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American Freedom

Find Your Path To Freedom - Five Reasons Why Going Out On Your Own Is The Best Solution

As unemployment hits a quarter-century high, many Americans - especially those of us just out of college or graduate school - are looking for a secure and prosperous career path. At the same time, we're not finding very much.

This article is dedicated to helping you find your financial and personal freedom by becoming an entrepreneur, and offering your unique talents in the open marketplace.

1) Entrepreneurs create jobs better than anyone else

Despite the claims of many politicians in Washington, the best jobs are not created by stimulus spending, "shovel-ready" public works projects, or investment in politically popular technologies.

Rather, they are created by innovative and avant-garde entrepreneurs who break new ground in new industries.Statistics show that the net growth in jobs over the past two decades has been almost entirely due to small business growth, but the proof also abounds in our daily lives. Take, for instance, Google. Google, the filthy-rich brainchild of Stanford graduate students, was neither funded by government nor the product of any public policy. In fact, Stanford University declined to invest in the budding technology when it was introduced. After all, we already had Yahoo, AOL, and AltaVista. Why would we need another search engine?

As it turns out, however, we did need Google, and now the billion-dollar company not only offers jobs to die for, but has also spawned the $4 billion "search engine optimization" market, where firms compete to help you get your listings as high in Google as possible.

The stories abound. The bottom-up spontaneous creativity of entrepreneurs, not top-down programs, creates jobs. So if you want to become your own stimulus, and help lead the country out of recession, it's time to start your own business.

2) The big corporation is on the way out

Back in the day, getting a job at a Big Corporation was the ticket to success and the American Dream. Employment was expected to be for life, and with a modicum of opportunity for upward advancement, working for the Man in a white collar position was the way to ensure your prosperity.

Those days, it's a whole different world. Big Corporations are under constant competitive threat from new entrepreneurial entrants (see above) as well as foreign competition. Every day it seems a new corporate behemoth is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

All of the major trends of the 21st century bode poorly for the future of the Big Corporation. First, decentralized "crowd-sourced" upstart companies are the fastest growing new business model; the bureaucratic hierarchy of the Big Corporation is unable to compete with such a dynamic model. Second, foreign competition makes American corporations less cost-effective than they used to be. Third, technological change generally makes the competitive landscape more dynamic and uncertain, thus reducing the stability advantages that corporations once offered.

3) Being your own boss is fun

As any entrepreneur can tell you, entrepreneurship is an immensely rewarding and enjoyable experience. Even through difficult times, as long as you are pursuing an area that stirs your passions, you will find yourself happier and healthier than you will working for someone else.

As the successful music producer and marketing consultant, DJ Skee, told us in his People for the American Dream interview, he feels like he hasn't worked a day in his life. Despite going through ups, downs, and myriad challenges in his young career, pursuing his passion has allowed him to truck through the most difficult times.

In these trying economic times, the best thing you can do for yourself is improve your physical and psychological health. The best way to do that is to do something you love. The best way to do something you love is to gather up the courage to follow your dreams and become an entrepreneur.

4) Entrepreneurship is the best learning experience

If you're looking to build up your resume for future success, you'll quickly realize that lots of experience is the key to getting in the door. This can be frustrating for many, especially those of us younger Americans who lack the years under our belts.

But the good news is entrepreneurship provides the greatest opportunity to learn numerous skills and gain valuable experience in a short period of time. As Pandora Internet Radio founder Tim Westergren related in his People for the American Dream interview, entrepreneurship offers a "tremendous amount of variety." Tim adds, "One minute you could be researching an industry, the next you'll be developing a business plan. Just surround yourself with smart people and listen to what they have to say."

As an entrepreneur, you'll be forced to develop skill sets you never knew you had. But the good news is even if you don't make it in your first attempt, you'll have developed the talents and abilities that will lead you to success in the future. This will benefit you in your next business or your next job - wherever your path to freedom takes you.

5) Entrepreneurship is all about freedom

Freedom is defined as "the ability to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint." Entrepreneurship is the ultimate form of freedom because everything comes down to you. You make the ultimate decisions regarding the future of your business, and you must live with them.

As an entrepreneur, the buck stops with you. There are no higher ups to blame for failure, and there are no bosses to take credit for your success. You are responsible for your own freedom - and that's a beautiful thing.

