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A Parable of Liberty Lost and Found is the fiction preamble of my nonfiction book, Making Global Sense, inspired by Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. Paine wrote Common Sense to spark national revolution. I wrote Global Sense to spark world evolution.

Thomas Paine began Common Sense with a parable about a remote community struggling to govern itself. He used the fable to show how various forms of government arise, to argue against hereditary monarchy, and to help create in America the first modern republic.

In updating his allegory in “A Parable of Liberty Lost and Found,” I aim to show how governments change when people and societies lose a genuine connection with Spirit, by whatever name we prefer for the divine creative force. We face this peril now, so I’m retelling Paine’s cautionary tale for us today. I’m adding an optimistic alternative ending to encourage the practical idealism of common global sense.

Paine published Common Sense in Philadelphia on January 10, 1776. This ebook excerpt from my unpublished book was released in Hawaii on January 10, 2018.

As an experiment, I’m offering this ebook to show a prospective publisher that there’s public support for my work, so the more readers I can report, the better. Therefore, if you are willing to help, you can get your own free copy by subscribing to my “Global Sense News” e-letter or by subscribing to my “Global Sense Blog” (use the form on the right). Your support is profoundly appreciated!

Read an Excerpt from:
A Parable of Liberty Lost and Found

• Imagine with me a small group of brave humans who settle a large, remote and unoccupied island paradise surrounded by a vast ocean….

More generations pass. Government makes basic choices that people once made for themselves. Government decides when to harvest the field and where to grind the grain. Government decides who can tend the sick and how much it costs to be ill.

Government sets all the rules for commerce and industry as well as personal conduct in the community and home.Habits of mindfulness that once ensured joyful harmony have been replaced by habits of dull obedience. Compliance with the government earns social approval and rewards, which satisfy most people’s need for safety and love.

Spiritual consciousness is left to a few mystics and faith healers. They are respected not revered, or tolerated as quirky amusements, but denied any real social influence.

A descendant of preacher Al Cartman, Horace B. Cartman, runs for president. His name is tainted. Voters reject him. In retaliation, he urges election reform. He says public funding of campaigns denies “freedom of speech.” The government should pay for running the elections themselves, of course, but paying for all campaigns across the island, even in remote districts, is unfair to those suffering taxpayers who care only about their own backyards, the working stiffs, struggling to feed their hungry families, bless them.

Cartman and his secret backers offer a new constitutional amendment. Any private person or group may contribute to any campaign — citizens, businesses, trade unions, civic clubs, religious groups, even charities — but taxes may not fund anything beyond election administration and vote counting.

Foes of the measure finally win one concession: Donation records become public documents. The provision is meaningless, however, because campaigns already routinely keep two sets of books. It’s a difference that makes no difference.

A campaign of united citizens buys time on the newfangled broadcast radio and television networks. Letters to the editor run in the newspapers with a plain-folks appeal, “All of them darn campaigns should be paid for only by those who care about them, not by everyone,” writes one man. “Taxes for election campaigns is unfair to all of us like me who never even vote!” The amendment passes by a slender margin.

Competition for campaign donations soon spawns rival political parties. Each party adopts a platform of proposed laws, which the party machine sells to voters like a bill of goods. Scoundrels readily sway voters with patriotic appeals, saying the other party is an evil threat to the nation and must be feared. Bigots use racial slurs to divide and conquer the opposition. Passions get aroused and manipulated in this game of graft.

Meanwhile, each party ensures all candidates running for office, whether for the congress or the presidency, first prove their loyalty to the gentry. Elections convince the common people that their democracy is real, but the campaigns are a pretense, held for sport, actually. The ruling class still rules, men still rule, no matter who wins any election.

The elites are more powerful than ever. Wealthy donors assume they own the politicians they help to elect. Politicians spend more time raising funds than passing laws.

Still, the legislators’ job is lawmaking, so they generate a vibrational energy field attracting more problems to solve with more laws, hoping they look good to voters. They never see their trap.

If you like this except from the middle of the story, if you are curious about all that  happens on the island over many generations, their ups and downs, how the fable applies to our real lives today, please subscribe and download the whole ebook. Most folks tell me it takes about a half hour to read. I believe you will feel the time is worthwhile.

You also may download the ebook for free from iBooks app (search “Judah Freed”) or from Smashwords, Kobo, and Scribd, or Amazon  at 99 cents (for now).

Thanks and blessings,
Judah

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