Have you ever known someone who left their dirty dishes around every corner of the house? Near the time I graduated high school you might have thought I only socialized with scientists for the number of experiments I saw on a weekly basis. There’s nothing like finding that mysterious pot of food (still sitting on the stove mind you) with a white furry crust that could quite possibly be a science fair contender.

How does neglect get to this state? What’s so hard about cleaning a little bit here and there? Just 5 minutes of dish washing a day would be enough to downgrade the bio-threat to safer levels! Why the procrastination? Why the indifference?

I believe when a problem becomes too big, it appears overwhelming, bigger than life, and impossible to solve. So the easy solution is to give up, put on a blindfold, plug the nostrils and stumble around the house not seeing the problem right under the proverbial nose.

One of the problems with the American government is that it creates a lot of filthy plates and bowls and then has the audacity to say, “That bowl is clean; eat up citizen!”

But I’m not eating that anymore!

I see how it’s time to clean house. My concern is that most people lay around sleepy-eyed in two difference beds. In one room, you’ll find a person who says there’s a problem and that the house should be cleaned up but then quickly falls back asleep. On the other side of the house, in a bedroom filled with stacks of bowls, a person watches TV never realizing that the dishes block the light from the window. This person is happy to pinch the nose and gaze at the tube while peaking through the covers. The problem is all around but never acknowledged.

I no longer want to live in a dirty house. I want to become that guy who sees a dirty knife and says, “I’m sorry, there’s a spot on this; could I have a new one?” But really, I don’t want the government to supply my cutlery needs; I would rather kick’em to the curbside and yell, “Get lost! You’re no longer welcome as a guest in our house, you slob!”

It’s time to spread the word that we live in a roach-infested house and that an exterminator should be called. Who will we tell? And who will actually spray every corner of our house with pesticide?

Answer: you and you and you. Everyone who cares!

The first step is to get people out of bed and to show them exactly how the dishes pose a problem. After that, the housekeepers (that’s you and I) need to take out the garbage thus making a change. Just 5 minutes a week (not every day) is all we have to do in order to get people in the proper mindset.

But how does 5 minutes of activism a week work? Will it even make a difference? Remember, those dishes are stacked to the ceiling! OMG!

Last night I only got a few hours of sleep. I woke up and the words “anonymous activism” floated through my sleep-clouded mind. I then had an idea. The next thing I knew, I was out of bed and walking towards the bedroom door. Seriously, I never willed myself out of bed like I usually do, especially if I’ve only slept for 5 hours!

So I grabbed my laptop, fixed some coffee, and here I sit on the sofa writing my first blog post for my newly created site, LibertySeeds.com. So what was the idea that compelled me to “awake walk”?

Money…but let me tell you this first.

To be honest, I’ve never been much of an activist. I used to wear, “Save the whales!” t-shirts when I was in middle school, and I liked to tell authority off in various ways, but I never really did much in the way of deep cleaning.

I used to be that guy who always knew there was a problem with the dirty dishes, but I preferred to sleep, so off I went into lah-lah-land (insert snoring sounds).

Any way, it was my brother, Will Buchanan who put the alarm clock next to my bed. The buzzer went off and started playing a radio talk show. The actual show I’m referring to is Free Talk Live. It’s a 6 day a week broadcast in which people can call in and talk about anything, but most of the discussions are about the problems with government and society. What’s fantastic about this show is that it’s not stuck on a negative rant of the-world-sucks-mentality; it really tries hard to offer solutions. The tone is ultimately positive and encouraging.

Listening to Free Talk Live changed me. I started agreeing on issues I never considered before. So I started sharing these thoughts with my friends, and we had discussions about welfare, the military, and taxes, you know, things like that. But simply talking to my small circle of friends was not enough.

And once again my brother put another alarm clock on my nightstand. He invited me to join him on his house cleaning mission dubbed, Walk For Liberty. He pledges to walk 100% of the way from Oregon to New Hampshire so as to raise awareness for Ron Paul’s presidency campaign and the Free State Project. Education is important. So, I agreed to join this cleaning quest and speak my mind to the country by saying, “Those dishes are dirty, and here’s how we can clean them together.”

So here I am, sitting on a sofa in Hawaii at my brother’s place preparing for our 6 or 7 month powerhouse cleaning tour of America. But I’m anxious to start. I want to make a difference now.

We still have about a month an a half before our walk for liberty starts, so here’s my idea for anonymous activism that anyone can do. Just 5 minutes (or less) a week will start to make a change.

Since the first step is to get people out of bed, we need to give them a wake up call. But in our case, we’re going to give them a wake up letter right to their very homes. Not an email! An actual old fashioned letter. We want to make an impact. Traditional things like that can work. So can money. So we’ll combine the two.

My so called science experiment will be to send a letter to a random person once a week. I will tell them my observations on the governmental problems and my desire to clean house. Education is key, so I will give them websites to check out, TV shows they should watch, and radio programs to listen to.

When cleaning an overwhelmingly dirty house, it should be done with baby steps when it comes to people who’ve never cleaned before.

So in addition to the letter, I will give them a dollar to prove that my intentions are true and that they were not one of millions of people who received the letter. I want them to feel special. I want them to hear the alarm by their over-used bed. I want them to take action. So if I have to bribe one person with one dollar a week to read a libertarian based website or to listen to Free Talk Live, well, that’s a dollar well spent!

The letter could be handwritten (ideal for a stronger impact), but if you’re too busy, you could use a typed-up form letter and then just fill-in your name and whatnot, add the crisp dollar, and send it out.

If you’re a new housekeeper like me, then we need to start small. But the potential for this could be huge.

Just imagine if 100 anonymous activists sent out 100 letters a week for one year. That’s 5,200 letters! And how many of those 5,200 will tell their family, friends, and co-workers about getting a letter and a dollar? What if each one told just 5 people? That’s 26,000 people who heard the message that started from just 100 people! The numbers add up quickly.

What if 200 of us housekeepers did this for a year? That’s 52,000 people a year getting the “true word.”

Remember the expression, money talks? The dollar with the letter is crucial. You could even take it a step further and write a message on the dollar with a pen. Just write something inspiring and add the website address of an appropriate liberty-minded cause.

So just imagine if 52,000 one dollar bills went into circulation with a written statement? The message could easily get out to over 100,000 or 200,000 people. All of this from the work of 100 to 200 dedicated anonymous activists who spent less than 5 minutes a week for one year.

I will start this experiment this week and I would love others to join me. I pledge that I will send out 52 letters and 52 one dollar bills with advertisements for liberty within the next 52 weeks. How many will you send out?

Good luck to us all!

Your Friend in Liberty,

John Buchanan

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Tags: 52 Weeks, Activist, Anonymous Activism, Free Talk Live, Freedom, Letters, Liberty, Money, Walk For Liberty, Will Buchanan

This entry was posted by John Buchanan on Sunday, February 17th, 2008 at 10:07 am and is filed under Activism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.