"the First Wrong Was Ours!"

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Tell what I'm gonna do, I made this offer over on the Backwoodshome forum awhile back, I have given away numerous copies of Gerry Spence's book, From Freedom to Slavery; The Rebirth of Tyranny in America over the past ten years and I gave away two on the Backwoodshome forum. The first two people to post requesting a free copy of this book will receive this most important book, postage free! Gerry Spence is the lawyer who defended Randy Weaver at his criminal trial, I have several of his books in my library, 'From Freedom to Slavery', 'With Justice for None' and 'Give Me Liberty', all excellent reading, all a must read for anyone who loves liberty! The following is a brief quote from 'Freedom to Slavery: The Rebirth of Tyranny in America' by Gerry Spence, St. Martin's Press, N.Y. 1993: "In this country we embrace the myth that we are still a democracy when we know that we are not a democracy, that we are not free, that the government does not serve us but subjugates us. Although we give lip service to the notion of freedom, we know the government is no longer the servant of the people but, at last, has become the people's master. We have stood by like timid sheep while the wolf killed -- first the weak, then the strays, then those on the outer edges of the flock, until at last the entire flock belonged to the wolf. We did not care about those on the outer edges. They had chosen to be there. But as the wolf worked its way toward the center of the flockwe discovered that we were now on the outer edges. Now we must look the wolf squarely in the eye. That we did not do so when the first of us was ripped and torn and eaten was the first wrong. It was our wrong.
That none of us have felt responsible for having lost our freedom has been a part of an insidious progression. In the beginning the attention of the flock was directed not to the marauding wolf but to our own deviant members within the flock. We rejoiced when the wolf destroyed them for they were our enemies. We were told that the weak lay under the rocks while we faced the blizzards to rustle our food, and we did not care when the wolf took them. We argued that they deserved it. When one of our flock faced the wolf alone it was always eaten. Each of us was afraid of the wolf, but as a flock, we were not afraid. Indeed, the wolf cleansed the herd by destroying the weak and dismmembering the aberrant element within. As time went by, strangely the herd felt more secure under the rule of the wolf. It believed that by belonging to this wolf it would remain safe from all the other wolves. But we were eaten just the same.
No one knows better than children of the Holocaust how the lessons of history must never be forgotten. Yet Americans, whose battle cry was once, 'Give me liberty or give me death,' have sat placidly by as a new king was crowned. In America a new king was crowned by the shrug of our shoulders when our neighbors were wrongfully seized. A new king was crowned when we capitulated to a regime that was no longer sensitive to people but to non-people -- to corporations, to money and to power. The new king was crowned when we turned our heads as the poor and the forgotten and the damned were rendered mute and defenseless, not because they were evil but because, in the scheme of our lives, they seemed unimportant, not because they were essentially dangerous but because they were essentially powerless. The new king was crowned when we cheered the government on as it prosecuted the progeny of our ghettos and filled our prisons with black men whose first crime was that they were born in the ghettos. We cheered the new king on as it diluted our right to be secure in our homes against unlawful searches and secure in the courts against unlawful evidence. We cheered the new king on because we were told that our sacred rights were but 'loopholes' by which our enemies, the murderers and rapists and thieves and drug dealers, escaped. We were told that those who fought for our rights, the lawyers, were worse than the thieves who stole from us in the night, that our juries were irresponsible and ignorant and ought not be trusted. We watched with barely more than a mumble as the legal system that once protected us became populated with judges who were appointed by the new king. At last the new king was crowned when we forgot the lessons of history, that when the rights of our enemies have been wrested from them, our own rights have been lost as well, for the same rights serve both citizen and criminal."

I think his books are very powerful, I've given many copies away free, I think everyone should read this book!
 
A. Partisan,

I'll have to check my current supply, I know that I have two copies here at my daughter's place, but they're my personal copies. I'll pick up some more copies and just as soon as I do, I'll send your free copy, postage free. You'll need to PM me with an address to send it to. I have corresponded with Gerry Spence through emails, I like his books very much, but his knowledge by his own admission about 'natural law', 'natural rights', etc is wanting, believe it or not!
 
DigitalWarrior,

Ditto my post to A. Partisan! When you get your free copy, have a good read, begin looking the wolf in the eye! Vote no on what's for supper - you know that's when two wolves and a sheep are trying to decide what's for supper! :what: This book made a tremendous impact on my life, never been quite the same since!

Freedom is a disease, I need help in spreading this contagion! Infect others, help preserve our liberty!
 
The new king was crowned when we cheered the government on as it prosecuted the progeny of our ghettos and filled our prisons with black men whose first crime was that they were born in the ghettos.

Whats this all about? :confused:



:barf:
 
I didn't say I agreed with everything he writes!

SIGarmed,
I was just quoting a passage out of Gerry Spence's book, From Freedom to Slavery: The Rebirth of Tyranny in American, I'm not saying that I agree with everything that he writes! The overall book is very instructive in the loss of our freedoms in this country today, I don't have to agree with everything written to appreciate this fact. I would highly recommend reading this book, but that's just this man's opinion!
 
