The Five Laws of Liberty – A Book You Should Read NOW

Filed under Book Review, Exceptional Americans, Featured, Motivational Americana by Kristofer Cowles on June 14, 2011 at 5:22 pm {View Comments}

Click the image for the web site and options for purchasing.

Early this year I received a Tweet from Scott Hyland, Bible Department Head at Liberty Christian Academy in Lynchburg, Virginia. Before this contact, I did not know Scott. But I knew Liberty Christian Academy was a prep school founded by Dr Jerry Falwell almost half a century ago as part of his dream for a Christian education being available for children from earliest childhood through graduate studies. You may be familiar with the affiliated, more well-known Liberty University. To be Bible Department Head at Liberty Christian Academy is no small task.

Scott had been following me and knew of my patriotic bent. He was also a reader of this blog. Scott is an author, and soon asked me if I would be interested in reviewing his book.

After looking at his web site and seeing the context and premise of his book, The Five Laws of Liberty, I agreed. Within a week, Scott had a copy delivered to my door, with a personal inscription.

I told him that being blind in one eye made me a slow reader, and I had some obligations in late February that I had been prepping for out of state, so it would be a few weeks before I got down into the nitty-gritty with his book.

Eventually, I read the book and near the end of March, I spoke with Scott for over an hour by phone, discussing his book and all things American and Godly.

It’s always a pleasure talking with a fellow Sinner who gets up every day with the firm purpose of being better than he was yesterday. Scott is this kind of guy.

Scott is about my age, and he grew up in Library, Pennsylvania, not far from Pittsburgh. In fact, we determined that when I rode the trolley from a Pittsburgh Pirates game in the late seventies out to Library with my Dad when I lived in Glenshaw, Pennsylvania, there’s a good chance Scott was there.

I’m a firm believer that an author, no matter what they write, is giving you a piece of them when they put words together for you to read. I met Scott through Twitter, got to know him through his book, and then became his brother by phone.

That alone should tell you his book is worth reading.

But his book is more than that. It is worth putting into practice in your daily life. It’s even worth the daily affirmation that you recognize that you have failed to live up to everything we could do, but you know you have a fallback position by picking up the book and getting right with yourself and the world all over again.

The Five Laws of Liberty looks at Freedom from the Biblical perspective. It looks at the Founding Documents of our own country, and clearly connects the dots between those in successive iteration, starting with the Bible. Essentially, Freedom as codified in our Constitution is defined and its understanding evolves through the precursor documents that led to our founding.

Freedom, as a Gift from God, is delivered to Humanity through His Son Jesus Christ. The Freedom Jesus gives us is outlined extensively in The Bible – when you read from Scott exactly how many times it is mentioned, you will be both surprised and, well, not surprised.

As with all Gifts, Freedom can be readily accepted or easily refused because of the ultimate Freedom from God – Free Will.

Scott’s book may ap pear to delve into what’s wrong with America as she struggles with the downward spiral of her moral righteousness in unfathomable expressions of free will, but instead of complaining about it, Scott digs deeper to show that it begins in our own hearts.

As his book winds down in the last fifty pages, you get a sense of knowing that, simply by the sin of omission, we are culpable for the sorry state of affairs we find ourselves in as a nation.

I read these last pages of Scott’s book while I was dealing with a situation concerning a younger member of my extended family. While I, too, led a life of immorality as a young man and came to know the Freedom of Jesus Christ in my mid-twenties, my relative is defended by those of his family around him – towards me – because they say I am the pot calling the kettle black. Apparently, to them, my baptism just before turning 26 and my subsequent more-virtuous life gives me no credibility when being point blank with him and them about his sinful ways and the consequences he is sure to endure because he has given his Freedom to Satan. In his defense they hope to rise him up as righteous by putting me down as un righteous. No matter my own state of sin, it does not elevate him by putting me down.

His = as it is for all of us = is a Freedom only he can attain, retain, or, as the case is now, reclaim. He, as we all are and as Scott points out in his book, is subject to the natural laws of Freedom: The Five Laws of Liberty.

