Self esteem is what's wrong with the world.

Self Esteem Vs Self Confidence

Sounds like I am comparing MacIntosh apples with MacIntosh apples doesn't it?

There is a difference though, a big one.

Since I like dictionaries so much I'll give you a hint:

From Merriam-Webster -

es·teem

 noun \i-ˈstēm\

: respect and affection

Full Definition of ESTEEM

1

archaic :  worth, value

2

archaic :  opinion, judgment

3

:  the regard in which one is held; especially :  high regard

Sounds pretty good until you think  what it means.  Esteem is to hold something in high regard.  I seem to remember a time when holding yourself in high regard was considered pompous and self-centered and bad.  Now we are trying to make our kids be it?  Could it possibly be that we were led to believe that esteeming oneself is a good thing for a reason?

Well, first, lets look at confidence:

con·fi·dence

 noun \ˈkän-fə-dən(t)s, -ˌden(t)s\

: a feeling or belief that you can do something well or succeed at something

: a feeling or belief that someone or something is good or has the ability to succeed at something

: the feeling of being certain that something will happen or that something is true

Now this sounds more like something I want to teach my kids to have!  To be!

How do we get there?

In self esteem books they always say that you should never say "No" to your child.  That a child cannot be "spoiled" by giving in to them, instead it develops a healthy level of self esteem.  I agree.  If you never hear your parents telling you that your behaviour is bad or wrong then you will always hold yourself in high regard.  If you are never forced to accept responsibility for your own actions and all the people around you cater to your wants and needs, wouldn't you grow up to view everything as being your due without effort?  Is this not the way indolent rich aristocrats live?  This makes a child feel like the world owes him something for just being alive.

Confidence can only be built by accomplishing things.  Knowing you are a great cook or knitter or carpenter or mechanic gives you confidence to pursue a career in the field.  Knowing where you are limited allows you to focus your energies on things to improve or mitigate in your own life thereby increasing happiness.  Confidence allows you to stand firm in your beliefs, convictions and ideas, but also allows for the possibility and open-mindedness needed for progress.  Self confidence makes for better people.

So why the push in the last 20-30 years for more self esteem?  I thought it was just lazy and immature parenting, but this freedom movement is making me think it is a little more insidious than that.  The facts are still true so we'll examine them.  First, let's examine the idea that parents are immature and lazy.

I remember being a little kid and getting sent to my room.  I would stomp off mumbling to myself about how my parents were sooo mean and if I ever had kids I'd never send them to their room or say "No" or make them tidy their room or...you get the idea.  Does this sound like parents today?  So it would seem that those little kids never grew up to understand WHY their parents sent them to their room.  I also see parents relenting when their kids push because they are "too tired to fight" or "This is easier", this makes me think they are just too lazy to take time to be a parent.  The problem is that as your kids grow their behaviour gets worse, not better.  Kids don't just wake up one day and realize that they are selfish, indolent and rude.  They don't turn 18 and suddenly know how to wash clothes and cook.  These are essential skills they need to survive in the real world or pay someone else to do for them.

My mother taught me to cook, clean, sew, knit, crochet, macramé, build a house, understand what my mechanic was talking about (to a certain extent), drive, raise my kids, apply first aid, and write legibly among other things.  She set standards for my behaviour that were met or I was disciplined.  She made mistakes of course, she wasn't perfect, but she knew what her role was and did it to the best of her ability.  She encouraged me to be myself while teaching me to strive to be a better version of myself.  Sometimes she even let me get away with things if I could properly explain to her why I did not agree with her assessment of the level of safety.  There was a small area near my home as a child where all the kids loved to play, but it was on property covered with "No Trespassing" signs and had the potential to be a dangerous place if you weren't careful.

I knew what items were really dangerous and knew to avoid them, I couldn't see the issue with playing there but we'd always get in trouble if we were caught.  Knowing that my parents were somewhat friendly with the owner but that they were reluctant to give in to us kids, I spoke with him and asked if there were some way that we could play there with his permission.  He made me promise to be careful, asked me some questions to determine if I knew what being careful entailed and then gave me permission to enter and any kids with me would be allowed if they listened to me.  He did call my mother to make sure that she was okay with it and willing to promise not to sue him if I fell and broke my neck on his property, but in the end I was able to play there.