Rakaa Iriscience, the talented founding member of the rap group Dilated Peoples, told us in his People for the American Dream interview that the best thing about his career is the freedom. He added, "It's all about me. If I perform, I eat; and if I don't, I don't. I just have to go out there and make it happen."

It's all up to you. Your life, your career, and your future, all depend on what you do with the freedom you are given.

Today is the day.

About the Author

The author of The American Evolution, Matt Harrison is the founder and executive director of The Prometheus Institute, Los Angeles, CA, a nonprofit public policy institute. He has authored more than 200 articles, many of which can be found on www.ThePrometheusInstitute.org, has been a guest on several talk radio shows, and a guest blogger for CNN.    Harrison earned a BBA in political science from University of Miami and has completed requirements on his law degree and master of public policy degree from the University of Southern California.

The Prometheus Institute is a public policy organization dedicated to discovering independent policy solutions to reduce the burden of government on the people, and creatively marketing these ideas to the lay public of the United States, in order to create the political demand for positive change.

Freedom $20.97 There are few men who are as quintessentially American as Sonny Barger. He is patriotic -- a veteran who loves his country. He is independent -- choosing his own path on his motorcycle, living life on his own terms. He is outspoken -- he has boldly criticized injustices in American law and society despite the backlash this has evoked from the establishment. Yet the element that he finds most important, most sacred, most American, is freedom.In Freedom, Sonny articulates many of the principles he employs in his own life. Whether he is regarded as a leader, a rebel, a revolutionary, a criminal, or a soldier, Sonny`s outlook has been influenced not just by school but by the military, prison, and his experiences riding with the world`s most notorious motorcycle club. It was on these various journeys that he learned the lessons that are most important in his life, and the qualities he respects when he sees them in others:IndependenceCustomize Yourself; Originals Don`t Come Off an Assembly LineToughnessTemper the Steel to Forge a Strong BladeFairness Treat Me Good, I`ll Treat You Better; Treat Me Bad, I`ll Treat You WorsePresented in the form of fifty credos, this book gives Sonny Barger`s perspective on how to live a life that embodies the most fundamental of American virtues: freedom.

Freedom of the Will $22.49 ""Considered Edwards' finest work, the treatise is a monument of American philosophy," noted Christian History magazine (Vol. 4, No. 4, p.19). They continue, "In this treatise Edwards painstakingly shows that man is indeed free... but that God is still sovereign and still solely responsible for man's salvation. Edwards tries to show that a sinner and humans, in the Calvinist tradition, come into the world under the curse of Adam would never by himself choose to glorify God unless God himself changed that person's character. Regeneration, God's act, is the basis for repentance and conversion, the human actions." A detailed, careful, and strongly Calvinistic look at this important question. Edwards (1703-1758) is by far the best known American theologian. After graduating from and teaching at Yale University, he began a very fruitful ministry at Northampton, MA. The church was the scene of the explosive revival of 1734, 35, and burned fiercely for God under Edwards for several years. Edwards then went to pastor the lowly Indians. But at last he was called to be the first president of Princeton University, where he served only 5 weeks, dying of smallpox."

American Student’s Freedom of Expression $67.5 American Student’s Freedom of Expression

The Story of American Freedom (Paperback) $24.42 A survey of the various conceptions of freedom and liberty throughout American history, and how they function in relation to significant events and in the lives and political careers of notable persons. A "New York Times" Notable Book for 1998.

Economic Freedom and the American Dream $55 Shaanan challenges the conventional view that unrestricted economic freedom enhances our economic and political well being. He demonstrates that unrestricted economic freedom provides benefits but also inflicts a heavy toll on democracy, free markets and, paradoxically, economic freedom itself.

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Freedom and Liberty $3.99 Freedom and Liberty Vinyl Sticker Show your patriotism with this quality freedom and liberty sticker. It is an American Eagle atop the Liberty Bell, flanked by United States flags. U.S.A., idependence, sovereignty, liberation.

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The Thirteenth Amendment and American Freedom $50 In this narrative history and contextual analysis of the Thirteenth Amendment, slavery and freedom take center stage. Alexander Tsesis demonstrates how entrenched slavery was in pre-Civil War America, how central it was to the political events that resulted in the Civil War, and how it was the driving force that led to the adoption of an amendment that ultimately provided a substantive assurance of freedom for all American citizens. The story of how Supreme Court justices have interpreted the Thirteenth Amendment, first through racist lenses after Reconstruction and later influenced by the modern civil rights movement, provides insight into the tremendous impact the Thirteenth Amendment has had on the Constitution and American culture. Importantly, Tsesis also explains why the Thirteenth Amendment is essential to contemporary America, offering fresh analysis on the role the Amendment has played regarding civil rights legislation and personal liberty case decisions, and an original explanation of the substantive guarantees of freedom for today's society that the Reconstruction Congress envisioned over a century ago.

