IPFS
Hi-Jacked
Written by Linda Hunnicutt Subject: ActivismThe Freedom Farm project has hit a big snag, I have been very very foolish in believing everyone has the same intention that I do about this country. To some it is a game. fun to play but even more fun to destroy. That is the mind games some so called patriots want to play over and over.. A friend wrote this morning telling me what I already knew just had not put it into words yet.. A project like ours draws the dysfunctional like a magnet. So true.
Here is a excerpt from that message:
Howdy,
Linda, I have never replied to any of the emails from freedomisnotdead and your present email confirms why I did not. When you deal with people in a survival situation, you are bound to attract the dysfunctional or those incapable of being self-sufficient . It only takes one or two rotten apples to spoil the barrel.
I agree that we are in for a rough ride, but rather than depend on others to help pull the wagon, my family, here in East Texas will pull their own wagon by having shelter, food, medical supplies, arms, etc. without depending on others who are weak. An organization such as yours will attract those who are not self-sufficient, who are weak and who are not able to recognize their own deficiencies. These few will suck the life-blood out of the others who are strong. In military survival school, I taught others how to recognize those who will jeopardize the safety of the group.
I have followed your efforts from the very beginning. I admire you and I respect you for what you have attempted. It is apparent that you have some very good and capable people who have joined and worked at the endeavor you undertook. Unfortunately, it only takes a few to absorb most of the energy required to ensure success.
We still have a chance to pull this project out of the fire by ignoring these dysfunctional folks and go about the business of getting this land paid for and ready for habitation. We can cull out the problem makers in time, they will probably cull themselves out when it becomes apparent no one is going to cater to their needs alone. Most of these people have never had to do without anything, it was always provided by either the family, friends or government. Most are in need of recognition to bolster their own egos and anything they can do to tear down someone else is like a rung in the ladder to success for them, they don't realize they are digging a hole they can never climb out of, trust is something they have discarded as unnecessary, their imaginary friends and followers will soon leave them by the side of the road as they find others who have a much more interesting subject to delve into.. Attention spans are very very short these days.
I have been too close to this project to even see what was going on right under my nose. People who were trusted simply put on their innocent and caring face and imply one thing or another and it starts a landslide of imaginary visions in a dysfunctional mind that has been brainwashed by medication, TV, Videos and our own wonderful School system.
I allowed myself to get worn down and knew I was losing ground health wise but also had the feeling that if I were not there it would all fall apart with others trying to control every thing. And it happened, the first round my husband came and brought me home to get some medical help and I did get it but got news of things going on back in Texas that were not good so I left and went back much much too soon. Upon arriving everything was in turmoil, no one wanted to talk or say what was going on etc.. private meetings had been called, All set up to attack me and everything I had worked for. It seemed to work. Many people were turned away from the project by this meeting and some stuck by the original project like glue. These people will be the ones that are key to the project being completed. I allowed all of this to completely get me down and had to be taken from the property by the rescue squad and was hospitalized for days and told in no uncertain terms I had to slow down, ease up and rest, give my heart and respiratory system a chance to heal. I was taken home again this time to stay for a while. I have been seen twice by a medical team here and still have major problems with my heart and lungs but am at home and not in the hospital and am on my way to the sea shore now to spend at least a month doing nothing but laying in the sun and breathing clean salt air, and for those that say I am using their money to do so on be assured that the cost is free as my sister in law has a home on the beach where I will be a guest.
It seems that our partner only wanted to gain control of the property for monetary profit and almost carried it off but some of the residents did not agree with his program of pay pay and pay more. Now he has backed off and wants to sell the property to get his investment back. I refuse to sign off on that as so many of the residents have put so much into this project and would lose it all. In my opinion if anyone gets their money back everyone should but that won't happen with the Real Estate market the way it is today. I worry more about the people who invested in this project getting their money back rather than Jack.
Many want to see this fail but guess what the ones doing the loudest screaming of scam etc are those that have nothing invested in this project or were rejected as trouble makers in the first place.
