life, if freedom fail?”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson
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I can’t remember where we were going. Somewhere for the day with Dad, in Henry Egbert’s old ramshackle van. Maybe to an auction or maybe somewhere else. Probably around 1980-81. We were driving along the narrow paved highways that wind through the rural backlands of southern Iowa and northern Missouri.

My sister Rhoda sat beside me in the rear of the dusty old van. We clattered through a tiny, now forgotten village. And there it was, painted in large rough uneven letters on the gable end of an old garage. The slogan.

“Freedom to Be…..”

I saw it and pointed it out to my sister as we rumbled by. Just that one glimpse, then it disappeared forever. I never saw it again.

We were intrigued. Discussed it. Grappled mentally. Freedom to be what? The last word was missing. Painted over, maybe.

We discussed it some more. I stored it away in my mind and mulled over it in the en-suing days and weeks. It was one of those things that you instinctively realize is fine and deep and full of meaning, that you turn over and examine in your mind, and ponder.

We decided the slogan made a lot of sense just as we saw it. Freedom to Be. Just be.

Sometime in the following years, Rhoda, a self-taught artist, painted a small oil of the classic sunset, with a bird in silhouette sailing through windswept cloud banks to un-seen horizons. At the bottom she painted the words. Freedom to Be.

I still have that painting.

“Freedom to Be,” by Rhoda Yutzy

The years have passed, and the mystery and meaning of that phrase still stirs me deeply. I have adopted it as a personal creed. It has guided my philosophy, my out-look, my world view. It’s not the major factor, but it does influence the true essence of who I am.

Freedom. Foundational freedom. To be. Just be. To live. To strive. To be. Whatever one chooses to become. Or not. Freedom to be grumpy. Or happy. Productive. Pursue goals. To engage society. Or flee it. To conform. Or be different. To participate. Or separate.

Freedom to be. Without which there can be no others.

On this day, when as a country we celebrate freedom and independence, it is fitting, I think, to reflect on that phrase once again. And take stock of where we are.

I appreciate America. All it is and the opportunities it offers. I can’t think of any other country in which I’d rather live (although Canada isn’t that bad). It’s one of the freest countries in the world. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be criticized.

For example, a few weeks ago a friend and I were discussing the situation in Texas where the state seized all those children from the splinter Mormon compound. As usual, I was raging against the abuses of arrogant excessive governmental power.

“Where else would you want to live, if not America?” my friend interrupted.

The question caught me off guard. Squelched my tirade. For a moment.

“That’s got nothing to do with what we’re talking about,” I answered. And I was right. My friend had just hit me with a red herring. Just because I despise state abuses of power doesn’t automatically mean I don’t like the country. On the contrary, it means I love the country and would like to keep it free as possible. To hold on to the things that made it great.

As things stand today, on July 4th, 2008, I believe this country is on a fast track to a place we do not want to go. Where the “freedom to be” will be a lost concept of the past. It will always be honored with lip service, of course, and great charades will be trotted out to convince us we still have it. But we won’t, because increasingly we don’t.

Among other reading materials, two websites have vastly influenced my thinking on the matter: Fred the Curmudgeon and Lewrockwell.com.

We are, I think, headed for turbulent, troubled times. Regardless of who wins the election this fall. And I am increasingly inclined to believe that it really doesn’t matter who wins. We’ll still go downhill. Maybe at light speed instead of warp speed, but down-hill nonetheless. On the road to socialism and serfdom. Where the tentacles of ever expanding government intrude into the remotest facets of our lives. And small-minded leaders manipulate envious mobs to enforce their policies of legal theft. Of transferring wealth from the rich to the poor.

Our money is decreasing in value every day. Prices are soaring. For raw materials, fuel, food. Our leaders seem deaf, dumb and blind to the problems. With gas at $4-plus a gallon, McCain prattles inanely about how immigration will be his adiminstra-tion’s top priority. Which is a flat-out lie, given his past record. Obama arrogantly refuses to consider even the thought of drilling for more oil. Guess he expects us to putz about in battery powered wheelbarrows.

