daniel ameduri

The Dissident Dad – Tyranny Reigns on July 4th, 2016

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“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

– Declaration of Independence, July 4th, 1776

Yesterday, the nation commemorated Independence Day. A celebration of freedom and the concept that all men are equal, with a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Looking back at history, it’s clear that this was never really true in North America. Not while the colonies lived under Great Britain, and certainly not since the Americans won the Revolutionary War.

Slavery, taxes, and many other government-sponsored aggressions have hindered sovereign individuals from pursuing their unalienable rights since the founding of the nation. Government power continues to be a very real problem, and the larger governments grow, the more abusive they seem to become. In modern America, the tyranny is extremely efficient and subtle when compared to other governments in history.

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Preparing Our Kids for the Future

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I heartily accept the motto, — “That government is best which governs least”; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe, — “That government is best which governs not at all”; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. 

– Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience 

I don’t think we can stand around any longer and just send our kids off to school and hope it will all work out. Globalization and tremendous advancements in technology have led to fundamental changes, which in my opinion, have left traditional public schooling in the dark ages.

Assembly line education is simply not working out for young people any longer, and ironically, many of these kids are so ignorant they actually think their problem is that they need even more “education.” In reality, the dumbing down of their minds with indoctrination and a focus on political correctness has made them grossly unprepared for life outside the sheltered cocoon of formal schooling.

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The Dissident Dad – “But Why Can’t We Do Those Things….”

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I thought we were free to choose, Dad. Why can’t we do those things? Also, Mom is forcing me to read. Please talk to her about not forcing people to do things

— The Dissident Dad’s Son

Oh, the irony. All I want to do is be the freedom dad. To raise a family that is a beacon for liberty, grounded on principles of non-aggression, cooperation, and respecting individual sovereignty.

But the truth is, what I face as a parent day in and day out is extremely difficult. It’s not just the statists and their incessant propaganda, it’s also the dereliction of duty by many modern-day parents.

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The Dissident Dad – Teaching Children to Save in a 0% World

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At the age of 5, I clearly remember walking into my local Bank of America to open up my first savings account. It was almost a thrill, receiving my small, beige deposit book, where my father noted the first entry: $260.

I had found a wallet on the floor of a hotel about 6 months prior to that. After no one claimed it, the hotel mailed me a check. Perhaps it’s because I’ve always had an interest in finance, but opening up that first savings account is one of my earliest memories. It ended up helping me to become a disciplined saver from an early age.

Moving along, in the late 1990s, I remember opening up a 1-year CD at 6% when I was barely an adult. Looking back, depositing money at a bank made sense at the time. Fast forward to today, and I don’t think teaching my children to store their money in a bank is prudent, or even a smart thing to do.

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The Dissident Dad – Our Family Manifesto

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I live in Texas, I pay taxes to the IRS, and I follow every law required of me. I am not looking for any trouble from the U.S. government. That said, my family and I have elected to sever ourselves from the cancerous monster that is Washington D.C. every chance we get.

We don’t vote or honor the state in anything we do. My money is completely outside of the U.S. banking system, via precious metals, digital currency, and whole life insurance contracts, which is nothing more than two private parties in a financial agreement. The stocks I own are in Canada or international businesses listed here in the U.S.

I wish the U.S. and its citizens the very best, but when it comes to the statists and banking elite — who ultimately form an oligarchy — I try to ignore and resist the beast in every way I can.

Over the past few months, I have felt in my heart the need to openly state exactly what mom and dad believe and what we desire for our family. These are just some basic principles. It’s not like a cult, religion, or government pledge, but more like a private business with a mission statement and declaration. My fear as a father is that without some sort of a family declaration, the dark fruits of the empire may become appealing, since as the kids age, they will come under an enormous amount of peer pressure to accept the statist mindset.

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The Dissident Dad – 10 Things I Had to Unlearn That My Children Won’t

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This list could grow to 1,000 ideas, but I’ve kept it down to ten. In the future, I might update it and add some more.

There are a lot of bad ideas that dominate the world we live in today, most of which are uncritically accepted as the norm and fully embraced by society.

As a millennial myself, I’ve noticed my peers seem to accept most of these as conventional wisdom. Hook, line, and sinker.

Here are some ideas I was propagandized with that I hope my children will never have to “unlearn.”