But, by reading Scott’s book, I knew it was my duty to help my relative see the path he was on precisely because I had been on it, and it would be sinful to deny him the freedom of knowledge my experience would give him. No matter how my condemnation of my relative’s sinful ways was received, I expressed and fulfilled my duty to spread Freedom to this relative, instead of sinning by withholding the Great Gift God asks us all to share.

In essence, sometimes the Golden Rule requires us to do unto others what they don’t yet know they want done unto themselves.

The Five Laws of Liberty tells us that if we don’t start with ourselves, our families, and our homes, the Liberty our forefathers procured for us will repeat its historical trend and we will be known for having willingly given it up – becoming slaves to immorality, collectivism, elitism, sloth, and eventually fear. Becoming slaves of Satan.

Do yourself a favor. Pick up this book. You can read it over a week’s worth of lunches. Then start figuring out what you can do, with the guidance of Scott’s suggestions, to bring true Freedom and Liberty back to the hallowed shores of this great Gift we call America!

The Five Laws of Liberty by Scott Hyland
Format: Paperback
Number of Pages: 256
Dimensions: 6 X 9 in.
ISBN: 0899570151
ISBN13: 9780899570150
Availability: Click here for your choice of retailer or online store!

 


Andrew Summers Rowan

Filed under Exceptional Americans, Featured, Motivational Americana by Kristofer Cowles on February 22, 2011 at 3:20 pm {View Comments}

A Message To Garcia is an inspirational story of a man with initiative.

Though the story is immortalized in Elbert Hubbard’s American Classic Essay, “A Message To Garcia,” the true story of the messenger, Andrew Summers Rowan comes alive when you hear it from Mr. American Kristofer Cowles.

Mr. American tells the story Hubbard intentionally leaves out – the story told in Rowan’s own hand. It is no small feat to cross the island of Cuba today, let alone over 100 years ago, and an even mightier accomplishment to find one man with just the instruction, “Get a message to Garcia” to go on.

When you listen to this inspiring tale of American Exceptionalism, you will see your goal more focused than ever. The details of accomplishment become secondary to accomplishment, and the goal itself relies on doing one thing – accomplishing it. This story relates the value of leadership and hierarchy, obedience and sacrifice. Most importantly, it portrays that quality most perfectly etched in the Exceptional American’s DNA – Initiative!

A Message To Garcia is our Motivational Americana Story for February, 2011.


Abraham Lincoln

Filed under Exceptional Americans, Featured by Kristofer Cowles on February 12, 2011 at 3:03 am {View Comments}

Abraham Lincoln is one of the stories folks hear for the first time when Kristofer Cowles brings him to life.

We know Abraham Lincoln was an Exceptional American who came to leadership when we needed a leader most. But how did he get there?

With a brief look at the dates below, a snapshot of his life is enough to instill pride. But when you know the failures he constantly overcame during the rest of his life, as Kristofer will share, you won’t be able to help but be inspired to succeed!

1809 – Born on the 12th of February.

1834-1849 – Member of Illinois state legislature (Whig).

1847 – Representative from Illinois (Whig).

1837-1865 – Held private law practice in Springfield, Illinois.

1854 – 1856 – Candidate for Republican vice-presidential nomination. Publicly argued against Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.

1858 – Unsuccessfully seeking election to Senate , engaged incumbent Stephen Douglas in series of debates (Lincoln-Douglas debates), accepting slavery in states where already practiced but criticizing Douglas’ willingness to extend slavery into territories

1861-1865 – 16th president of US (1st Republican president). Oversaw Union during Civil War. Signed Homestead Act 1862 (granting public land to squatters after five years of settlement). Issued Emancipation Proclamation. After battle of Gettysburg, delivered Gettysburg Address (dedicating Gettysburg battleground as monument to troops killed there).

1865 – Assassinated by John Wilkes Booth while attending play “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theater. Perennially ranked as one of the two or three greatest presidents.


