Once When We Were Free

maxresdefault2-1024x576By Jon Rappoport

We’re so much more sensible now. We don’t live our lives as much as we arrange them and organize them. B follows A. D follows C. We take our medicine and our shots because the doctor says so.

We’re careful, because accidents happen.

We don’t say what’s on our minds a lot of the time, because other people might pass that on, and who knows? We might get into trouble.

But once upon a time, when we were young, we were free. We didn’t take any shots, and when we got sick we recovered. We were stronger than kids are now. We didn’t ask for much protection and we weren’t given much, and we survived.


There was no talk about the needs of the group. When we went to school, we weren’t told about ways we could help others. That was something we learned at home. We weren’t taught about The Planet. Instead, we learned to mind our own business, and it wasn’t considered a crime.

When we played games, adults weren’t hovering or coaching every move we made. We found places to play on our own, and we figured it all out. There were winners and losers. There were no plastic trophies. We played one game, then another. We lost, we won. We competed. Losing wasn’t a tragedy.

There were no childhood “conditions” like ADHD or Bipolar, and we certainly didn’t take any brain drugs. The idea of a kid going to a psychiatrist would have been absurd.

People were who they were. They had lives. They had personalities. They had eccentricities, and we lived with that.

There was far less whispering and gossip. There were fewer cliques. Kids didn’t display their possessions like signs of their identity. A kid who did was ignored, even shunned.

Kids never acted like little adults. They didn’t dress like adults. They didn’t want to be fake adults.

Our parents didn’t consult us about what we wanted. We weren’t part of the decision-making process. They didn’t need us for that.

We weren’t “extra-special.” We weren’t delicate.

No one asked us about our feelings. If they had, we would have been confused. Feelings? What’s that? We were alive. We knew it. We didn’t need anything else.

We could spot liars a mile away. We could spot phonies from across town. We knew who the really crazy adults were, and we stayed away from them.

We didn’t need gadgets and machines to be happy. We only needed a place to play. If you wanted a spot to be alone, you found one, and you read a book.

There was no compulsion to “share.”

School wasn’t some kind of social laboratory or baby-sitting service. We were there to learn, and if we worked hard, we did. Teachers knew how to teach. The textbooks were adequate. Whether the books were new or old didn’t matter.

Kids weren’t taught how to be little victims.

Sex was a private issue. You were taught about that at home or not at all. You certainly didn’t learn about it in school. That would have been ridiculous.

Some of us remember being young, and now, we still have that North Star. We still don’t take our shots and medicines. We still don’t take every word a doctor says as coming from God. We still know losing isn’t a crime or an occasion for tragic theater.

We still know how to be alone. We still think gossip and cliques are for morons. We still feel free. We still want to live, and we do.

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We still resent intrusion on our freedom, and we speak up and draw the line. We still like winning and competing. We still like achieving on our own.

We can spot self-styled messiahs at a hundred yards.

As kids, we lived in our imaginations, and we haven’t forgotten how. It’s part of who and what we are.

We aren’t bored every twelve seconds. We can find things to do.

We don’t need reassurances every day. We don’t need people hovering over us. We don’t need to whine and complain to get attention. We don’t need endless amounts of “support.”

We don’t need politicians who lie to us constantly, who pretend we’re stupid. We don’t need ideology shoved down our throats. Our ideology is freedom. We know what it is and what it feels like, and we know no one gives it to us. It’s ours to begin with. We can throw it away, but then that’s on us.

If two candidates are running for office, and we don’t like either one, we don’t vote. We don’t need to think about that very hard. It’s obvious. Two idiots, two criminals? Forget it. Walk away.

We don’t fawn, we don’t get in other people’s way. We don’t think “children are the future.” Every generation is a new generation. It always has been. We don’t need to inject some special doctrine to pump up children. We remember what being a child is. That’s enough.

When we were kids, there was no exaggerated sense of loyalty. We were independent. Now, we see what can be accomplished in the name of obligation, group-cohesion, and loyalty: crimes; imperial wars; destruction of natural rights.

It didn’t take a village to raise a kid when we were young, and it doesn’t take one now. That’s all propaganda. It panders to people who are afraid to be what they are, who are afraid to stand up for themselves.

We don’t feel it’s our duty to cure every ill in the world. But it goes a lot further than that. We can see what that kind of indoctrination creates. It creates the perception of endless numbers of helpless victims. And once that’s firmly entrenched, then magically, the endless parade of victims appears, ready-made. When some needs have been met, that’s never enough, so other needs are born. The lowest form of hustlers sell those needs from here to the sky and beyond. They make no distinction between people who really can use help and those who are just on the make.

We didn’t grow up that way. We don’t fall for the con now.