I got to play in the junk yard, on the sand dunes, in the creek & pond, in the woods and quarry.  I was never even injured in any of those areas and I was a clumsy child (still am).  I have hurt myself more at work in an office than ever in those carefree days.  My mother was worried more about the trespassing than the danger (unlike most of the other parents) so I was the only kid in the area who's mother actually knew where she was most of the time.  It also gave me a safer path to get into town than the big highway (which at 5 years old is not a good place to walk) so I could get some penny candies at the local store.  It was about a 1 mile walk from home to the store and most of that was along a big highway, by going through "the Pit" as we called it I shaved off 15 minutes from my time, about 1/4 mile on distance and walked along paths through the forest on  a mild hiking trail instead.  It came out at the cemetery about a block away from the store.

My confidence in my own abilities made all our lives a little easier because I could take care of myself.  I never hesitated to take on a project because I knew that if I put my mind to it I could do anything.  Today I am a DIYer and won't buy something I can make for myself.  I take on big projects like learning to cut copper, weld, do stained glass, carpentry, plumbing or electrical, canning, gardening and so much more.  Every day I learn something new, I get one step closer to being able to leave society and live on a deserted island by myself yet have all of the conveniences of modern life, not that I want to, but I could.  That is self confidence and that is priceless!

Standards

I don't know about you, but it seems to me that there are no such thing as standards anymore.  If you look around people actually apologize for being picky when they correct someone's bad spelling or grammatical error.  I guess it is because of labels like Grammar Nazi.  No one wants to be a Nazi, so being a Nazi over something as silly as a spelling mistake must make you a really bad person!  Thing is though, if we don't hold on to standards, they start to get forgotten.

It used to be that you started learning to write in Kindergarten with a big fat pencil, moved on to a standard yellow HB in grade school and then if you could write neatly and without mistakes you got to graduate to ink.  Not everyone managed to write perfectly, but there was a certain amount of slack that let everyone eventually move on with the rest.  Sure, kids got teased if they were slower than the rest, the last kid to move up to a pen was called a baby or laughed at (although this was usually short-lived as there really isn't much you can say on such a small thing), but everyone eventually felt good about the fact that their maturity was clearly identified by this move from "baby" pencils to "adult" pens.

I remember being so proud when I got my pen, I wasn't the first, but I had worked hard and managed not to be last either.  There were all sorts of little tests and steps that we took in school that let us know each step of the way that we had accomplished something, we had learned and we had gotten one step closer to being an adult.  I had my share of items where I was the person ridiculed too.  My weakness was in multiplication table speed tests.  We had 100 small questions on a page and had to answer them all correctly in five minutes and I could never get more than half done because speed tests make my brain shut off.

I was hurt, humiliated and felt about as intelligent as a paper bag.  This is probably why these tests don't exist anymore.  Thing is though, it really wasn't that bad.  I survived.  I moved on.  I got better at my multiplication tables, but still struggle to do math in my head quickly.  This is part of who I am.  I no longer let the pain rule me and I can assure myself that even Einstein wasn't quick with the basics and he was a math genius!

Is this new practice of no competition, almost no testing and lowered expectations allowing kids to find their full potential?  I don't see it.

Thing is, without standards how do you know where to set the bar?  People are inherently lazy, they will do the least amount possible to get by.  If a child is not asked to spell correctly because spell check will take care of it, how do we ever get away from sentences like this:

"My mom gave me to many bars in my lunch today, I asked for to and she gave me five, do you want to have one?"

If you don't see the issue in that last sentence then you are a product of those lower standards.

If all the electronic devices stopped working tomorrow what would you do?  Would you hand write your letters and hope that the person who gets the note will be able to correct your grammar and interpret your message?  Would you guess at the measurements for your flooring and hope you have enough and not too much?  Would you add up someone's change wrong and end up getting your pay deducted?

These are legitimate concerns.  Computers fail every day, programs go haywire and there is nothing you can do to stop it.  Don't you want your kids to have the tools on hand to be able to figure everything out on their own?  Isn't the purpose of education to teach a child how to learn?  How to think?  You don't even really need to tell a kid how things work, how things are, you only need teach him/her how to reason and work it out, he'll do the rest.

A child in today's education system only learns one thing - how to memorize and regurgitate sanctioned and accepted views on a range of subjects.  They are not asked to think beyond what is given to them in textbooks and hand-outs.  By correctly regurgitating the concepts they can graduate high school without even the smallest ability to think and reason for themselves.  They enter a workforce that is quickly degrading into a useless mass of mindless automatons.