Ayn Rand

Filed under Exceptional Americans, Featured by Kristofer Cowles on February 2, 2011 at 2:20 pm {View Comments}

Ayn Rand is increasingly well-known to this generation of Patriots for her staunch defense of Capitalism and her prophetic books that seem to foretell the fall of America that many Americans believe we are experiencing firsthand today.

A Soviet-survivor and emigrant to the United States, Rand’s struggles to get here and while here are brought to life by Mr. American Kristofer Cowles, who shares Rand’s philosophy relative to your organization’s mission and goals.

Struggles in Rand’s life made her strong in her purpose and stronger in her philosophy. Pithy sayings like “If it’s to be it’s up to me” hold no meaning unless you act upon them, and Rand not only talked the talk but walked the walk.

If Ayn Rand is part of the presentation by Mr. American, be prepared to expand your mind to the possibilities only YOU can create and make happen.


Martin Luther King, Jr.

Filed under Exceptional Americans, Featured by Kristofer Cowles on January 15, 2011 at 6:20 pm {View Comments}

Martin Luther King, Jr. has a powerful life story that grips your American soul when shared by Kristofer Cowles. The successes and failures of a man who was only 39 when he was assassinated inspires any American to greatness by focusing on humility and persistence. The small list of events in his life below pale in comparison to the complete picture of overcoming shared when Kristofer visits with you about Motivational Americana!

1929 – Born on January 15th in Atlanta, Georgia.

1951 – King spent the next three years at Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, where he became acquainted with Mohandas Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence as well as with the thought of contemporary Protestant theologians and earned a bachelor of divinity degree.

1953 – While in Boston, King met Coretta Scott, a native Alabamian who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. They were married and had four children.

1955 – After arrest of Rosa Parks, led 382-day boycott of segregated buses in Montgomery, Alabama successfully leading to court injunction ordering bus desegregation.

1957 – Helped found Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). His leadership was fundamental to that movement’s success in ending the legal segregation of African Americans in the South and other parts of the United States.

1958 – Wrote “Stride Toward Freedom”.

1959 – He and his party were warmly received by India’s prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru; as the result of a brief discussion with followers of Gandhi about the Gandhian concepts of peaceful noncompliance (satyagraha), King became increasingly convinced that nonviolent resistance was the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.

1960 – King moved to his native city of Atlanta, where he became co-pastor with his father of the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

1963 – He helped organize a march on Washington and delivered “I Have a Dream” speech.

1965 – Organized and led march from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery but was forced to turn back at Edmund Pettus bridge outside Selma, but shortly thereafter successfully led 5-day march as planned.

1968 – Visited Memphis to support labor movement among city sanitation workers, but assassinated by sniper while standing on balcony of Lorraine Motel.


Jesse Owens

Filed under Exceptional Americans, Featured by Kristofer Cowles on September 12, 2010 at 8:11 pm {View Comments}

In 1933, Jesse Owens broke world records in the 220-yard sprint, long jump, and 220-yard low hurdles and he tied the record for the 100-yard dash. He did all this in one hour.

In 1936, in the den of Nazi Germany under the furious nose of Adolph Hitler, he won Olympic Gold Medals in the 100-meter dash, the 200-meter dash, and the long jump, as well as co-winning the 4×100-meter relay.

These were short races, They were the culmination of an already long, 27-year old black man’s life.

When Kristofer Cowles shares the trials and struggles Jesse Owens experienced growing up, you will find yourself more willing to get up one more time than you are knocked down.

You will run the race with more vigor and pride, looking to this Exceptional American for inspiration and guidance.


Amerigo Vespucci

Filed under Exceptional Americans, Featured by Kristofer Cowles on March 9, 2010 at 2:44 pm {View Comments}

Amerigo Vespucci (March 9, 1454 – February 22, 1512) was an Italian merchant and cartographer who voyaged to and wrote about the Americas. His exploratory journeys along the eastern coastline of South America convinced him that a new continent had been discovered, a bold contention in his day when everyone, including Christopher Columbus, thought the seafaring trailblazers setting out from European docks were traveling to East Asia.