1. Violence is normal.

Presidential candidates today are fighting over who can kill better by using drones or boots on the ground. By constantly threatening the use of violence against other countries, statists have conditioned the population into thinking that killing tens of thousands of people is normal behavior, instead of the immoral, dangerous provocation it is. Rather than being charged with murder, politicians and others that help support this behavior are often paid $250,000 or more a speech after they leave office, and referred to as Mr. President or former Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Video games, movies, television shows, and even toys all have a common theme: death and destruction. For example, there’s nothing like teaching your child about policing in 2015 America via these Playmobil toys:

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The Dissident Dad – Free Your Mind, Part 2

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Last week, I chose to take on a different tack and put together a list of 50 things to try instead of, or in addition to, going straight to college. It’s a lengthy list, so only the first 25 were posted last week. Here is the rest of the list:

26) Volunteer at a Zoo: Zoos contain a great wealth of information, and they’re an awesome place to volunteer. You get to meet other animal lovers, learn how animals are cared for (like bears and lions), and possibly even get to take part in their care yourself. It’s something very few people get to do!

27) Write Songs: Lyrically, songs take a bit of work. You’re working with both a beat and verbal flow, which requires a strong grasp of the English language (or another) and fitting things together. This makes it a strong creative outlet, and could even lead to a job writing lyrics for others.

28) Learn to Drive Race Cars: Most of us have had that desire to get behind the wheel of a race car and take it around the track. Or even just go on a drag strip. Learning how to drive a car in these extreme conditions requires great hand-eye coordination, and fast reflexes. But if you master it, you could actually get sponsored to drive cars!

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The Dissident Dad – Free Your Mind

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I was wiping off the dust from an old book that I read when I was just 15 years old. I thought I had lost it, but while cleaning out my garage, I discovered it at the bottom of a box, like buried treasure. This specific book changed my life. It was the key to everything my brain had told me was right, but I had never seen it in written words. The book was “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” by Robert Kiyosaki. First self-published in 1997, somehow I got lucky and a friend who was in his 30s gave it to me as a gift.

Upon opening up this book that I hadn’t touched in 18 years, written in my handwriting was “free your mind.” It was a statement of faith I had declared to myself as a young man.

Since last fall, I’ve been writing Dissident Dad posts weekly, focusing on my personal struggle to raise 3 children in an environment where the America we were all told about and learned to love is completely in the past. It’s a totally foreign nation to anyone residing in the current police state run by an insane group of oligarchs, multinational corporations and lunatics in D.C.

Today, I want to change it up a bit and reach out to any young adults reading this post, or perhaps parents who are raising teenagers. With daily stories about college-aged kids being overwhelmed with debt and irrelevant degrees for today’s economy, I wanted to put together a list of 50 alternatives to going to college.

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The Dissident Dad – I Recently Spanked My Son and I Feel Like a Hypocrite

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Screen Shot 2015-03-18 at 10.21.56 AMI felt like shit. After more than 13 months without spanking my children, after taking my time to apologize to them for doing so in the past and even writing an article about why I am against it; on February 27th, I slapped my son on the backside out of anger.

It had been building up all week — frustration over a lack of respect from my 5-year-old son — and I finally lost it. After dumping water out of the bath tub, I asked him not to do that anymore, sternly raising my voice on my last request. He looked me in the eyes, scooped up a cup of water, and dumped it out right on the floor. I was livid. I took him out and dried him off with a towel, and nearly ended the matter peacefully. But I was so mad at the deliberate disrespect, I bent him over my knee and slapped his bottom. Instantly I felt horrible. I violated our relationship… I had struck my son. I had done exactly what I hated and wanted to banish from our lives – violence as a threat in order to alter a person’s behavior.

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The Dissident Dad — Raising Children in an Increasingly Obsolete System

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Screen Shot 2015-03-11 at 12.19.03 PMSixteen years ago, fresh out of high school, I remember forking over $3,800 to take a Carlton Sheets real estate coaching program. I desperately wanted to learn about buying real estate in order to make a living without going to college. Just months out of high school, at age 18, I bought my first rental property. However, it had nothing to do with the Carlton Sheets coaching program. Well, at least not the expensive portion I bought. The real value that helped me was a $99 packet of DVDs that was included. Through these videos and my own actions, I was able to acquire over a million dollars in real estate by age 22 with very little money.

At age 19, I took my one and only college class, “Real Estate Principles”, where I sat in a room with a hundred other kids and listened to dozens of lectures by our instructor. This will always go down as the biggest waste of time in my adult life.

For today’s kids, this type of education is an even greater misallocation of time and capital, because the unconventional means of education is 50x more efficient than it was fifteen years ago. And the best part: it usually costs you nothing.

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