A server doesn't know what to do if a customer asks for something outside of her day-to-day efforts, she is stumped, she runs for a Manager who calls head office and after an hour tells you that the lawyer suggested this option or that option.  I remember when a displeased customer (even if it is a minor complaint) getting offered the entire meal for free or a coupon/certificate for a free meal next time.  The other night my whole table got their orders mixed up, substituted and messed around and the manager had to get advice from the Head Office lawyer to give my son a $5 gift card because they didn't have what he came for and he had to settle for something else when it was his birthday meal.

Heck, due to lowered standards we are expected to tip 10% for BAD service when that used to be the standard for GOOD service.  I hold to the old standards in a lot of things.  I care about spelling and grammar, I calculate on paper if I can't do it in my head and rarely grab a calculator, I won't switch to an e-reader because screens are bad for your eyes and paper just feels more natural.  If I need to do something or if I want something, I try to figure out how to do or get it on my own before I look for someone else's solution.

Even among the craft blogs I like to peruse, I am starting to find a decline in the complexity of the crafts.  Slapping some mod podge over a piece of paper on a chunk of 2x4 isn't what I would call crafty, it is a kindergarten project as far as I am concerned yet I can honestly say that this is the basis of one blog I used to visit and the woman has a whole store dedicated to these types of crafts.  I can't imagine spending good money on something I could get my friend's 4 year old to make for under $5.  In fact in grade two (2 for those of you who had issues with the sentence above) my son was perfectly able to make a wind chime out of copper pipes and fishing wire.  I showed him how to cut the pipes and sand the edges smooth and how to tie the pipes to the lamp bracket with each a little longer than the last.  It was beautiful and almost looked store-bought.  In fact I actually had to go into the school and get into an argument with his teacher who insisted that either I did it all or we bought it.  I showed her the receipts and let my son show her how easy it is to cut a pipe.

Just because we can't all be the best doesn't mean we should have to lower the bar to suit those that can't.  Those too lazy to try or to work do not deserve our praise, those that try and do not succeed need to learn their personal limits and work within them.  Sure, you won't be the happiest person, but at least you will have proper self confidence instead of useless self esteem.

Next time - the difference between self confidence and self esteem and why you never want to promote the latter.

Self Evident truths: conclusion

Well, I have been sucked in.

Nothing I can find disputes what the freemen say except what the cops say, and why the heck would they say anything to lose their power?

Some of what I've found...

1. Section 32 of the Canadian Charter of Rights states that it only applies to government agents.

2. The law says that if a statute or piece of legislation falls under another then it is subject to all provisions of the higher authority and any conflicts between the two are resolved by going with the higher one.  So if the Canadian Charter of Rights only applies to government agents then all legislation that falls under the charter can only apply to government agents as well.  This includes, but is not limited to (one way to get around includes) the following:
Income Tax Act                40% of your income
Traffic Safety Act              $100-$500/year
Firearms legislation            $200-$800/year
Fishing legislation               $50-$80/year
Property taxes                   >$2000/year
Anti-terrorism legislation    Your life in prison without trial

3. The maxims of law make it really easy to see where the Freemen movement started.

4. Governments around the world have been manipulating the education system, health system, media, technology and all other aspects of our lives in order to ensure we are never thinking too much about why the world is so messed up.

5. It all seems to be leading into the greatest scam ever seen in human history, the creation of a single united world government where the people in power are the only ones deciding what is right for everyone else.

It looks like the only reason the government seems to care about any of their legislation is because it brings in money.  If they really cared about fish populations they wouldn't allow companies to get away with polluting our waterways.  If they really cared about firearms, they would try to find a way to stop criminals from getting any, not decent people.  If they cared about public safety they would eliminate GMO food from shelves, work on alternative energy instead of being petroleum obsessed and would protect wives from dangerous husbands before they were sent to the hospital.  Nothing in these legislations speaks to anything more than control and dominion.

Did you know that the federal government was mandated to provide free education for all canadians from kindergarten all the way through post-secondary?  Yet we pay for our kids' education through property taxes, tuition and annual book fees.  Did you know that when they finally got around to following their mandate to create a constitution they wrote it in such a way as to reduce our rights significantly?  Did you know that you can be an artificial person or a natural person and it has nothing to do with your style?

