VOLUME II GOES TO PRESS! Jeff Head's "Dragon's Fury - Trodden Under" available soon.

Dragon's Fury Series Web Site ^ | July 10, 2002 | Jeff Head

[Alamo-Girl]

Hi there, M Kehoe! Nice to see you this fine Saturday!

[Jeff Head]

Thanks so much. Every bit helps and I appreicate it.

I am confident that if I can continue to produce books like these first two volumes, that the series will gain momentum of its own accord and ultimately catch the eye and/or imagination of some of those folks.

In the mean time I am grateful for whatever exposure it can get and thank you for your offer and efforts in that regard.

Let me know what you think of volume two when you get it.

[Jeff Head]

109 the day before that, and 106 the day before that. First time in recorded history Boise has ever had three consecutive days over 105 degrees. Looks like we'll add to it today.

But, at least the humidity is super low, and it cools down at night.

We're taking all the Texas precautions I learned growing up.

[Jeff Head]

Thanks! I hope the read is very enjoyable, thought provoking and compelling for you.

Please let me know what you think and please tell your friends and relatives. Word of mouth is the best avenue I have for promotion right now.

You are buying at a great time because Volume II just went to press. I approved the Adobe eBook Reader version of it yesterday for distribution and the Pinted proof for the Trade Paperback will come in for approval this week. It should be selling on Amazon in a couple of weeks.

Please consider a review on Amazon (and perhaps here on FR) when you are done if you are so inclined.

FRegards!

[Jeff Head]

BUMP again for a Saturday afternoon!

[glock rocks]

salt lake... 106 at the airport at 1600 mdt, 110 on my deck in the county, and headed up until probably 1800.

...but it's a dry deadly heat. ;-)

bump for you Jeff. i'm fixin to pick up your books. it's a time thing currently.

[Jeff Head]

We were back at near 108 today. Looks like we may get a break starting tomorrow. 97 Sunday, 95 Monday and 91 Tuesday.

But I have to drive to Texas on Monday and what you want to bet the heat follows me?

Such is life. LOL!

[Jeff Head]

Kids all over making a killing on kool-aid ... but its so hot, I'd be too worried about them out there.

Looks like we get a break starting tomorrow.

[joanie-f]

You are woefully mistaken about what "freedom" and "liberty" mean. You think it is just about economics and material pursuits ... but you are wrong. The people, the root stock that made this nation came here for different types of freedom and liberty and underwent significant economic and physical hardship to attain it. Their blessings were not wrapped up in mateial wealth and pursuit alone ... no, those things were merely an outgrowth of something much more fundamental .... Jeff Head

The biggest reason why the colonies declared independence from England in the first place was taxes, which is an economic issue. Do you remember the Boston Tea Party and the slogan, "No taxes without representation!" The colonists declared independence because of the economic issue of taxes! .... AIG

The basis of the Declaration of Independence was an extensive list of grievances against George III.  In effect, the colonies were making their case for independence.  This list of 'grievances' probably provides the best insight into exactly what it was that the colonies were seeking to free themselves from in fighting for their independence from the crown.  Was it primarily economic freedom and prosperity they were fighting and sacrificing to achieve?  (If it were, those lives, fortunes, and sacred honors which the founders pledged to lay down would have been sacrificed for a relative triviality.  What was at stake was something much more precious, and much more eternal, than economics.)

The founders' list of (non-economic in blue; economic in red) grievances against the King (i.e., 'Why We Fought The War' in one comprehensive list....):

• He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. 

• He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation until his assent should be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

• He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only. 

• He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. 

• He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

• He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all dangers of invasion from without and convulsions within.

• He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose, obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of land.

• He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. 

• He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

• He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of new officers to harrass our people and eat out their substance. 

• He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

• He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

• He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

• for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.

• for protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states.

• for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world.

• for imposing taxes on us without our consent.

• for depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury.

• for transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses.

• for abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule to these colonies.

• for taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments.

• for suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with the power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

• He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

• He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

• He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidity, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

• He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

• He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

So talk about principles all you want, but it was economic issues that brought about the founding of the USA. .... AIG

Yes, economic issues played a role in the call for independence.  But what fraction of the above list even remotely refers to economic issues?  And what (overwhelming) fraction of the above list refers to the 'principles' you pass by so cavalierly?  The 'principle' of the sanctity of individual life and liberty, the belief in genuinely representative government, and the corresponding need to untangle the colonies from an oppressive rule which allowed for less and less of each, was the driving force behind the movement for independence.  To intimate otherwise is to sadly misunderstand the instrinsicallly unique foundations of this republic.
 

[Jeff Head]

Amen, Joanie. Thanks for making the point so succinctly.

I had hoped to get AIG to go off and read the Declaration so that he could correct himself ... but your posting of the grievances as cited by the signators and as written there serves the same purpose.

See my post number 149.

Volume II is on its way to the street and I believe we are going to get incredible feed back.

[Jeff Head]

Your review just showed up on Amazon. Thank you so much for the kind words regarding me. They are too kind.

With respect to the other sentiments contained therein ... well stated my friend!

Best to you and yours.

[Snake65]

Great job Jeff. I know how much time and effort it takes to produce and promote a novel in your spare time. Kudos and good luck!

[Alamo-Girl]

Bump!

[Jeff Head]

Thank you!

It has been a lot of work. This is Volume II. Volume I was about 460 pages long. Volume II is about 470 pages. Took me one year and three months to do both. I am starting on Volume III now and it should be about the same length, now slated for January 2003 or so.

Been a lot of work, but also a lot of fun.

Fregards.

[Jeff Head]

One more back at you for the night ...

BUMP

[Jeff Head]

FYI ... in case you missed this latest on my series.

FRegards.

[AIG]

Sure, the colonists had many grievances, the foremost of which was tyranny itself. They eventually gained their freedom, but the issue is once the colonists won their freedoms, what exactly did they do with their freedom?

As I said before, when one is "free," that naturally begs the questions, "Free to do what?

The colonies and every American since then have mostly, primarily engaged in economic activities.

The principle of freedom is not in doubt, but in what areas of life do Americans then and now mostly use their freedoms? What is the biggest concern today for any American? It is the perennial issue of making a living and earning money, is it not?

When one is free, being free in and of itself is just half of the story. It's the economic activities that people are free to engage in which make people appreciate being free in the first place. Freedom is not the end in itself but the goal to something else, which for most people (but not all) is pursuing economic activities. If most Americans today actually did not use their freedoms to engage in economic activities, the country as a whole would be in trouble financially because not enough people would be working.

[AIG]

You prove my point best about how Americans use their freedoms to engage in specifically economic activities by writing and promoting a book which you hope to sell. You're promoting it right now to make money from it, as everyone can see. You are not just free in America for freedom's sake but so that you can be free to engage in economic activities like selling a book. America's freedoms don't exist just for their own sake but so that Americans can be free to pursue whatever economic activities they wish to puruse, for the most part. "Freedom" doesn't exist in a vacuum but is fleshed out by whatever it is people use their freedoms for, which for most people including yourself is economic activites.

[Pray4USA]

Oh my! I had no idea, having been 'AWOL' for a time!

I am very INTERESTED...and you can count on me for support!

WAY TO GO!

BTW - Did you get BOTH mails from me? ... LOL

FRee-est of FReegards... Priscilla   =^)

[AIG]

The purpose of freedom in your case is the right to sell and promote a book, which is an economic activity. It's ironic how you argue that economic freedoms are secondary when in your own case you are attempting to engage in the economic activity of selling a book!