Now folks, I am up to my neck in debt, no insurance, thousands of dollars my husband is obligated to pay to hospitals and doctors plus the medication necessary, I am not well yet, but I am not dead and will be back with a vengeance and will make this project work. I will be brutal if necessary, to hell with peoples feelings, this is survival for those that have put their all into this place. I have ignored the slurs and outright lies, they don't deserve a reply or explanation. I have been around for a long long time and have made some very good friends and some very bad enemy's and treasure them all. There are those that will scream scam, con, etc every time I do a project, yet when those projects are finished and are successful not a word is heard from these people. they use information that is at least 25 years old and some of it totally false, some true and some partially true, I have lived a full life and never worried about what others thought if I thought something was right I did it. I made a lot of mistakes and had a lot of wins also.. I suspect I will make even more mistakes but that means that I am doing something .... anyone that doesn't make any mistakes are not doing anything period. It is so safe to sit and do nothing.. I have never played it safe!
I hope to never be safe, I want to die fighting for this country, not for most of the people as they have thrown away their right to freedom in return for comfort and ease and truthfully just feeling good and being entertained. There are many people who see what is happening and have tried to fight against it without not much success but now with all the new laws and edicts coming out of Washington many more are becoming alert that all is not well and people are beginning to speak out which is very encouraging.
When people start becoming unified against a regime it will lose it's power over the citizens of this country. That time is near I feel. This summer will tell all I feel, it may be just another summer with the government pulling all their strings and holding the plot together at the seams but sooner or later it will start splitting open and those seams will open up and we the citizens will be faced with serious decisions.. we will have to decide if we choose ease and comfort over freedom and life.
Will we have the wisdom to choose wisely this time? or will we just put in place another government like the one we have now? Will we have learned from our mistakes? I think it will take the complete collapse of this country to weed out the weak and dysfunctional and build a good base for common sense and life as it should be, as God intended it to be lived. It will come down to the survival of the fittest. Men will have to be men, no more mealy mouthed little milk toasts but with the testosterone to fight and protect their families, women to raise their family, teach their children, build homes not houses to hold the family together. Our churches will learn to preach the word of God not government and hopefully build their congregations and communities in the word.
Do we have the strength to live a real life with disappointments and defeat along with days of not feeling good but no pills to enhance your mood? Will we have the power to learn how to live? Will we be able to throw off all of the ingrained learning we have all been subjected to? Could you from today on provide your family with food and water? Do you know how to grow vegetables, hunt, fish, trap? Could you shoot someone that was endangering your family's safety? Can you laugh at your own mistakes, stare in wonder at a newly molted butterfly? sit magically by a stream and hear the songs of nature? Can you stare in awe of the beauty and perfection of a flower? Maybe we can all learn how to go backwards and relearn how to live and appreciate what we have at our fingertips and not try to manipulate it to make it more productive or more profitable. Just appreciate it.
Thank you all for all of your messages of support during my illness, I haven't had time to go through all of the messages as yet but know that I do appreciate every one of them and appreciate your offers of support. I realize it will take thousands of dollars to finish the project but luckily we can do it in stages, first stage will be to get the land ready to grow crops which will take probably all of this year and maybe next spring will be ready for the first crop. Our building is almost finished and people can start working on their own homesteads getting ready to live in permanently. Once people are on the land permanently things will go much smoother and faster with many hands to get the work done quickly. The main need now is getting the property paid for and raising the money before Sept 26th . We need to lease out acres at $5,500 for 99 years which will give us the money to carry on with this project.
My only requirement is that if you wish to become a part of this project or know someone that wants to lease a home site please send only a check, Do Not Send Cash, or use paypal. These checks will not be cashed until we have the entire amount to pay off the balance on the land. If the money is not collected all checks will be returned uncashed. You can find the location to send payments to at: www.freedomisnotdead.org .
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13 Comments in Response to Hi-Jacked
"Jet, for all I know I'm one of the soul-leeches to you."
No Oyate, I don't see it that way. I don't fully understand where you're coming from sometimes, but I don't find you to be an emotional or resource drain; not at all. I also think your heart is in the right place and that is diametrically opposite to what I was talking about.