Heck, did you know that Freemen who know what they are talking about are winning court battles every day all around the world?  Looks like the only things bogging down the courts are all those people acting like good little slaves and answering to charges that should never have applied to them.  Looks like if everyone stopped obeying the legal system then there'd be a lot less need for cops, judges, lawyers etc.  One of those nice maxims of law is that you are supposed to attempt every reasonable measure to resolve your differences outside of the courts.  I guess ambulance chasers never heard that one.

How do we fight something so big?  So established?  So daunting?  How do we keep ourselves out of jail to protect our families while at the same time letting them know loud and clear that we won't tolerate it anymore?

Divestment, that's how!  We'll look a little closer at what exactly that means next time.

Self Evident Truths: Day 3

I know I promised to walk you through some definitions today, but I have been having issues with the list I originally created.  I guess I had a human frailty moment.

In fact, it took me so long to get back because I have been going over all sorts of words found in law.  One word led to another and to another and it turns out that INCLUDES is the most important word I've found that isn't defined in ordinary speech the way it is in the legal system.  To your average citizen, includes means, well... to contain - in a way.

Example:

This crate of fruit includes apples.

The average citizen would assume that although there are apples in the fruit crate, there may be oranges, bananas or tomatoes too, one wouldn't presume to know.  In the legal system, however, includes means "to the exclusion of all others".  Now wait a minute... if you use includes you are saying that there is nothing else in the fruit crate BUT apples.  THAT is a big difference!

Now it also goes on to qualify that if it says "and includes" or "including" that this leaves the word open to more.  So our example for this would be:

"This is a crate of fruit including apples"

This means that although there will be apples in the crate, it is anyone's guess what else may be in there now.  If you read an act - and I have read several in this journey - many list definitions of "person" as "includes a corporation" which from what we've discovered means at the exclusion of all else.  Therefore, those acts don't mean me and my friends when it talks of a person, it means a corporation.  The only problem with that is that corporations can't drive cars, fill out forms or do anything because they are not beings.  So why would so many acts include corporations if the corporation can't actually perform any functions?

From what I can find, it looks like the people that make up the corporation do things, but the corporation is the one liable.  It also looks like this can't apply to me.  Maybe these Freemen are on to something...

Don't worry I'll keep up the legwork for you and report in on what I find.  I want to make sure I am thorough, I'd hate to get something this big wrong.  If the Freemen are right, then we've been deceived and enslaved by our own democratic government...by public servants!  By our servants!  That's like if our maid is calling all the shots in our own home!  If they are wrong, then maybe one of them will find this blog and read where they went wrong, hopefully we can stop them from fighting with the cops and tying up the courts...right?

Self Evident Truths: Continued

Hey there!

We are examining the freeman movement and trying to sift through the huge amount of information out there to come to our own conclusions.  The only way to be sure that you have everything right is to look at it from every angle until you can be certain of your own mind.  Only then can you ever be comfortable with yourself and your decisions.

So what have we learned so far?
1. Freeman means someone who is not a slave and who has rights.
2. Sometimes the freemen manage to win in court, so at least some of what they are saying must have merit.
3. Freemen believe in a cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society.
4. Freemen come from all walks of life, enjoy many different careers and seem to be just like me - just a little angrier.

Lets examine some of the things they say to find for ourselves whether or not they have a reason to be angry.

Freeman maxim #1:
Laws and legislation do not apply to a natural person.

Well this is silly you'd have to say since we all know that no one is above the law.  I can reject this off-hand, but I am still trying to give them the benefit of the doubt.  They seem passionate so they must have something that makes them believe it.  If I know why they think this way, maybe I can show them where they went wrong.  Let's look up laws and legislation in Canada.  Well let's see...we have the Charter of Rights, that is what lists all of our rights in Canada.  This IS the document the cops read from when reading you your rights, so this is where I'll start.  Looks pretty good until I hit this part right here:

Application of Charter

• 32. (1) This Charter applies
• (a) to the Parliament and government of Canada in respect of all matters within the authority of Parliament including all matters relating to the Yukon Territory and Northwest Territories; and
• (b) to the legislature and government of each province in respect of all matters within the authority of the legislature of each province.
• Source: http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-15.html

Now this makes it look like only government employees have rights.  I know that isn't true, I have rights, we all have rights!  So maybe this isn't a document that grants me my rights or indicates what my rights are.  Maybe this is just a document telling the government how they are supposed to respect our rights.  Maybe there is more to this law thing.

