The Principle of Freedom
A reader brings up an interesting point, that most Bailey students are from the Left and see me as a heretic to the faith because I lean to the Right on some issues and this division seems unreasonable.
Yes it is interesting that a great majority of Bailey students as well as most in other new age movements lean quite strongly to the Left. If I had to guess the amount I would say it was over 80%.
So, do shear numbers in majority mean that going to the Left is the true right hand path?
Not hardly. History proves that the next level of truth is always seen by the few, not the many.
Before I proceed let me note that when I speak of political divisions I usually use Left and Right instead of liberal and conservative. This is because these titles are misleading as those who are called conservative are liberal in many ways as they give more to charities, they are supportive of space exploration and technology, they look for new ways to expand on freedom, liberally embrace free speech, limited government, etc. Those who call themselves liberal are extremely conservative about conserving all kinds of things – the environment, cultures, historical sites and buildings and unfortunately lean toward the old conservative ways of totalitarian government much more than do conservatives with their emphasis on freedom..
I consider myself on the Right because I choose the Right hand path and it may be no coincidence that the political left and right have taken those names to themselves as the esoteric left restricts freedom and the right seeks to expand it, similar to the political left and right. Both of the groups on the left seek to restrict individual and group freedom with more laws, more regulations, less free speech and less trust in the intelligence of the individual to make his own choices.
So what are the indications that the seeker is on the Right hand path?
As I have said many times, the key indication that one is treading the Right hand path is an embracement of the Principle of Freedom. After all, what is the core ingredient of the various initiations that have to be taken on the path to liberation?
DK said again and again that the initiations remove limitations. And what happens when limitations are removed?
Greater freedom.
How can a seeker be making significant progress toward his next initiation, which brings greater freedom if he fights against the very principle of freedom that is needed to move forward?
The problem with understanding freedom is that everyone thinks they are for it. Slave owners during the American Civil War thought they were fighting for it. Hitler thought he was fighting for it. Even terrorists think they support it.
How can some be so deluded one may ask.
The reason is that individuals tend to see freedom only as it relates to their own little world and totally miss seeing it as it applies to the whole.
If slave owners won the war they would have had more freedom to do what they wanted with their slaves. If Hitler had won he would have had more freedom to carry out his insidious designs. If terrorists get their way then they’ll have lots of freedom to rape and pillage.
Fortunately, most reading this will clearly see that the above groups did not embrace any true principle of freedom. Unfortunately, many cannot see where they are missing the principle with the political views they embrace.
Consider the ways that many miss out on the Principle of Freedom.
They accept the idea that it is okay to limit or take away freedom if their intention is to do good.
For instance, the current society has a plethora of social programs not supported by the majority who actually pay the taxes to support them. Social Security is the exception in that we all pay into it and all benefit. It is no wonder then that it is supported by most and thus the principle of freedom for the whole is upheld.
On the other hand, only about 50% of the people pay any significant federal taxes yet the 50% who do not pay are the main beneficiaries. These people who benefit with no contribution get to vote for representatives that will take money from taxpayers to give them free benefits. This causes more to be spent on social programs than is available, as evidenced by our $22 trillion national debt.
Average federal taxpayers would be willing to see a reasonable amount go to social programs but because those who do not pay keep demanding more, many feel that their money is being stolen from them as well as their grandkids with the piling up of debt.
Thus we have a new type of slavery, for those who do not contribute seek to live off the means of those who do. This is what the slave owners in the Old South did. They lived off the labors of the slaves and reaped the benefits.
Now the situation is reversed in that the poorer half seek benefits with no contribution.
The poor are not the only ones benefiting as many unsupported taxpayer funds go to subsidize or benefit the wealthy.
Yes, the Ancient Wisdom teaches the principle of sharing, but it’s core emphasis is on the principle of freedom and liberation.
Sharing should be encouraged but must have at least 50% support from the group who are asked to make the sacrifice. To support the demand for confiscating by force, funds from a group where majority support does not exist, is to place yourself on the side of new cycle of slave supporters and this is not the path of the esoteric right.
The pilgrim on the true right hand path will support the principle of maximum freedom and seek to influence the majority to support sharing necessary to bring in the new age
Only by creating a sense of personal responsibility and a consciousness of freedom can we insure that our world will not slip back into physical slavery.
A reader writes:
“So, are you saying those that lean to the political left are “leaning toward the Left hand” (spiritual) path?”
JJ: The reason I use “Right” and “Left” as much as possible when I am teaching is to correlate my views with the Right and left hand path more than the literal political right and left.
The political left leans more toward limiting freedom than does the political right, but the Right is far from perfect so I do not set them up as the ideal by a long shot. Now because the political right have some areas where they also want to limit freedom does not mean they are equally egregious. One has to use the Second Key of Judgment and assess the degree each side goes off the path to liberation of the human spirit.
Both political sides are way too black and white and a black and white approach overlooks the Principle of Judgment, as well as principles in general, which must be used to see the Right hand path. Without judgment the seeker will naturally gravitate (usually with good intentions) toward the Left hand path until he reaches a point of tension where the real truth stares him in the face. At that point many will choose correctly and veer to the Right.
Another readers asks:
I feel like you talk about socialist policies, as if they were brought in by a dictator. Was it not the majority rule, that you espouse, that brought about socialist policies? Is it not then the will of the people, that enacted these policies in order to make a more just, and equal society?
JJ: If people want to cooperate in socialistic endeavors through their own free will then I am all for it, but many socialist policies, as well as many acts of Congress and presidential executive orders, run contrary to the will of the people.
Our elected representatives are supposed to represent the will of the people, but often vote against it and in harmony with pressure groups and political leaders rather than the people.
Congress barely passed Obamacare with only Democratic votes which ran contrary to the will of the people.