When we were kids, the number of friends we had didn’t matter. We didn’t keep score. Nobody kept track of the count. That would have been recognized in a second as a form of insanity.

As kids, we didn’t admire people simply because other people admired them. That was an unknown standard.

We were alive. That was enough. We were free. That was enough.

It still is.

When we were young, we had incredible dreams. We imagined the dreams and imagined accomplishing them. Some of us still do. Some of us still work in that direction. We haven’t given up the ghost just because the world is mad.

The world needs to learn what we know. We don’t need to learn what the world has been brainwashed into believing.

(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, Exit From The Matrix, click here.)

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.


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14 Comments on "Once When We Were Free"

  1. Once we were free to express ourself and enjoy freedom of speech. Once we were free to have honest and open debate with our peers. But now many sites like Activist Post stand against free speech and censor and delete comments from it’s readers. They will censor comments they do not agree with or find politicaly incorrect. Activist Post actively works against freedom and stands for opression.

  2. Philo (20 BCE – 50 CE), known also as Philo of Alexandria

    “….. But the virtuous man has absolutely no obstacle at all since he rises up against, and resists, and overthrows, and tramples on fear, and cowardice, and pain, and all things of that kind, as if they were rivals defeated by him in the public games. For he has learned to disregard all the commands which those most unlawful masters of the soul seek to impose upon him.”

    “But the virtuous man does do everything wisely; therefore he alone is free. And indeed the man whom it is not possible either to compel to do anything, or to prevent from doing anything, cannot possibly be a slave; and one cannot compel or prevent the virtuous man.”

    It works for me.

    “It’s only after you’ve lost everything that you’re free to do anything.”

    As Ronald Reagan once said:

    “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

  3. Negative BS! always Negative. To much Bad energy. It is a positive mind and energy that will see your life blossom and others around you.

    My Christmas gift is the Gift Of Advice.

    Don’t listen to others, don’t listen to Doctors , Don’t listen to the Gov.
    Research everything, become a Renaissance Person.
    Study all there is of Food and Health.
    Master the Mind and Body.
    Study the Real History of the World.
    Only follow real news from Non Gov Sites.

    Focus on the Positive and make your whole life go that way.

    Merry Christmas!

    • I liked your version of the ten commandments but did you thought of the article as negative .I must say that i thought it was very well written and also very true and i do agree with you that it is better to focus on the positive things but little by little, those things have metamorphosed into a world, with a serious lack in morals and our leaders stampeding on our rights. There is this elephant in the room breaking our china and should we act as if he was not there….. would that not be an act of Denial, the worst of the gods to worship.

  4. I miss the old days.

  5. So, Mr. Rappaport, you didn’t live in the same world where priests were molesting children, where men beat their wives, where people drank an incredible amount of alcohol and often drove afterwards, where sexism and racism were openly practiced because that’s just the way things were, and where beating children with sticks, belts, and paddles was acceptable?

    • As opposed to the current world of women who turn themselves into bad copies of men in pursuit of an equality that’s created the largest divorce rate in the world, while failing to create equality because, for feminists, equality isn’t the goal. The amount of drunk drivers, male and female, go up each year due to population growth. As to sexism and rascism in the 40’s, 50’s and 60s in America; perhaps I missed the location of Shambala in grade school; please list the places in the world that had NO racism and sexism during that time period, or at ANY time period during their existence. Please name the past civilizations, there’s 10,000 years of them, that had no racism and sexism. I’m looking for spots that exist in the real world, instead of some social justice warrior’s hallucinations.

      I’m surprised people, such as yourself, would bother commenting on sites that have no “safe spaces” to retreat too. You would think you would be too busy denigrating historical figures you neither knew personally, nor lived among during the times their lives occurred. Pretty easy to do from the segregated ivory tower (I mean PC white plastic simulated ivory tower){sorry, that’s “any color but white” plastic simulated ivory non-phallic structure}. God knows I would not want to offend you by mistake……., literally.

      Think about it, once the red clouds fade from your vision.

      • Four thumbs up for a divide and conquer speech. I guess we have a long way to go, when the “truthers” still take zero responsibility for the world and conveniently blame it on ivory tower PC’ers. I really cant stand people who long for the good ol days, we’ve been under the empire for thousands of years. I guess you had it good huh??

        • And her little speech wasn’t? Someone judging a past they neither experienced nor survived? I can’t stand hypocrites who somehow think “current modern society” is so much more “enlightened” than the past. That they, and only they, know how to sweep away the detrius of the past and lead us to Shambala singing kumbaya. Here’s a clue for you Sparky; You know all the “black lives matter crap”? Banning the Confederate flag because it’s “racist” and “glorifies slavery”? You know; hot button oppression.