While on the Canadian Law website you can find all sorts of acts and laws that all read like a glossary of terms.  One act will refer to another which will address an issue with another or amend still another.  Going back and forth I can't seem to find many that don't re-define almost every word.  None of them seem to differentiate between a freeman and a regular man and person is used (and re-defined) differently in many of them.  I wonder if there is something out there that'll help me sift through all the terminology?  Oh, wait, what is this?

http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/i-21/

An act to tell people how to interpret other acts...well that is handy!

According to this:

1. Laws apply differently depending on jurisdiction.  Common law is acknowledged and upheld in Canada as per section 8.2:

                   

Terminology

8.2 Unless otherwise provided by law, when an enactment contains both civil law and common law terminology, or terminology that has a different meaning in the civil law and the common law, the civil law terminology or meaning is to be adopted in the Province of Quebec and the common law terminology or meaning is to be adopted in the other provinces.

So Quebec seems to behave differently than the rest of the country, but haven't they always?  I wonder why they get away with it?  that'll be a discovery for another day.

2. There are some things in law that are suggestions and others that are obligations:

Imperative and Permissive Construction

Marginal note:“Shall” and “may”

11. The expression “shall” is to be construed as imperative and the expression “may” as permissive.

3. If you are going to redefine something, you have to be consistent.  If you define something for one act then all other acts that follow must use the same meaning unless specifically indicated.

Interpretation sections subject to exceptions

(2) Where an enactment contains an interpretation section or provision, it shall be read and construed

• (a) as being applicable only if a contrary intention does not appear; and
• (b) as being applicable to all other enactments relating to the same subject-matter unless a contrary intention appears.

So a car in one act is the same as a car in another act pertaining to cars.  Makes sense.

4. Power to make laws does not allow you to redefine words in those laws.

Words in regulations

16. Where an enactment confers power to make regulations, expressions used in the regulations have the same respective meanings as in the enactment conferring the power.

5. There isn't much room to move when writing laws:

Gender

• 33. (1) Words importing female persons include male persons and corporations and words importing male persons include female persons and corporations.

• Marginal note:Number

  (2) Words in the singular include the plural, and words in the plural include the singular.

• Marginal note:Parts of speech and grammatical forms

  (3) Where a word is defined, other parts of speech and grammatical forms of the same word have corresponding meanings.

Reading acts of legislation isn't fun, but some of the things I am discovering are pretty neat.  It makes it hard to see how people could have gotten things wrong like the freemen say.  I am trying to keep an open mind, but things look legit.

Okay, so just trying to use the Interpretation Act to understand law seems to have confused me more.  I can't assume that Freemen  are all illiterate, but I have yet to see where any of this applies to me, or the average Joe.  Maybe I am still missing something.

Let's look at a law dictionary.  When you have so many regular words being defined and re-defined, it is good to have a book that gives you all the possible meanings so you can pick the right context.  There are several words I believe I already know that I see repeated throughout these acts and regulations, some of those that stand out to me are:

1. Enactment

2. Contains

3. Includes/including

4. Person

5. Applies

These are pretty basic words, but if they are defining almost every word in an act, maybe there are different meanings for things than I now know.  Maybe it is in these simple words that I can find the key to understanding why the freemen are mad or bad...whichever it may be.

We'll talk definitions in our next installment.

Self evident truths

Self evident truths are often not as obvious as we might think.  You might find that one truth is all you see until you turn around and look at something from a different angle.  Often the culture you were raised in can alter your perceptions so drastically you find that you cannot help but be blinded to real truth and only see what seems self evident.

For example, take this freedom movement rocking through countries that have previously been held as examples of good living in the world.  Somehow it seems that the privileged people of the world are whining about how hard our lives are.  From one perspective, that is exactly what is going on.  If you change your perspective slightly though, the whole picture changes.

Let us suspend our disbelief for a moment - this is that thing you do when you go to a movie and you just accept that all the inconsistencies are logical to accept the story.  We are now poised to receive a new perspective because we have decided to accept the following information as true.  Once we have this new perspective and we have gone through the process we can then decide if the new perspective is one we can adopt as a personal truth or whether we wish to return to our previous perspective and opinion.