Who are these nut jobs, and how did they get to be our presidential candidates?

Both bow the knee to Ba’al and worship at the altar of global warming hysteria. Both will greatly damage the country and the economy on that lie alone. So we’re bound for destruction, with either of them.

I don’t plan to vote for either one. I may not vote at all. Voting instills legitimacy to an increasingly illegitimate process.

I have become deeply disillusioned by America’s role of policing the world. We have no business stationing troops in a myriad of faraway hostile countries. Our founders stern-ly warned against foreign entanglements. We are entangled with foreign aid money and/or troops in about half the countries in the world.

Terrorism, I realize, is a threat. But increasingly, I think, it is a threat used to justify a great loss of our personal freedoms. We now cannot travel to Canada without a pass-port. What kind of sense does that make? We are harassed and brutalized at airports. Little old lades are threatened and terrorized by arrogant, power-hungry TSA officials. The whole airport thing particularly incenses me. The system makes no one safer and causes untold anguish and dread. I refuse to fly, unless there is absolutely no alter-native, and then only grudgingly.

Why is it being done to us? Why are ordinary civilians harassed so heartlessly? Only those in power can answer that. And McCain and Obama are both of the same mind. Nothing will change under either, except for the worse.

Of course, through it all, we are ruled by nine old people, mostly men, creaking about pompously in their black robes. Just last week this august court ruled that the Second Amendment means what it says, in clear English. Hurrah. But I found it very perturbing that four of the nine rulers dissented, and without a second thought would have dis-armed us of our constitutional right to bear arms. That is truly scary.

And the secular, utopian hack intellectuals will be back. They always return. They never give up.

Try getting up and proclaiming a politically incorrect opinion sometime. About anything. Race. Taxes. Global warming. Feminism. Christianity. The crime that is our public edu-cation system. Home schooling. Gay marriage. Whatever. See what happens. You will be shouted down and ostracized. Marginalized as a hatemonger. Charged criminally for “hate speech.” For offending those who heard you.

It happens. It will continue to happen. Someday, people will be executed, not for criminal actions, but because of words they spoke.

And don’t even get me started on the anti-smoking, anti-alcohol Nazis. Smokers are now treated worse than lepers in biblical times. Many a man’s life is ruined because he drank one too many beers and his breath test registers .01 over the puny .08 limit. Thanks to MADD. None of it is about health or safety, it’s all about control and money. Total control. And always follow the money.

In Pennsylvania, where I live, exorbitant property taxes are literally forcing people, especially older retirees, from their homes. You don’t pay, the state holds a sheriff’s sale and takes your property right from under you. Doesn’t matter that you’ve labored a lifetime to pay the mortgage, and now it’s yours. The state actually owns it. And will take it without the slightest hesitation. It’s an abomination, it’s unconstitutional, it’s not right, but it happens every day.

We are not free. Not as our founders envisioned.

I don’t know how to fix what’s broken. I despair that it’s even fixable. At least as long as we have only a two-party system in this country. I don’t wish an imminent collapse on the economy and on society, but I’m more inclined each day to believe one is inevitable. When all the silliness and stupidity will be washed away. And, in Bryant’s famous line, “Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again.” A new society reborn from the ashes. Perhaps in my lifetime. Perhaps not. But sometime, it will happen, and people who are alive today will see it. I’m convinced of that.

Despite the gloom and doom, there are some few positive things that in all fairness must be noted. America is one of the few countries in the world where the Amish and Mennonites and other separatist religous groups can exist in relative obscurity. Freely worship as they see fit. With few hindrances from the government. As someone from that background, I deeply value and appreciate that fact.

And then there’s the all important fact that I can still write my thoughts, air my discon-tents. I can rage and seethe, and post it all on this blog. Anyone can read it and form his own opinions. This freedom is huge and should be treasured. Sadly, even this right will be smothered and chipped away after the Dems reinstate the “Fairness Doctrine” so as to muzzle the voices of those with whom they disagree.