Amerigo Vespucci was born in Florence as the third child of a respected family. His father was a notary for the Money Changers’ Guild of Florence.

So why is Vespucci an Exceptional American? Well, when I talk about Exceptional Americans, sometimes I talk about folks who were around before we had a country called America. The idea of America does not limit us to our short history as a Country, but allows us to look at the very people this land inspired to make their mark on her.

The role of Vespucci has been much debated, particularly due to two of his letters whose authenticity has been brought into doubt: the Mundus Novus (New World) and the Lettera (or “The Four Voyages”). While some have suggested that Vespucci was exaggerating his role and constructing deliberate fabrications, others have instead proposed that the two letters were forgeries written by others of the same period.

It may have been the publication and widespread circulation of his letters that led Martin Waldseemüller to name the new continent America on his world map of 1507. Vespucci styled himself Americus Vespucius in his Latin writings, so Waldseemüller based the new name on the Latin form of Vespucci’s first name, taking the feminine form America. (See also Naming of America.) Amerigo itself is an Italian form of Haimirich (in English, Henry).

The two disputed letters claim that Vespucci made four voyages to America, while at most three can be verified from other sources. It is now generally accepted by historians that no voyage was made in 1497 (which allegedly began from Cádiz on May 10th of that year). Little is known about the final voyage.

In 1499–1500, Vespucci joined an expedition led by Alonso de Ojeda. After hitting land at the coast of what is now Guyana, the two seem to have separated. Vespucci sailed southward, discovering the mouth of the Amazon River and reaching 6°S, before turning around and seeing Trinidad and the Orinoco River and returning to Spain by way of Hispaniola. Vespucci claimed, in a letter to Lorenzo di Medici, that he determined his longitude celestially on August 23, 1499, while on this voyage. But his claim is clearly fraudulent, which casts more doubt on Vespucci’s credibility.

His next voyage in 1501–1502 was in service of Portugal, when he reached the bay of what is now Rio de Janeiro. The leader of this expedition was Gonçalo Coelho. On this voyage he sailed southward along the coast of South America. If his own account is to be believed, he reached the latitude of Patagonia before turning back; although this also seems doubtful, since his account does not mention the broad estuary of the Rio de la Plata, which he must have seen if he had gotten that far south.

Little is known of his last voyage, in 1503–1504, not even whether it actually took place. Amerigo Vespucci died in Seville in 1512.

Vespucci’s real importance for history may well not lie in his discoveries per se, but in his letters, whether or not he wrote them all himself. From these letters, the European public learned about America for the first time; its existence became generally known throughout Europe within a few years after their publication.

EAOL


George Washington

Filed under Exceptional Americans, Featured by Kristofer Cowles on February 22, 2010 at 12:01 am {View Comments}

George Washington. Perhaps the very name personifies “Exceptional American.”

What makes George Washington so exceptional. What doesn’t!

Below are some significant dates in his life. When Kristofer Cowles speaks of George Washington, his life – intertwined and inseparable from the birth of America – is filled with daily struggles. Your organization will hear something of George Washington’s life, whether it is the entire presentation or thirty seconds. The life of this Exceptional American is part of our national DNA, and no American succeeds without doing what George Washington did.

1732 – Born February 22, in Westmoreland County, Virginia.

1759 – January 6, Washington married Martha Dandridge Custis.

1754 – 1763 – Gained command experience during the French and Indian War.

1775 – 1783 – Led America’s Continental Army to victory over Britain in the American Revolutionary War which led to the Treaty of Paris (1783).

1787 – Drafted the United States Constitution.

1789 – 1797 – Elected as the first president of the United States of America. Served two four-year terms (reelected in 1792).

1793 – Declared the US as a neutral country by Neutrality Proclamation of 1793 . He supported Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton’s plans to build a strong central government by funding the national debt, implementing an effective tax system, and creating a national bank.

1799 – December 14, George Washington died at Mount Vernon, Virginia.


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