A big problem with it was that the people were unaware of what was in it and those who did read some of it were usually strongly opposed to it.
When passed the Obamacare bill contained 381,517 obscure words and within three years an additional 11, 500,000 words were added in attempts to clarify and expand its powers. I supposed additional millions of words have been added since.
The bill did not have majority support when passed and has low support now. A Washington Post poll in June 2015 showed support at 39% and in October 2915 a Rasmussen poll showed support at just 32%.
If we eliminated the people from the poll who were getting highly subsidized insurance at the expense of the middle class then support would be much lower.
The New York Times found that more than half the plans offered through the federal Healthcare.gov exchange had deductibles of $3,000 or more. In some states, the median deductible was $5,000 or more.
Sky-high deductibles like that high used to come with extremely low premiums. But thanks to ObamaCare’s many rules and regulations and fees, such plans are a thing of the past.
The Times notes that an Albuquerque, N.M., woman pays $4,800 a year for a plan with a $6,000 deductible. Before ObamaCare, a plan with a $2,500 deductible was available in that state for just $1,625 a year, according to a Government Accountability Office review of pre-ObamaCare premiums.
LINK
If you have a social program where a third of the people get free stuff then almost all of that group will vote for a continuation of the freebies. On the other hand, it is theft for those who are getting the benefit without paying for it, to have the power to demand free stuff from those who work hard to earn the money and pay the taxes. Any social program should be supported by the majority of those who actually pay for it. Benefits supplied by the approval of the majority who who pay the bills are much more justified than those opposed by the majority.
Right now almost half the people are receiving government benefits. If we reach a point where over half receive more than they pay in then the takers will have power to demand the givers to give more and more until the country unravels and collapses.
Not a good thing.
The solutions to these problems are presented in my book Fixing America and the core of the solution is presented online free HERE.
Universal Healthcare Lost
Would you say that we have universal healthcare if we had a system that all could afford, even if one worked for minimum wage or was a fruit picker working for piece work with imported Hispanics?
Let us say that a fruit picker had an accident where he wound up spending three months in the hospital involving six operations, yet had no problem paying for the whole thing. Does that sound like the best system ever?
Yes, it does. This was what we once had and we let this utopia slip from our fingers for a bowl of porridge offered to us by Big Brother.
We had such a wonderful system back in 1958 when I had an accident with a homemade rocket exploding that indeed put me in the situation just described.
This happened at the worst possible time. My parents had just divorced and my Dad took off to central America, not to be heard from for years and giving us no support. We had no food stamps no welfare, no child support, no medical insurance and no skills in making money. To make money, my mother, younger sister and I picked fruit in the summer and my mother worked for minimum wage in a potato plant during the rest of the year.
After the explosion I spent eight hours in surgery and a month in the hospital. Then a short time later I had a second surgery requiring a few extra hospital days.
I was quite concerned about the cost to my mother for something that was my fault and discovered that my cost there was $8 a day. There were other rooms that cost $12 and $14 a day, but I had a cheaper one because it was a ward shared with others.
Even so, eight dollars a day in 1958 seemed like a lot for someone in our situation. That’s about $70 in 2019 dollars. On top of this we had the surgery costs and office visits.
We, of course, could not pay it off all at once, but over time we paid the whole thing by picking fruit, working near minimum wage and me mowing laws on the side.
Then, later I had four corrective surgeries by a specialist that required an additional two months in the hospital. To cover the costs my savvy mom found a private charity that paid for the whole thing.
If this happened under today’s system the overall bill would be around a half million dollars and there is no way that a fruit picker could handle it, even if he had good insurance that paid 80%.
Indeed, we used to have a universal health care system, in other words, a system that all could afford and it required no payments to the IRS taken out of paychecks to cover Medicare – neither did it require the government to borrow money to supplement healthcare.
What happened that destroyed such a fair system?
It happened when the government stepped into help in 1965 when Medicare was introduced. It was supposed to help with medical costs, but from that point on they increased exponentially.
Medicare seemed like a good idea to many, especially in consideration of the cost projections at the time. The public was sold on the idea that Medicare’s $3 billion cost in 1966 would only reach an inflation-adjusted $12.0 billion by 1990. Instead, the actual cost in 1990 was a whopping $67 billion. The “experts” were off by 7.44 times. Total Medicare spending reached $440 billion for fiscal year 2007, or 16 percent of all federal spending. Since that time, spending has continued to rise and Obamacare is sending taxpayer costs through the roof.
The only larger categories of federal spending are Social Security and defense.
Would the public have supported socialized medicine if they could have seen what they would lose?
Certainly not.
Unfortunately, young people today have no sense of history, of what a financial paradise health costs were when before 1965.
Back then doctors often put patients a couple days in the hospital for observation. Because costs were so low the payment was no problem. Now, even with insurance, no one goes into the hospital unless absolutely necessary.
Today people are often complaining about the price of gas, but when I had my accident in 1958 the price of a gallon of gas was 40 cents a gallon. In today’s money that is equivalent to $3.48. These supposedly greedy oil companies are now selling gas for as cheap as $2.06 a gallon at the time of this writing in my city. Consumers are winning in that they are buying this product below the cost of inflation.
On the other hand, if you spend a day in the supposedly non-profit hospitals you can expect to pay around $4000. That far exceeds the inflation of the $8.00 I was paying, which would be $70 today. In fact it is 57 times the cost of inflation.
If gas went up the same amount we would be paying almost $200.00 a gallon.
So much for the benefits of being non-profit and benefitting from government help.
Help like this is something we can certainly do without.
A question a real seeker of truth may ask here is which has worked better in proven reality? Has it been free market capitalism in bringing us oil or socialism replacing the free market in bringing us medical services?
Copyright by J J Dewey
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