However, I have wondered on numerous occasions if I was one of the "soul-suckers" or not.
I was in Prescott for a couple of days this past week and my Mom was talking about my sister and I, and our shared inability to "hold down a job." She said she thought it was because both of us simply couldn't or wouldn't put up with people's arbitrary bullshit. I said "Yeah, you're probably right."
My point to my Mom was that I did keep the same job from 2000 - 2007 with a nursing registry because of the fact that a) I didn't have a "boss," b) I was free to accept or refuse any assignment, c) I worked the days I wanted to and I didn't have to when I didn't want to, and d) the amount of work I received was directly related to my previous performance on a day-to-day basis.
I figured out the "game" and I worked to become one of the agency's "favorites" through the use of mutually beneficial arrangements. I would often take the shittiest of ICU assignments that nobody else wanted in the very worst valley hospitals, but I'd take those assignments and give my patients St. Joe's or John C. Lincoln level advocacy and care. It was a win-win situation all the way around. Our relationship was a beautiful one....it was as close to a true free market as it gets in the US, and I thrived in that environment. Of course the hospitals hated it (but that made me love it even more).
However, in jobs that weren't as free, I have almost universally failed and they have typically ended badly. I usually describe it as ; "I'm a great worker but a terrible employee." For instance, the last job I had was at the Maricopa County Animal Shelter, and one Friday afternoon my boss told me I was the hardest worker she had ever had, and the very next Friday I was unceremoniously fired for a reason that is still unknown to me.
So, am I a soul-sucker? If I'm not, why am I really bad at professional interpersonal relationships? What compels me to engage people and call out on their bullshit when it would be far better just to keep my mouth shut? I ask myself these questions over and over, and my conscience's answer is always the same....
I just don't know.
Take heart Lacey and skilled people.
I hate to criticize a bro, so I won't, I'll use Jet Lacey as an example and hope you can follow.
There are those with means. Many of them. And many of these depend on this particular economic system to derive their means from.
Increasingly, these people are finding the system no longer derives them means. And that means they are f*cked.
On the other hand are us with real skills like Jet Lacey, a highly attained medical care expert. With the right equipment Jet and me can allign you and open your airway and start breathing for you and start a catheter and liquid replenishment and keep you alive and THAT WOULD BE JUST ONE OF US WORKING ALONE.
The two of us working together, even with what equipent we have, I have no doubt, we are capable of field surgery. I'll tell you how I would operate in that situation: Jet has a higher level of accreditation than I do so I defer to him. That's the way it works in medicine. No arguments.
It's just by way of encouragment that I tell you how we will fit into a "new world economy". Jet is telling you he's gonna take care of him and his. What you really want is Jet on your side. Medicine brothers and sisters. You need agrocultural science, you need medical treatment, you need engineers and only then do you need educators and musicians and artists.
We're getting closer. Somebody's gonna make it. Not sure who.
Jet, for all I know I'm one of the soul-leeches to you, but as a fellow dude who has built up the precautions and the shopping list, without recourse to productive land, we're kinda running against a timer. Food runs out, uh-oh.
Urban agriculture is great, any kind of gardening but until you actually get into AGRICULTURE, I mean some serious acres under production, you aren't really sustaining life so much as augmenting it.
Given as there's some of us with surplus money/land and a surplus of us with expertise and the ability to work, there's various matches coming down the road. And of course, those who can organize best and work hardest will tend to out-perform others.
Hey there FCS Admin, glad to hear from you. I've done some of the same projects myself with variable degrees of success. One of them is still around in some form of the original vision. Another kind of just became a hippy hang out. The other....not really sure of but it was urban homesteading so that was more individualistic than the others. Another I had nothing to do with organizing, it was a religious commune and it worked really really well if you really really liked religion.
I like your suggestions. There had to be somebody other than me use the two words "due diligence". I think it's unfortunate that so much trust got lost there.
