Freedom is not free. How many times has a cowboy-hat wearing simpleton drawled this to us as if it were the very height of wisdom? Pretty often. Too often. And how are we expected to react? Invariably a sacrifice is expected. Give up this or that so that we can be more free. I agree that freedom is not free. However, freedom is also not many other things.
Freedom is not clean, safe, or polite. Being free means that sometimes we will be the victims of "terror", as if that were an entity in and of itself. Freedom means that sometimes we will have our feelings hurt by things we see or hear. It also means we are free to complain about it.
Over the last ten years we have seen a dramatic loss of personal freedom in the name of security. If the terrorists hated us for our freedoms, our greatest defense has been to remove those freedoms. Flight is highly regulated in a all-for-show circus of personnel and technology. Our internet usage is monitored. Our phone calls and text messages are prone to recording. As we have seen with the Occupy movement, we are told we can't even peacefully assemble without the vague and abused phrase "public safety" being invoked to violently end such protests.
What that cowboy clad idiot does not realize is that we have had our freedoms stolen. I have watched the Occupy movement with curiosity and eager anticipation. I place much hope in the people who are demanding that our freedoms be recognized. We are deserving of equality, social justice, economic security and true freedom. Ugly, offensive, dangerous freedom
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I put little stock in the idea of "freedom" itself. We are only as free as we believe and feel ourselves to be. We are NOT free in America. We are slaves to popular opinion, to religious ideologies and ideologues, and to the myth of the American dream. Only when we can choose our own destinies, free from the tyrrany of "choice" will we be truly free.
ReplyDeleteAnd while I wouldn't wish a terrorist attack on anyone, why should we be so horrified and shocked when it happens to us? The rest of the world has been dealing with bombings, mass murder and extremists taking political power. Oh yes, a bomb going off down the street might smudge the white picket fence.