"We Must Break the Sticks, One-by-One"

here is a fairly well-known story about a father with three sons.  The father is reaching a point in his life where he wants to pass on his successful business to one of his sons.  In many cultures, the first born would get the job.  But the father wanted to make sure that the business that he sweat blood and tears and slaved over for years and built up into a thriving enterprise, would survive his replacement.  So the father devised a simple little test for each one of his sons to take, separately, without the other two sons being present.
 
He wrapped a bundle of kindling with a stout string to hold the bundle together.  He then presented the bound bundle to the first son and told the son to break it.  No matter how hard the first son tried, he could not break the bundle.  The father then gave the bundle to his second son and asked that son to do the same, break the bundle.  Again, the results were the same.  The second son could not break the bundle either.  So finally, feeling a little disappointed with his first two sons, the father gave the bundle to the third son and said break the bundle.  The third son contemplated the bundle for a short while and then with great deliberation, took out a knife, cut the string and then commenced to break each kindling stick, one at a time.  The third son got the job.
 
My father told of a similar story as young pattern maker during World War II.  Because of his skill as a pattern maker, he was exempt from military service, but was ordered to the Bremerton Shipyards in Bremerton, Washington to build the patterns for large valves, fittings and propellers for war ships.  He told me that when he was presented with a blueprint for his first job, it was so complex that he could not make heads nor tales out of it.  As he sat there with his chin resting on his two palms, he was feeling helpless and lost in an impenetrable fog.  He was stumped. Just then an old-timer walked by and saw that my father was in a serious dilemma and made a simple suggestion.  He told my father to look for something in the blueprint that he recognized and then build on that.  Sure enough, a piece of the blueprint sprung out at him as something he knew and my father went on to complete the pattern.  It was a life-changing moment for him and he passed that wisdom on to me.
 
So much of life presents itself as a bundle of sticks, or a complicated blueprint.  If we try to take on the whole bundle of sticks, or understand the entire blueprint all at once, we find the task too daunting, get frustrated and turn away or give up.  Thus it is with our struggle to preserve, protect and defend freedom and liberty.  The bundle we must break appears to be overwhelming, unless we take the bundle apart and start fixing (breaking) the "sticks", one-by-one.  Even armed with this knowledge so many of us lament, "but there are so many 'sticks', how can we possibly break them all?"  And indeed there are many "sticks".  But if we don't start breaking the "sticks" right now, more will be added to the bundle until no matter how we try to take the bundle apart, no matter how many "sticks" we break, many more will be added to the bundle and the law of diminishing returns becomes too powerful to overcome.
 
In our quest to return to freedom and liberty, each "stick" we break in the bundle must be a win for freedom and liberty, no matter how small.  It must be a win that can survive in spite of all the other "sticks" that would tend to tear down that win.  With one win (a broken stick) it will give us the motive and the incentive to break another stick and then another and another.
 
To give us any incentive at all to break the bundle, we must pick a "stick" that we can win and pounce on it with all the combined force of freedom lovers everywhere.  We must break that "stick" once and for all.  That first win will provide the incentive to take on the next "stick" and then the next and then the next after that.
 
In each community, each county, each state and finally all of America, we must find the "sticks" we can break that will give us a win, starting with one of the more simpler "sticks"  Start with a restriction, a law, or an ordinance and work collectively to break (repeal) it.  They (the government) won't be expecting you to fight and we have found that govenment backs up when vehemently confronted.  Staircase off of that "win" to the next restriction, law or ordinance and repeal it.  The strategy here is that people will join winners but they will shy away from, or ignore losers.  Once engaged, you will find that freedom is infectuous. 
 
If you want to win, you have to want to win with every fiber of your body because the task is hard, dirty, sweaty and tedious and only a full press fight will secure a win.  If you are comfortable and do not care about freedom and liberty, then there is no incentive or motivation to get your lips bloody in order to secure that win.
 
In the end, you either choose freedom and are willing to defend it, at whatever cost, or you choose enslavement.  Hopefully, there will be enough of us that will  choose freedom.  But time is of the essence and "sticks" are continuously being added to the bundle while we sleep
 
NARLO has found a "stick" in local government and we are going after that "stick" with a lawsuit.  We intend to rub government's nose in "it".  Who wants to help us do the rubbing?
 
 
Ron Ewart, President
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF RURAL LANDOWNERS
P. O. Box 1031, Issaquah, WA  98027
425 222-4742 or 1 800 682-7848
(Fax No. 425 222-4743)
Website: www.narlo.org

"THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF RURAL LANDOWNERS"
 
The National Association of Rural Landowners (NARLO) is a non-profit corporation, duly licensed in the State of Washington  It was formed in response to draconian land use ordinances that were passed by King County in Washington State (Seattle) in the late Fall of 2004, after vociferous opposition from rural landowners.  NARLO's mission is to begin the long process of restoring, preserving and protecting Constitutional property rights and returning this country to a Constitutional Republic.  Government has done a great job of dividing us up into little battle groups where we are essentially impotent at a national level.  We will change all that with the noisy voices and the vast wealth tied up in the land of the American rural landowner.  The land is our power, if we will just use that power, before we lose it.  We welcome donations and volunteers who believe as we do, that government abuses against rural landowners have gone on for far too long and a day of reckoning is at hand.  To learn more, visit our website at wwwnarlo.org.
 
President Roosevelt, in his 1933 inaugural address said, ".. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself".  I maintain that the only thing we have to fear is unbridled government.  The only way unbridled government can exist is if WE THE PEOPLE allow it.  Unfortunately, we have