I'm TOTALLY INTRIGUED when you said "decentralized authority". Kinda blew me away. One of the best products of the hippy thing besides organic vegetables is this thing called "The Consensus System Of De-Centralized Authority" which in brief means that all decisions are made by the "recognized body" and everyone has to agree to a course of action or refrain from blocking consensus OR anyone can block consensus. Anyone. Any recognized member. And the group will not take that action, leaving the INDIVIDUALS in the group to pursue their own course if necessary.
It was cumbersome. Everything tended to be an argument. But nobody ever got left out in the cold. And it proved to be remarkably stable over time. Now try telling this to garden-variety conservatives and it sounds like dreaded socialism. And it would be if these weren't opt-in, intentional community projects. But I am trying to hash out models for integrating more owership and more self-consciously capitalistic models.
So I'm interested to hear what you guys might be coming up with. I guess I'll see if I can contact you through your website.
For the record I guess I'll take a noninterested role vis-a-vis Linda. There's nothing I can do to help the situation. I'm interested in what comes out of in the constructive sense.
Good question, Oyate. The Freedom County group is currently submersed in the lessons of what NOT to do when forming an intentional community.
My top 3 recommendations:
1) DO YOUR DUE DILIGENCE regarding community founders/directors, as well as related legal and business transactions. Do not settle for anything less than FULL transparency.
2) DO NOT centralize the power/authority. Develop a clear charter document for the community up front - based on input from all community members.
3) Communications within the group should be subject to VERY LITTLE, if any, censorship. (IDEALLY ZERO CENSORSHIP.) Decide up front on any censorship protocols and ensure that moderation of communication is a distributed responsibility.
Also, 3 suggestions from Judith:
1. Appoint immediately folks to serve as treasurer, secretary and other duties
as needed, understanding that these are temporary positions that will be voted
upon regularly.
2. Have an effective and knowledgeable "planning board" from the git go. None
of this "We dont need to plan, we'll just put it together as we go....".
3. Screen each and every would-be resident carefully, with an eye to whether or
not they will fit in with your stated goals and philosophies. The entire
community should vote on their acceptance, NOT just an individual or even a
"board". Of course, you know me, I believe that there is room for many
different types of people and I also think this is healthier than keeping the
population limited to VERY narrow criteria, but that is for the community itself
to decide and must be honored. It's kind of valuable to have a few royal
you-know-whats around to teach the rest of us patience and tolerance! LOL
"When you deal with people in a survival situation, you are bound to attract the dysfunctional or those incapable of being self-sufficient...my family...will pull their own wagon by having shelter, food, medical supplies, arms, etc. without depending on others... Organization(s)...will attract those who are not self-sufficient, who are weak and who are not able to recognize their own deficiencies. These few will suck the life-blood out of the others who are strong."
Amen to that.
I couldn't possibly have said it any better, and it pretty much sums up how I have come to feel about the freedom movement.
It would appear that, among those in the movement, there is a relatively small percentage of high-minded, self-sufficient individuals who truly understand the concepts of natural law, agorism, and objectivism, and have chosen to dedicate their time to educate their fellow man (ultimately for their own sake) about the importance of freedom and individual liberty.
But then there are those I refer to as the "soul-suckers." I have come to realize that the freedom movement is rife, literally teeming with self-loathing degenerates; takers, and hangers on who have a natural affinity toward those who have any type of goals or aspirations. And as an ego defense mechanism, either consciously or unconsciously, they unfailingly proceed to do whatever they must in order bring those around them down to their gutter-level existence.
It's one of the myriad examples that help me to at least partly understand why Er**e is such a prick half of the time.
A sincere thanks to the former and a hearty fuck you to the latter.
Another victim of the scammer granny here, trying to warn off others. Now, if what you're seeking is to weather a SHTF storm or TEOTWAWKI with a delusional, over-bearing, mean-spirited, hateful, spiteful, psychopathic, toxic con artist 'granny' as your neighbor, then send your money to the Granny Scammer! Join her Cult of Personality! Drink the Koolaid!
#1 Don't believe that just because Hunnicutt claims to be a "patriot" and does good things in the name of freedom activism that she is honest. To make any story believable there has to be some truth to sell you the lies.
