FYI, I'll be ignoring my blogs for a while. I'm looking the internet in the face and saying: "whatever man."

I get the feeling that my life is filled with blogs more so then important things like God and school. Some of you have a crazy ability to post once in a while and not let it be an obsession. I don't think I do.

But before I go, I thought I leave you with one of the best speeches every written. It's a transcript of a keynote address at a Libertarian convention by Michael Cloud. It's worth reading.

"Thomas Jefferson once said, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” With all due respect to Mr. Jefferson, I would like to correct him. He’s dead now and can’t argue with me! (audience laughs) I believe that the price of liberty is personal responsibility. But it is a price worth paying because the bene-fit is beyond price.

Eric Fromm once wrote, and I paraphrase: “People fear freedom. They kiss the hand that slaps them; they lick the boot that kicks them. They are born free and begging for chains.” Well, he was wrong too. People are not trying to escape liberty; they are trying to escape personal responsibility. And it is with that Judas bargain that government persuades us to sell our souls, piecemeal, to the low-est bidder.

A few years ago, I had a conversation with Harry Browne about his book, How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World. I said, “You know, you could’ve just as easily called your book How I Found Responsibility In an Irresponsible World,” and Harry smiled and said: “Yes, but then I wouldn’t have sold any copies!”

Ladies and Gentlemen, America is awash in a sea of irresponsibility. Irresponsibility is how we got into our problems, and responsibility is how we’re going to get out of them. The Libertarian Party is the party of personal responsibil-ity; and I believe that is through a call to responsibility that we will win the hearts and minds of Americans.

Contrary to popular belief, government does not grow by seizing Liberty; it grows by assuming responsibility.

Responsibility is a heavy burden. Government bureaucrats will tell you that. Listen to them explain what a heavy burden it is for you to educate your own children. According to them, you’re not up to it and shouldn’t even be allowed to try. Instead, the government promises parents to turn their children into func-tional illiterates at someone else’s expense - the myth of the free lunch.

And it doesn’t stop there... Government says to us: “Look at all the poor, the needy, the lame, the infirm! There are so many of them! That’s too much of a bur-den for you! Let us take that responsibili-ty off your shoulders! And what a huge burden is health care - let us assume responsibility for your medical needs! And what about planning for your own retirement - that’s too much for you! Let us take car. of you in your golden years! And look at all the earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes. fires and floods -only we are capable of assuming the heavy burdens of these disasters!”

Government, you see, is a welfare pusher: it wants to turn us into dependency junkies.

And too many Americans believe that there just might be a free lunch after all; so they allow the government to shoulder their burdens, and make the Judas bargain. For a few pieces of silver they trade away their most priceless possession: freedom.

Because, you see, responsibility and liberty are two sides of the same gold coin: you can’t have one without the other.

When we surender our responsibility for a problem, we surrender our authority over it; we surrender our control, our choice. That means we surrender our liberty - and that’s a sad thing. Americans, of all people, should know better!

I agree with Mark Hinkle, who said, “Liberty is the prize; responsibility is the price.” We cannot have the prize if we will not pay the price! When we refuse to pay the price, we forfeit the prize!

There’s one sentence in a book called Gravity’s Rainbow that we should all keep in mind when thinking about gov-ernment: “When they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.

When the government asks, “Wouldn’t you like us to relieve you of your responsibilities,” a lot of people reply, “Yes.” But it’s the wrong question - and that’s why we keep getting wrong answers!

It’s the same with freedom... When you ask most people if they’d like to have as much freedom as possible, they usually say, “Of course!” But if you ask them, “Do you want your neighbor to have the same level of freedom,” they often say:

“… no! Are you kidding’? That guy should be locked up and fed raw meat under the door! I don’t trust him!”

Next time, try asking this question instead: “Would you like your neighbor to be more responsible?"

You see, one of the reasons Libertarians get into trouble here is because we’re not clear enough on the relationship between liberty and responsibility. Responsibility means that we’re not punished for our sins, but by them. That’s because reality has a nice system built into called cause and effect. If you get drunk, then you get the hangover - not your neighbor! So most of us drink less. We all reap what we sow - unless the government makes others bear the consequences of our behavior.

The reason that most people act irresponsibly is because they are convinced that someone else will pick up the pieces. But responsible neighbors take care of their yards, don’t make too much noise, and don’t vote Republican or Democrat - these are good people! (audience laughs and applauds) Personal responsibility means we reap what we sow, and the quickest way to make people responsible is to free them!

If you re a young lady and you know that if you get pregnant. you will pay and care for the child - not your neighbors - then you are quickly going discover two words: birth control! Or maybe just one word: no!

If liberty meant license - the freedom to do as you please without consequence - then we would all be against it! But license, not liberty, what we have now! Is that what we want? License encourages people to be irresponsible. The funda-mental strength of liberty is that it encourages people to be virtuous. How do I know? Because I’m a Libertarian and I’ve thought it through!

