What #AmnestyDon Is Really Afraid Of

Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being.  With freedom comes responsibility.  For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.
—   Eleanor Roosevelt
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On This Day In:
2015	What Are You Doing?
2014	The Ideal Man
2013	Daring Ripples
2012	Evermore
2011	Unpredictable Opportunity
2010	Giants Fall In Game 2 (1 to 6) – Leave PA With 1-1 Split !!

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With No Allowance For Chance?

Man is condemned to be free, because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.
—  Jean-Paul Sartre
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On This Day In:
2015	Details
2014	Here’s One…
2013	Non-Fungible Commodities
2012	Hope And Tears
2011	Just Long Enough
	Meaningful Thoughts

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Sums

Culture is the sum of all the forms of art, of love, and of thought, which, in the coarse or centuries, have enabled man to be less enslaved.
—   Andre Malraux
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On This Day In:
2015	I Hope Not
2014	Study The Means Of Expressing Yourself
2013	That Stubborn Thing
2012	Like Mike
2011	Flawless Or Candid
2010	Browning…

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The Responsibility Of Freedom

Freedom
Freedom is
the very law of life,
life itself
is rooted in freedom
We are not
machines.
We are not
pre-programmed.
We are utter freedoms.
Now it is up to us,
what to make of it.
You have to take
your life into
your own hands,
and you
are responsible for it.
No fate is responsible.
You have to
create yourself
by your own effort.
The total responsibility
is yours.
—  Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
[Yes, I know this is a quote from a discredited “cult” religious figure / leader.  But, that does not make the words themselves less interesting.  —  KMAB]
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On This Day In:
2015	Face It
	Birdfight
2014	Honoring Firefighters
2013	And Never Will
2012	The Human Adventure Continues
2011	Almost Never

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Dealing With It

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.
―  Albert Camus
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On This Day In:
2015	Too Many Choices!
2014	Vini, Vidi, Vici
2013	Heroes
	Education, n.
2012	Who I Want To Be
2011	Mythic Forgetfulness

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Or Blog (And Bound)

Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.
–  Frederick Douglas
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On This Day In:
2015	Welcome The Virtuous
2014	Closing The Gap?
2013	On Parenting
2012	What Knowledge Is
2011	The Indefinite Accumulation Of Property

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No Less

Today, as always, the people, no less than the courts, must remain vigilant to preserve the principals of our Bill of Rights, lest in our desire to be secure we lose our ability to be free.
—   Earl Warren
Former Chief Justice
United States Supreme Court
[Note the use of the word “principals” instead of “principles”.  This indicates superior position rather than “simply” equally important opinions and conditions.  To quote Benjamin Franklin: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”   —    KMAB]
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On This Day In:
2014	Life Advice (50)
	Orange October (IV) – Giants Win Game 1 Of NLCS!
2013	Running To
2012	Suddenly
2011	Liberal Washington
2010	Giants Advance To NLCS!!

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Truism

Churchmen are quick to defend religious freedom; lawyers were never so universally aroused as by President Roosevelt’s Court bill; newspapers are most alert to civil liberties when there is a hint of press censorship in the air.  And educators become perturbed at every effort to curb academic freedom.  But too seldom do all of these become militant when ostensibly the rights of only one group are threatened.  They do not always react to the truism that when the rights of any individual or group are chipped away, the freedom of all erodes.
—   Earl Warren
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On This Day In:
2014	Thank You
2013	Really
2012	Ordinary Five Minutes Longer
2011	The Wealth Of Sons (And Daughters)

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Great Expectations

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
―  Thomas Jefferson
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On This Day In:
2014	Pass The Soul
2013	Zapping Music And Art
2012	Not Quite Fantastic
	That Kid Is Back
2011	Wolves At The Door
2010	I’m Feeling Patriotic… (Well, more than usual, anyway.)
	Beating the Heat…

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A Proper Price

THESE are the times that try men’s souls.  The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.  Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.  What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.  Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.
—  Thomas Paine
From: “The Crisis“
23 December 1776
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On This Day In:
2014	Well Hard
2013	Because I Can
	Eloquence, n.
2012	Why Bother?
2011	Peculiar Notions

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Alone And Free

The more decisions that you are forced to make alone, the more you are aware of your freedom to choose.  I hold that we can not be aware of our minds save under responsibility.
—   Thornton Wilder
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On This Day In:
2013	Superstition Is Your Way
2012	Escape Hatches
2011	Sing Like No One Is Listening

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Are You Likely To Defend It?

In the struggle for the defense of human freedom, everything depends on the vitality of the belief in man, on the health and vigor of the human things; and there is no way to maintain the human things but to know them…  A free man is a man who knows and loves the things of which a man in freedom is capable.  Only those who know what a man can be at his best, in his arts, in his conceptions, in his imagination and his realization, are capable of valuing freedom, and only those who are capable of valuing freedom are likely to defend it.
—     Archibald MacLeish
From his book: “Loyalty and Freedom“
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On This Day In:
2013	Might As Well
2012	The Long And Short Of It
2011	Bravery

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Determining Our Degree Of Freedom

The degree of our worthiness to become a free people shall be determined by our ability to respect a lawful leader, to agree to the existence of an opposition, to listen to its arguments, and especially to put the nation’s good above all party prejudices and private interest.  Liberty is not one of man’s inalienable rights’.  It is a desirable but difficult acquisition, and must be contended for constantly.
—    André Maurois
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On This Day In:
2012	Journalism And Fantasy
	Known Knowns
	Jerk, n.
2011	Love Questions

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Fly!!

I wasn’t born to stand on the sidewalk, I was born to fly around crazy in the sky!
—    C. JoyBell C.
[Found at:  http://courtingmadness.wordpress.com
The specific post is: http://courtingmadness.wordpress.com/2013/08/09/i-wasnt-born-to-stand-on-the-sidewalk/
There is an image to go with the quote.  Please click through to the original posting for the full effect.   —   KMAB]
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On This Day In:
2012	Greater Love
2011	Before

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The Price Of Illusions

The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion.  At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.
—   Frank Zappa
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On This Day In:
2012	Once Again
2011	And The “Market” Isn’t Always Right

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