She sold me by that and the other big lie that she had put her house up for collateral, claiming that even if the property wasn't paid for the land would be secure. I falsely believed she was absolutely committed to the project.
#2 Don't give Hunnicutt money to buy land when she tells you the land is going to be purchased (and leases issued) by a non-profit organization formed for the purpose of the community and then she puts the deed in her own personal name, making any leases null and void.
#3 Don't let hunnicutt get away with trashing important financial records, talking behind people's backs and creating divisions between residents, lie and accuse people of crimes and belittle anyone who asks inconvenient questions, use admin status to censor comments and ban dissenters (gatekeeping), etc... all the while she claims to want to live a simple life.
Holy cow, I'm looking at FreedomCountySentinel and I've brought it to the attention of a couple friends considering various intentional community models. Man what a shame. Sounds like there was a lot of generosity there, a lot of good intent.
So those of you who are/were actually there: if you could tell us 3 things to look for things that could have prevented this fiasco from the beginning, what would they be?
Hunnicutt is just a con-artist, who uses the image of a "patriot" as a cover-story to work her scams.
I used to think she was some great freedom-fighter and thought she was full of integrity. Well she's full of $#!T, and what she is doing is fraud.
I think her plan is to collect as much money and then not pay the $540,000.00 balloon payment due in Sept.
It's not that this project has attracted dysfunctionals -- IT WAS FOUNDED BY A DYSFUNCTIONAL. Granny Warrior Linda Hunnicutt has taken about 70 families for a ride in the past year.
She promised those who paid into her Freedom County project that the land acreage that would be purchased for the community (the Freedom Family Ranch) would be FULLY PAID FOR for and in the name of her non-profit Freedom Is Not Dead corporation.
Neither has turned out to be true. When the land sale closed Sept 26, 2009 - Hunnicutt and a couple of other investors financed the acreage on a 1 year balloon note, leaving a balance of $512,996 due in Sept 2010. The Freedom Is Not Dead corporation is not named on the Deed of Trust. Instead, three individuals (Hunnicutt included) are PERSONALLY named on the Deed of Trust. Here is documentation: http://www.freedomcountysentinel.com/has-linda-hunnicutt-lied-or-made-misleading-statements-about-freedom-county.html
Then Hunnicutt lied repeatedly to the families she had taken money from -- first, telling them the land was fully paid for; then later, telling them the financed balance on the land had been secured using her personal property. Here is recorded audio where Hunnicutt admits to having lied: http://www.freedomcountysentinel.com/getting-to-the-truth-about-freedom-county/ The Granny Warrior had also claimed to have put $67,000 of her own money into the downpayment, which also turned out to be untrue.
Families who paid into the project relocated to the land (at great expense to some) and labored to build a community building -- only to later find out the land purchase was not secure and that for the project to continue, the half-million dollar balance due for the land would need to be raised by September. This revelation came, for most, in March this year -- leaving just six months to raise the money or lose the property.
Hunnicutt continues to advertise 99 year leases on this property she does not own outright and is at risk of foreclosure.
Linda. Linda Linda Linda. Always up to your ears in some major hassle. Well, this was one of the most ambitious project you or anyone in the movement has ever undertaken and I knew it would be even harder than you first imagined.
I don't think we're grown into the partial or semi collective effort this kind of thing takes. It was something of a Utopian vision to begin with. And I'll take the story about attracting dysfunctionals at face-value; I've seen it before.
I hope it doesn't spell the end of your project and I know it won't stop similar projects in the future: given our economic realities it's inevitable.
And bottom line, there aren't too many people with the willpower and vision to even try a project like this. So rest up for a while. Take it easy for once in your whole life. Keep us posted when you are able. It's still a learning experience for all of us.
Please be advised that this woman is currently under investigation by the Texas Attorney General's office for this scam. The community DOES exist, but is in dire straits due to her shenanigans and is in the process of attempting to restructure itself and begin again under new direction. However, Hunnicutt has caused it to be in so much trouble that it may never be able to do so. Whatever you do, do NOT send any money to this woman! For further information, please go to: www.freedomcountysentinel.com/