In a free society, we are rewarded for our virtues and punished by our vices. In a government-dependency system, we are rewarded for our vices and punished for our virtues. What a twisted and perverse system that is! And what kind of people does it produce? Weak, irresponsible and reckless ones! You see, we have a fundamental choice between having a strong government and weak individuals, or a weak government and strong individuals. Which do you want? To ask the question is to know the answer.

There’s a concept in Sanskrit called Karma, which is the equivalent to “as ye sow, so shall ye reap.” If you want to know what you’re sowing, then look at what you’re reaping. In a free society, good actions reap good consequences: irresponsible actions stand in front of Darwin’s machine - and wave goodbye!

I wrote a line, a number of years ago, that also applies here: “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.” Do you like what you’re getting? If not, you might want to try doing something differ-ent - because there’s a corollary: “If you never do what you’ve never done, you’ll never get what you’ve never gotten.”

That’s how a free market works. We’re rewarded for serving the needs of others. A marketplace is a survival of the kindest. It teaches us to think of our neighbors; it makes us want to provide good things to others because we are rewarded for it.

Well, gee, if freedom is so doggone good, why doesn’t everybody want it? Because we haven’t asked the right ques-tions! Do we want our neighbors to be strong and self-reliant? Do we want our children to be responsible assets to soci-ety, or burdens and liabilities? That is the fundamental question.

Now, we Libertarians get so excited about liberty that we often give others the impression that we believe everything would be perfect in a libertarian society. Ladies and Gentlemen: rocks are hard, water is wet, and it just ain’t so. Is there anybody here who believes that, under any system you can imagine, people will always do the right and good thing? Of course not. If we try to offer Utopia, people will know we’re not being honest.

Instead, we must tell the truth: We can’t promise Utopia - but we can promise a world where responsibility is rewarded and irresponsibility hurts. Not a perfect world, but a much better world than we have now. What about the less fortunate among us? They will see that working pays off; goofing off doesn’t. They’ll also see others succeeding all around them and realize that they too can succeed if they follow their example. That is what a return to personal responsibility will bring.

A number of years ago, a congressman said to me: “You Libertarians have a 24-karat gold product - freedom - and yet you can’t even give it away! Why?” Well, I went home and I thought about it for a long time, because it was a…good question. I think the answer is that we’re not marketing our product very well. What we have here is a failure to persua-sively communicate.

We need to help people realize that when we give away our responsibility for charity, we give away our personal tie to the less fortunate. I don’t want to delegate my compassion; I want to embody it! When we give away responsibility for our golden years, we often don’t plan for own future. When we give away the responsibility of educating our children to our teaching-disabled public schools, we cripple, corrupt and injure our children.

We must take back our responsibility by voting back our freedom. We must have liberty, not license!

Next time, instead of asking your friends and neighbors if they’d like to have more freedom, try asking if they’d like to live in a society where everyone was more responsible. And when they speak in favor of another government welfare program, ask them: “Do people learn responsibility when they escape the consequences of their behavior, or when they reap what they sow?”

It’s a simple system: good behavior gets rewarded; bad behavior gets punished. Nature created it that way; only government can turn it on its head.

I’d like to conclude by telling you a story... A number of years ago I visited my mom and dad. I got up one morning, wandered into the kitchen for coffee, and looked out the window at their plastic bird feeder. It was empty, and there was a little bird sittin’ there with a “So, where… [is] the food?” look on his face.

So I asked my mom, “Where… [is] the food?” and she said: “Oh, the package is under the sink, but read the instructions before you refill it.” That seemed silly - I mean, how complicated could it be?! (audience laughs) But, you know, some-times your Mom knows best - and this was one of those times... So, I read the instructions and this is what it said: “When your bird-feeder runs out of food, do not refill it immediately; otherwise, it will cause the birds to depend upon you and they will not leam to fend for themselves.” And, I thought: What a sad testament to America that the makers of a bird-feeder would care and understand more about self-reliance than the people who run the public schools, the people who run Social Security, and the people who voted in our welfare system!

You know, we’ve got the Statue of Liberty on one coast, but I wish we had another statue at this end of the country, here in California - a Statue of Responsibility; that would remind people that, without responsibility on one end and liberty on the other, what’s in-between isn’t worth much.

May your days be filled with responsibility and liberty, and may we all dance at the first Libertarian Presidential Inaugural. Thank You!"

I'm pretty sure a lot of you have heard about homeschooling in CA but it is my understanding that not a whole lot of people are actually signing the petition to have the supreme court depublish the opinion of the lower court. If you have not done that already, please do. If the lower court publishes it's decision then homeschooling is effectively banned in CA becuase other courts will use it., but if you all sign the petition and HSLDA gets the supreme court to depublish the opinion then we're back to where we were.

https://www2.hslda.org/Registrations/DepublishingCaliforniaCourtDecision/