          Not one of them, from Sharpton on down, mentions that an underage girl can be bought for less than $20 on the Gold Coast of Africa. None of them mention the current slave trade at all; does that mean people like YOU benefit from it? Because you don’t want to think about blacks SELLING blacks, just like they did before, because that doesn’t fit your byline. Does the “logic” you apply to my previous post apply to yourself?

          Doesn’t end there; can be applied to numerous examples including AGW and vaccine safety.

          Here’s the last clue; in case it hasn’t occurred to you yet, unless you actually lived it, the only thing you really know about history is someones opinion of what happened, usually written by someone else who wasn’t there. Now, is it your belief that historians (or newsmen) are beyond the frailties that beset the rest of humanity? Or do you need to retreat to your “safe space”?

    • A good spanking goes a long way and a lot of younger folks sure could use one these days. A world without consequence is a world without credibility.

  6. There is no way I will ever take a vaccination – I don’t have a Dr. and I do speak up – guess that makes me free (still free).
    Freedom does come at a cost – no usury and no taxes would be a great start.
    thumbs down to all anti constitutionalists.

    do unto others as you would have them do unto you – this should be the worlds motto.

  7. Yeah, the good old days seem to be gone forever…but it is Christmas, so let’s enjoy
    the brave, new world with the old Carol, updated for the XXI Century realities…
    +++++++++++++++++++++

    On the first day of Christmas – my true love sent to me
    One Ahmed’s clock in a fear tree.

    On the second day of Christmas – my true love sent to me
    Two white peace doves,
    And one Ahmed clock in a fear tree.

    On the third day of Christmas – my true love sent to me
    Three dead Frenchies,
    Two white peace doves,
    And one Ahmed’s clock in a fear tree.

    On the fourth day of Christmas – my true love sent to me
    Four lying Lurchies,
    Three dead Frenchies,
    Two white peace doves,
    And one Ahmed’s clock in a fear tree.

    On the fifth day of Christmas – my true love sent to me
    Five golden Euros,
    Four lying Lurchies,
    Three dead Frenchies,
    Two white peace doves,
    And one Ahmed’s clock in a fear tree.

    On the sixth day of Christmas – my true love gave to me
    Six peaceful muzzies,
    Five golden Euros,
    Four lying Lurchies,
    Three dead Frenchies,
    Two white peace doves,
    And one Ahmed’s clock in a fear tree.

    On the seventh day of Christmas – my true love gave to me
    Seven blown jihadists,
    Six peaceful muzzies,
    Five golden Euros,
    Four lying Lurchies,
    Three dead Frenchies,
    Two white peace doves,
    And one Ahmed’s clock in a fear tree.

    On the eight day of Christmas – my true love gave to me
    Eight Moochies milking,
    Seven blown jihadists,
    Six peaceful muzzies,
    Five golden Euros,
    Four lying Lurchies,
    Three dead Frenchies,
    Two white peace doves,
    And one Ahmed’s clock in a fear tree.

    On the ninth day of Christmas – my true love gave to me
    Nine Nancys prancing,
    Eight Moochies milking,
    Seven blown jihadists,
    Six peaceful muzzies,
    Five golden Euros,
    Four lying Lurchies,
    Three dead Frenchies,
    Two white peace doves,
    And one Ahmed’s clock in a fear tree.

    On the tenth day of Christmas – my true love gave to me
    Ten apes leaping;
    Nine Nancys prancing,
    Eight Mooches milking,
    Seven blown jihadists,
    Six peaceful muzzies,
    Five golden Euros,
    Four lying Lurchies,
    Three dead Frenchies,
    Two white peace doves,
    And one Ahmed’s clock in a fear tree.

    On the eleventh day of Christmas – my true love gave to me
    Eleven crackheads piping,
    Ten apes leaping,
    Nine Nancys prancing,
    Eight Moochies milking,
    Seven blown jihadists,
    Six peaceful muzzies,
    Five golden Euros,
    Four lying Lurchies,
    Three dead Frenchies,
    Two white peace doves,
    And one Ahmed’s clock in a fear tree.

    On the twelfth day of Christmas – my true love gave to me
    Twelve gangstas shooting,
    Eleven crackheads piping,
    Ten apes leaping,
    Nine Nancys prancing,
    Eight Moochies milking,
    Seven blown jihadists,,
    Six peaceful muzzies,
    Five golden Euros,
    Four lying Lurchies,
    Three dead Frenchies,
    Two white peace doves,
    And one Ahmed’s clock in a fear tree.

  8. Brilliant article Jon, one of your best. But I would take exception with: ‘We were there to learn, and if we worked hard, we did. Teachers knew how to teach’. That as may be, but what they were teaching was mostly distorted, lying, manipulative rubbish – as it still is.

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