• We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately. -Benjamin Franklin, Freedom Fighter

  • We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. -Martin Luther King, Jr., Freedom Fighter

  • Let us be cautious in making assertions and critical in examining them, but tolerant in permitting linguistic forms. -Rudolf Carnap, Philosopher

  • A clash of doctrines is not a disaster—it is an opportunity. -Alfred North Whitehead, Philosopher

  • If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Poet

  • Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. -Rumi, Mystic

  • If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things. – Rene Descartes, Philosopher

  • A house divided against itself cannot stand. -Abraham Lincoln, President

  • Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them. -Albert Einstein, Scientist

  • Be the change you want to see in the world. -Mahatma Gandhi, Freedom Fighter

Thanksgiving, 2018

Chaos … Disorder. Turmoil. Disruption. Upheaval. As Thomas Friedman wrote in early-October: The nation is deeply divided, with each side seeing the other as ‘the enemy.’ … we’ve moved from “partisanship,” which still allowed for political compromises Read more »

Thanksgiving, 2016

Someone just dropped a cognitive dissonance cluster bomb on the public. Heads exploded. Cognitive dissonance set in. Weird theories came out. This is the cleanest and clearest example of cognitive dissonance you will ever see. … Scott Read more »

Thanksgiving, 2014

Thanksgiving … A time of faith I want to write about faith. About the faith of the Pilgrims that first Thanksgiving. A faith strong enough to take them to the New World and see them through that Read more »

Thanksgiving 2012

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof… -US Constitution, First Amendment, 1791 It was in the 4th grade when Mr. Welch taught me about religious freedom.  Mr. Welch, Read more »

Thanksgiving, 2011

These are the times that try men’s souls. Thomas Paine The skies remain dark this Thanksgiving. The greatest economic recession since the great depression is entering its fourth year. Sixteen percent of workers are either unemployed or Read more »

Thanksgiving, 2010

These are the times that try men’s souls. Thomas Paine The skies are dark this Thanksgiving. Winter has come to much of America. Two-plus years into the deepest economic recession since the Great Depression, we, the people Read more »

Thanksgiving, 2009

It has been eight years since we observed Thanksgiving in the dark shadow of 9/11, eight years since I wrote the first of these Freedom Essays expressing my deepest gratitude to those who bequeathed to us the Read more »

Thanksgiving, 2008

Deep in my heart, I do believe, That we shall overcome some day We Shall Overcome Anthem of the American Civil Rights Movement I wrote my first essay on freedom 7 years ago, on Read more »

Thanksgiving, 2007

If I have seen further than my fellow man it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. Isaac Newton I vividly remember what Mr. Welch, my fourth grade teacher, taught us about Thanksgiving. Mr. Welch, the Read more »

Thanksgiving, 2006

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the mind of other men and women; the spirit of Read more »

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