The country is flawed, but it could be much worse. And it’s still my country. I can take pride in the flag and much of what it still represents.

On Independence Day, I plan to relax. Post early. Go hang out at a friend’s house for the day and evening. Watch some fireworks. Eat grilled foods. Splash in the pool. Listen to the live band. Appreciate the blessings in my life.

I will enjoy and celebrate my freedom. My freedom to be, such as it is.

I hope you will, too.

“No oppression is so heavy or lasting
as that which is inflicted by the perversion
and exorbitance of legal authority.”

—Joseph Addison
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I have watched the local newspapers these last six weeks. Letters to the editor and such. For a reaction, any reaction, from Lancaster County citizens about the Levi Stoltzfoos conviction.

I can’t claim to have seen every opinion essay or letter to the editor, and so may have missed such a reaction, or reactions, if indeed there were any. There was a sneering, utterly tasteless cartoon in the morning paper, the Intelligencer Journal, on May 12th. (The Intel should retract that cartoon and apologize.) Such a cartoon would not have been published about any other ethnic or religious group. But the Amish are fair game, because they are the silent in the land.

They are not silent to me. My Amish friends in the county have politely urged me again and again to write a blog or guest editorial about Levi Stoltzfoos. I have always brush-ed off their inquires, telling them someone else surely will, so I won’t have to. But someone else has not. So here it is.

Levi Stoltzfoos, as I mentioned before in a previous blog, is the ex-Amishman who was convicted in early May of money laundering. Because he deposited numerous separate deposits of around $10,000.00 in cash in various banks, he was flagged. And charged. Brought to trial. And convicted. He faces up to one thousand years in prison.

The local Amish community is quietly and deeply upset about the matter. And well they should be. Ex-Amishman or not, Levi Stoltzfoos is still of their blood.

I’m upset too. The stark plain injustice of his conviction simply takes my breath away. And that’s one reason I’ve resisted writing about it in more detail, because of the deep seething latent rage that always bubbles up inside when I stop and really think about what went down.

From my Amish friends I learned some insider details. According to them (and this may be hearsay), Levi Stoltzfoos, like many others, was concerned about Y2K. When computers would supposedly quit working and all the world would collapse. In prepar-ation of the looming disaster, he removed all his money from various banks. In cash. The total amount: Five Hundred Thousand-plus dollars.

That’s a chunk of change, any way you look at it.

Y2K came and went, and the world did not collapse. A few years passed. It seemed safe. So Levi decided to re-deposit his money in various banks. Because he didn’t want the government to know what he was doing, and because he was afraid the money would be taken from him, he submitted deposits in amounts under $10,000.00.

Which was fine. But he made one fateful mistake. One, and only one, deposit totaled exactly $10,000.00. This triggered the bank’s report requirements. Bank officials dutifully reported Levi, as the law required. Investigators found his paper trail and all the previous deposits he had made.

And so his nightmare began.

The law is the law, whether justified or not. At this point, it seems to me, a simple investigation would have revealed the facts. Levi could have been told that what he’d done broke the law. Not to do it again. And that’s as far as it would have needed to go.

But no. Couldn’t have anything that simple, or follow such basic common sense. The Feds swooped in. Confiscated Levi’s money. All of it. But after investigating, the Feds decided they could not prosecute him because they couldn’t prove he got the money through illegal drug dealing. Because he hadn’t. So they turned it over to the State, which has no such requirements.

Unfortunately, State officials were all too eager to take up the cudgel. They publicized accusations that Levi had gained the money illicitly, dealing drugs. When they knew it wasn’t true. All the local papers ran the story on bold front page headlines. Levi was a bad guy, who didn’t deserve any sympathy.

At trial, it became starkly clear that the money was legitimately Levi’s. That fact is not even in dispute. So the issue became: the law is the law. It was broken, he is guilty, and the money is forfeited. Oh, and because he broke the law, he may well serve jail time.

The jury of my fellow Lancaster County citizens took their job seriously. They followed the letter of the law. And found Levi guilty. Some members of the jury wept as the verdict was read. They knew a terrible injustice was unfolding before them. And they knew they were a part of it.