If we are going to examine a rationale we need to do so in a step-by-step manner.  First, lets examine the title since this is the only information we have at the moment.  FREEMAN MOVEMENT.  I have seen all sorts of names, but this seems to be the most widely accepted and well-known.  We all know what a movement is, so we'll put that aside and examine what a freeman is.  Google had this to say:

free·man

ˈfrēmən,-ˌman/

noun

1. 1.

   a person who is entitled to full political and civil rights.
2. 2.

   historical

   a person who is not a slave or serf.

Well, that seems pretty simple.  I would even have to say that those two terms could apply to me.  What makes this term seem so malevolent to society?  Maybe someone has taken this term and caused it to mean something else?  Let us examine this possibility...

A Google search reveals a lot of references to Morgan Freeman, lists dictionary references to the definition above (or similar to) and a few news stories about people claiming the government has no authority...wait, what?!?

This seems to be the source of the issue.  I know that I, as a law abiding citizen, hate to see people blatantly ignoring the rules and getting away with it, so why would I ever want to listen to someone when they say that the cops are not allowed to pull me over?  When they say that we can go around breaking all their rules and never have to answer for it?  Who wants to live in that world?  Not me, that's for sure!  So now I am done, I took a look and I don't like what I am seeing so we're done.

I feel self-righteous and content in my own ideals now.  I feel empowered.  If someone asked me tomorrow what a freeman was I could honestly say that I looked into it and they all seem like lazy criminals to me.  Okay, so seem like isn't a very definitive term, how about this...I don't think I can get behind this movement.  Wait, I don't think?  Why don't I know for certain?  Maybe I didn't look at things as closely as I could.  Maybe the first thing that shocked me or upset me dissolved my ability to be unbiased and examine this fully.  Maybe I should go back and try again.  Being open-minded is good, being fair is right, nobody ever said being good and fair was going to be easy.  Grow up Joelle and let's really try to understand someone very different from me.

Okay...Freeman Movement.  I always find it is easier to ask questions than it is to look for answers, so let's figure out what questions to ask.  In order to eliminate my already established ideals so that I can be unbiased, I have to understand where the other person's perspective comes into play.  Let's start there.

Quetion #1:

"Why do "freemen" say that laws do not apply to them?"

Obviously they have something to back up their claim, not all of them seem to be able to make it stick in court, but enough do to make you stop and wonder how they did it.  When you eliminate your anger at what they got away with you can focus on asking why did they?  If a judge rules in their favour, even once, they must have a point, right?

Question #2:

"What do the freemen believe in?"

Bad grammar, but please do forgive me for a moment.  A lot of sites list a lot of different beliefs, much like religion.  Also like religion, they seem to have one central principle to which they hold: No government has the right to tell a living person to do or not do something.  This sounds like anarchy to me, am I right?  Anarchy is a bad thing, right?  Um...oh wait:

 an•ar•chy (ˈæn ər ki) 

n.

1. a state of society without government or law.

2. political and social disorder due to the absence of governmental control.

3. a theory that regards the absence of all direct or coercive government as a political ideal and that proposes the cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society.

4. confusion; chaos; disorder.

Okay, well 1 I can't imagine, 2 sounds like it is the same as 1 but made to sound worse and 4 is downright scary, but 3 doesn't sound too bad and seems to be the one that applies in this situation.  I don't know how we could become a "cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society" but I like the sound of it.

So if anarchy isn't necessarily a bad thing, and judges are occasionally ruling in their favour, what is next?

Question #3:

"If they don't live the way I do, how do they live?"

The government and media make it sound like these people are all freeloaders and on welfare or something.  Lazy people do not start movements, freeloaders are lazy above all else.  Welfare "bums" (not counting those few who are genuinely struggling) don't tend to care about changing the world and certainly aren't trying to bite the hand that feeds them.  Some of the biggest names I can find online are regular people with regular jobs.  Contractors, Teachers, Truck-drivers, Labourers and tradesmen, seems like a lot of people who are used to hard work, not lazy "bums".

Now we have a bit more of an idea who these people are and their values, we can start to piece together the truth from all the sources.  In my next installment, I'll go even deeper to try and deconstruct what the freedom movement is and whether it applies to the rest of us.  For now, I have to say that it doesn't seem all that bad yet.