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American Slavery, Irish Freedom $24.95 Irish Americans who supported the movement for the repeal of the act of parliamentary union between Ireland and Great Britain during the early 1840s encountered controversy over the issue of American slavery. Encouraged by abolitionists on both sides of the Atlantic, repeal leader Daniel OÆConnell often spoke against slavery, issuing appeals for Irish Americans to join the antislavery cause. With each speech, American repeal associations debated the proper response to such sentiments and often chose not to support abolition. In American Slavery, Irish Freedom, Angela F. Murphy examines the interactions among abolitionists, Irish nationalists, and American citizens as the issues of slavery and abolition complicated the first transatlantic movement for Irish independence.The call of Old World loyalties, perceived duties of American citizenship, and regional devotions collided for these Irish Americans as the slavery issue intertwined with their efforts on behalf of their homeland. By looking at the makeup and rhetoric of the American repeal associations, the pressures on Irish Americans applied by both abolitionists and American nativists, and the domestic and transatlantic political situation that helped to define the repealersÆ response to antislavery appeals, Murphy investigates and explains why many Irish Americans did not support abolitionism. Murphy refutes theories that Irish immigrants rejected the abolition movement primarily for reasons of religion, political affiliation, ethnicity, or the desire to assert a white racial identity. Instead, she suggests, their position emerged from Irish AmericansÆ intention to assert their loyalty toward their new republic during what was for them a very uncertain time.The first book-length study of the Irish repeal movement in the United States, American Slavery, Irish Freedom conveys the dilemmas that Irish Americans grappled with as they negotiated their identity and adapted to the duties of citizenship within a slaveholding republic, shedding new light on the societal pressures they faced as the values of that new republic underwent tremendous change.

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Education as Freedom $30.99 Education as Freedom is a groundbreaking edited text that documents and reexamines African-American empirical, methodological, and theoretical contributions to knowledge-making, teaching, and learning and American education from the nineteenth through the twenty-first century, a dynamic period of African-American educational thought and activism. Education as Freedom is a long awaited text that historicizes the current racial achievement gap as well as illuminates the myriad of African American voices and actions to define the purpose of education and to push the limits of the democratic experiment in the United States.

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Freedom of Expression $91 Freedom of expression is enshrined in the Constitution as a sacred right of the American people. The appeal is clear: Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech or of the press. Yet the ink had barely dried on the Constitution before the first landmark freedom of expression issue exploded onto the scene. This student resource traces 11 such issues that have polarized the nation. These events show the variety, complexity, and intensity that freedom of speech and expression issues engender. Magee illustrates how the United States has worked through these contentious periods with American citizens' freedoms remaining intact, if not enhanced. An annotated bibliography follows each issue to provide avenues for further research, and a timeline and general bibliography provide additional reference support.

Freedom Reclaimed: Rediscovering the American Vision $41.28 Has the nations infatuation with the free market warped the true meaning of American freedom by its emphasis on the selfserving individual in a looking out for Number One world?Freedom is Americas most treasured value. In Freedom Reclaimed, John E. Schwarz examines the profound implications of the difference between the vision of American freedom that the Founders enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the freemarket idea of freedom that is ascendant today. Schwarz shows how the threedecade shift toward freemarket freedom has brought economic hardship to the majority of Americans and suffering to the political life of the nation. As the nation moves further away from its impelling original commitment, most Americans now have only limited access to the freedom the Founders envisioned. Schwarz sets forth a program that can help America return to its ennobling vision and resume its historic journey.In policy discussions on employment, education, social issues, and health care, Schwarz recasts our understanding of what freedom means and involves. In so doing, he transforms the way we see our world and revitalizes our ability to change it for the better. Author: Schwarz, Johne/ Schwarz, John E. Binding Type: Paperback Number of Pages: 264 Publication Date: 2007/09/01 Age Level: 22 UP Language: English Dimensions: 9.00 x 6.00 x 0.59 inches