**The Attachment is a text document, "On Freedom".** ---------------------- Commonwealth Summit Focuses on Trade By PAT REBER Associated Press Writer GEORGE, South Africa -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair was slamming tennis balls on the courts half an hour after more than 40 heads of state arrived Saturday in this South African resort for the second part of a Commonwealth summit that has focused on trade and democracy. Flying in two planes from Durban, where the gathering began Friday, the leaders from England and her former colonies came to the town of George to continue discussions in a relaxed atmosphere. They will be staying in the $280-a-night Fancourt golf resort, where pink rose bushes and lily ponds dot mountain foothills. A fog lifted by the time the planes carrying Blair, South African President Thabo Mbeki and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and other leaders landed in George. The concentration of so many world leaders in just two aircraft made some people nervous. Vusi Mavimbela, Mbeki's top security official, could not be reached for comment. The heads of state are trying to reach consensus on an approach to upcoming World Trade Organization talks, and to promote democratic reforms by widening the scope of the Commonwealth's watchdog committee. Some leaders -- like Kenya's Daniel Arap Moi and Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe -- lead virtual one-party states that suppress dissent. Blair and other leaders have proposed that the watchdog committee, the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, crack down on member nations which constrain opposition parties and the media. That expanded role was approved by heads of state Friday. Still, there are differences about what should be on the agenda of the WTO meeting, which begins in Seattle on Nov. 30, Commonwealth summit spokesman Kaye Whiteman said. Queen Elizabeth II, who as head of the Commonwealth opened the summit, spent Saturday morning holding private audiences at her Durban hotel, while her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, went to visit an Anglo-Boer War battle site. The exact number of leaders present in George was not clear, and the leaders of Zambia and Seychelles were in Durban but did not attend the retreat. The Commonwealth has 54 members. Pakistan is suspended for last month's military coup, and several other countries sent lower level delegates. AP-NY-11-13-99 1709EST 11/13 http://www.infowars.com/articles/wtoelitists.htm -------------------- Wakeup! The rapist is determined to lock in our Nation to a path of enslavement, by the elite thugs, before he leaves office. BEWARE: Bradley is far more left than algore or the rapist. Brothers and Sisters, I implore you to vote in 2000 for constitutionalist conservatives, i.e. people like Ron Paul and Chenoweth. The establishment thugs only give lip service to get out the vote; their continued power depends on people NOT voting. Get it?? Bard http://www.xld.com/public/center/center.htm "The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." -- Albert Einstein
ON FREEDOM Freedom is the ability to act without the initiation of force (or its threat) being used against you. You have a right to freedom because your life is your property, yours to live as you see fit (as long as you do not violate the right to life and liberty of another). If you are free, you have the unfettered ability to pursue your own happiness, to make those choices needed for the sustenance of your own life. In a semi-free society, such as we have today, your options are forcibly limited by statist politicians on the implicit claim that your life is not your own. But take special note of this important fact: your ability, in a free society, to make unfettered choices is the consequence of being unfettered, i.e., of being unconstrained by the initiation of force. "Having choices" is not the definition of freedom, it is simply one of the consequences of being free. Now, consider your definition of freedom. Is your definition corrupted, even if slightly, by the definition of freedom which has been put forth by statist politicians? Statists define freedom as "having a choice," the kind of choices only available to an armed thug or a statist politician. Consider the role this definition of "freedom" has played, and continues to play, in the rise of America�s welfare state�more accurately characterized as America�s parasite state, one in which some forcibly feed off of the earnings of others. Having successfully substituted the statist definition of "freedom" in the minds of most, statists argue, to quote from Fatal Blindness, "that children of poor parents do not have the �freedom� to attend the college of their choice or the �freedom� to receive the very best medical care because of a lack of funds or that some struggling artists do not have �freedom� of expression because they lack money�." The logic of such arguments has driven, and continues to drive, statism�s rapacious growth, bringing us statist programs that forcibly take your money in order to provide others with more "freedom," all at the expense of forcibly denying you the freedom to decide how your money is to be spent. Statists are all over the place offering new "freedoms," new choices made available through the initiation of government force. By means of compulsion, statists make options available to some by denying free choice to others (which is what statists are attempting to do in the case of Microsoft in their attempt to force Microsoft to include Netscape in Windows 98). In the name of "freedom," statists destroy actual freedom. In the name of "choice," statists destroy actual, free choice. We now have statists claiming that poor children are being denied equal access to the Internet, that we must provide them with the same "freedom" enjoyed by others, that you are to be forced to pay for computers for these poor children�which means: you are going to be forcibly denied the freedom to refuse to pay for such computers. And now we have our chief statist, Clinton, pushing for a patient�s "bill of rights," for a new set of "freedoms" that will be acquired by means of the initiation of force, either forcing certain individuals to do certain things or forcibly forbidding them from doing some things�which means: certain individuals will be forcibly prevented from interacting voluntarily with others, destroying real freedom. And if they can do it to these individuals, they can do it to you. If actual freedom is to be secured for ourselves and future generations, it must be clearly defined. As I have stated on more than one occasion, you cannot defend what you cannot define. If the statist definition of "freedom" continues to be accepted by a majority, freedom will continue its decline�and that is why it is so important to loudly proclaim the real meaning of freedom. Only then can you defend your right to it by declaring what should be the bumper sticker of your life: "My Life Is Mine. Persuade Me, Don�t Force Me. Give Up Your Government Guns." Fulton Huxtable May 31, 1998 � Copyright 1998 Fulton Huxtable http://www.fatalblindness.com/ON_FREEDOM_PART_2.htm#ISSUES