They could simply have found Levi “Not Guilty.” With no explanation. And that would have been that. But they didn’t. They have to live with that. And now it is what it is.

For the record, I appreciate and value all that law enforcement does in Lancaster County. The local District Attorney’s office overall does a good job prosecuting and jailing common criminals. Decent guys, most of them, working hard at their jobs. For low pay and scant appreciation. And to be fair to them, this case was prosecuted from the State Attorney General Tom Corbett’s office.

But still, I hold the local DA responsible as well, for not speaking out. Any person with common sense can know that the money laundering laws that ensnared Levi Stoltzfoos were not intended for people like him. I am amazed that no one in the state AG or local DA’s office can recognize that fact. And react accordingly.

I am disappointed that not one attorney in those offices could dredge up enough cour-age and integrity to stand up and proclaim: “This is wrong. This man is innocent. We can choose not to prosecute. And we shouldn’t.”

No one did that publicly. Not one man. Not one woman. Not one. And that’s a shame.

Because they are people, men and women, like you and me. They live among us in the community. They have homes, families, children. Hopes, dreams, aspirations.

Theoretically, I’m sure, they would claim to champion justice. That’s why they’re prosecutors. But in this case, at least, they are not dispensing it. Quite the contrary.

I wonder, is this what they envisioned when they were eager students in law school, setting out on a course to “change the world?” Could they have imagined they would ever be involved in such ruthless injustice? Such senseless legal overreach?

I doubt it.

What public policy can possibly justify confiscating Levi’s money? I can think of only one: tyranny.

Somehow, they have lost sight of their mission. The law, every jot and tittle, must be upheld. No room for common sense, or mercy. They are caught up in the idea that because they can, they should. And if a guy like Levi Stoltzfoos gets entangled and ground to bits in the cogs of their machine of justice, too bad. That’s life.

But they are wrong. And they are less human because of it. And because of their actions in this case, we are less secure. In our property and our rights. As a result, we will view those in authority with deepening suspicion and increasing distrust.

Their job is to prosecute criminals, not harass the innocent.

They have become official State oppressors of ordinary civilians who wish only to be left alone. They are Leviathan. A governmental monster, with a thousand clutching tentacles, grasping greedily what is not theirs to take. Concerned not with justice, but only that the letter of the law was broken. Not the spirit, the letter. Willing to confiscate all a man owns and render him destitute, deprived of his rightful gains. The penalty for making an honest mistake, for inadvertantly breaking a stupid, silly law.

As Leviathan, they make a mockery of the “justice” they are sworn to uphold.

I don’t know Levi Stoltzfoos. Never met the guy. I don’t know his age or the choices he’s made in his life. Don’t particularly care to. It’s none of my business.

He’s been portrayed as paranoid. Anyone who does what he did probably is a little bit paranoid. In retrospect though, his fears were justified. So who, I wonder, is actually paranoid? Maybe we’d all be well advised to view those in power over us with a lot more suspicion. Demand real justice, not a legalistic charade. And hold them strictly accountable.

Levi’s frame of mind is beside the point anyway. Even an unsympathetic defendant deserves justice. Especially so.

The Lord, I believe, hears the cry of the wronged and the oppressed. And brings His judgment in His time.

It’s not too late to cancel that judgment. The State Attorney General, Tom Corbett, can still do the right thing. Be a man. Admit he made a bad call. Drop the charges. Apolo-gize. Return Levi’s money. Even then, the nightmare of what Levi has experienced will be with him always. He can never quite be made whole.

Should Mr. Corbett persist in his present course of action, and insist on actually jailing Levi and permanently confiscating his money, the stain of shame against his office and against this state will never be wiped away.

And the Amish community will stand in silent witness to that truth.
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Post Note: I have learned that Levi Stoltzfoos was prosecuted by the State Attorney General Tom Corbett, not the local county DA’s office and Craig Stedman as originally written. I have corrected the errors and apologize that they were made.