Gerry Spence comes off in interviews as an obnoxious blowhard interested in one thing...Gerry Spence. The combination of the faux Buffalo Bill coat and that gin blossom he has for a nose would be comical if it weren't for the fact that some folks take him seriously. I'm not interested in giving him a soapbox nor listening to him blather after he mounts it. YMMV
 
gburner,
We are all entitled to our own opinions, that's what freedom of speech is all about! Like I posted before, I've emailed back and forth with Gerry Spence about 'natural law' and 'natural rights', he really didn't have anything to say about this subject, as a matter of fact I've got an email from him where he states to me, "sounds like you know more about 'natural law' and 'natural rights' than me." He suggested that I should talk to law professors at Notre Dame Law School, that's when I contacted Charles Rice at Notre Dame.
I too was very disappointed when I've seen him on TV, that's when I decided to email him, but that doesn't detract from the message he presents in his book, From Freedom to Slavery: The Rebirth of Tyranny in America! Just because you or anyone else doen't care for him personally, doesn't mean that some or part of his message is just BS! If that were the case then what would be left for anyone to read? Maybe if we were actually present in 1775 we wouldn't have thought much of Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, James Otis, Thomas Jefferson, etc?!
 
Spence is no Jefferson...
I accept nothing in totality...
Sometimes presentation negates the value of the message...

WFBuckley is more to my liking...
 
gburner,
I made absolutely no comparison between Gerry Spence and Thomas Jefferson! What I said is that we have no way of knowing for certain the personalities of men who lived 200 plus years ago! I don't know for sure the idiosynacrasies of any of those men, for a fact do you? A liar can occasionally tell the truth, even if it only by accident!
 
Will the real Samuel Adams please stand up!

gburner,

Check out http://www.loompanics.com/Articles/Shays.htm! I quote Samuel Adams all the time and for the most part agree with most of what I've read of his writtings, but, and that's a big butt look at what he and other Revolutionary War leaders did after the war! Does this negate their previous writings, not to me it don't! Just shows me that they sold their souls to the devil after the American War for Independence! Or was that the war where they exchanged one tyrant three thousand miles away for 3,000 tyrants one mile away?!:evil:
 
Thanks for the link...I have been aware for sometime about the disparity between the revolutionary FFs and the post revolutionary ones. Kind of hypocritical when you attempt to turn a concept into a working reality. Something difficult about working around the human frailties of greed, pride, lust for power and control.

My impression of Spence is unchanged, however. Buffoonish in appearance, verbose in presentation and hypocritical in content; he bemoans the state of our system today while maintaining his place as one of the fattest hogs at the legal trough. Ain't life a bitch.
 
book review of From Freedom to Slavery

The following is a book review from Kirkus Reviews, "From virtuoso trial-lawyer Spence, defender of Karen Slikwood and Imelda Marcos; a fiery collection of free-floating thoughts about freedom. Spence is profoundly uncomfortable with the socioeconomic interdependence caused by our complex economy. Seeing serfdom everywhere in ordinary American life - in employment, religion, the media, home mortgages - he recognizes that freedom is a burden, and that people often enter into imprisoning relationships, jobs, and commitments in order to escape the loneliness and want that accompany unalloyed freedom. In traditional American polulist fashion, he denounces corporate America and government bureaucracy each as a 'New King' that has ruthlessly despoiled the environment while enslaving the people. Spence decries the 'breathing dead' - virtually anyone who cooperates with the materialism of our society, whether as a corporate employee, a homeowneer, a consumer, or as a member of the media audience - and he deplores not just external tyrannies but also what he considers tyrannies of mind and soul; TV-generated consumerism and violence 'We comport ourselves like lumpen slobs drooling at the trough where we are slopped like anthropomorphic hogs with the vacuous fare corporate America throws at us', religious traditions 'cages of the mind'; and convention. The author condemns the poverty of much of society, as well as the domination of our national power structure by males, and he proudly displays his own concept of freedom by dubbing himself a 'tree-hugger' and imagining a dialogue with a trial judge in which Spence argues that trees have rights like human beings. Finally, Spence lyrically celdbrates the 'kingdom of self' - a realm in which, he says, individuals have the power to liberate themselves. Spence - courageous and individualistic in the best American tradition - scores some eloquent points (he's at his most fluent when writing about his beloved American West and its people); but, mostly, he exhorts with the sort of angry rhetoric that might move a jury but that often falls flat on the page. This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Ingram Written by one of America's greatest trial attorneys, this compelling work articulates the great anger so many Americans feel about the current system of government." ISBN: 0312109881

This book can be found on either amazon.com or abe. com for under $5.00. In my opinion well worth the money and the time spent reading it! Another good book of his is 'With Justice for None'.
 
Great thing you are doing Mr. Suijurisfreeman. I too will buy a book, and when I am through reading it and iterpreting its messages, I will give it away to someone I feel would get the most benefit out of its content.

MOLON LABE !
 
Now there's a great idea!

Carlos Cabela,
I've been giving away this book for 10 years now, so I see you now have the idea! Great! Pass it on!

Freedom is contagious, knowledge is the source of infection! Infect knowledge!
 
imagining a dialogue with a trial judge in which Spence argues that trees have rights like human beings.

Sounds like an interesting guy, but keep him away from my place!

Next thing I know my trees will be suing me because I am thinning them out to reduce fire danger ...

:D


"And representing the plaintiff (a jar of ashes taken from TallPine's stove) is Mr Gerry Spence." :rolleyes:
 
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