What does Freedom Mean?
"Freedom and justice for all". What exactly is freedom? I suppose there is freedom from external domination from another country. I reckon, if one is in a minority, there is the freedom from any tyranny of the majority. Freedom from fear is a more personal aspect of freedom. There is even the freedom of having nothing left to lose. If you are without food, shelter, health care, a job, etc. any freedom is of little use. I mean the law may state that the rich, as well as the poor, can sleep under bridges and scrounge though garbage cans, but this is a silly kind of freedom for the rich and an indication of lack of freedom for the poor.
Freedom of opinion is another kind of freedom, albeit tough to swallow when others get in your face about a matter with which you forcefully disagree. If the will of God alone is determining the course of history then free will doesn't exist. The religious right seem the most confused. They justify a lot of what they do, or what happens in life, by claiming it is God's will. They then turn around and pray a lot so that their way can be implemented by God for their or someone else's benefit. The assumption seems here to be that God may not do the good thing without someone praying for Him to do the good thing. Some women believe they have the freedom to abort for reasons they deem to be sufficient, but the right to lifers believe no such freedom for women exists. I never respected the title "Right to Life" adopted by the anti-choice crowd. When a mother who can't adequately support raising another child aborts, the anti-choicers scream bloody murder but then oppose all government programs that might let that child have proper health care, a good school, etc. It is like life to them is just a bunch of functioning cells. They aren't always so cheap, like if someone is on life support in a vegetative state, they are all for society footing the bill for years. I can understand using taxpayer money to give a child a good school or good health care, but I fail to see what society gains by using modern medicine to keep someone a live by machines for a few more months at the expense of thousands upon thousands of dollars. It seems freedom dictates pro choice for mothers and the freedom of every person to control their own dying process. After all, freedom doesn't really mean much if only certain people are free to follow their own religious beliefs.
The religious right are very adamant about their right to follow their religious beliefs and just as adamant that their religious beliefs should be the law of the land. There is no fair is fair in their vision of life. What the religious right has is faith and stubborn allegiance to past or present dogmas. They seldom change, and when others in society gain more freedom such as slaves, women, children, gays, etc. it is less because the religious right ever change and more because the next generation is able to see the injustices with less ingrained bias. Progress in freedom for minorities is more generational in nature than intra-generational.
It may make more sense to say that the grand plan of our universe is dependent on the evolutionary process created by God than to say the future is already determined by God's grand plan. After all, God doesn't determine which team wins a ball game or how well any player plays, regardless of what some athletes claim. Chance, determination, and talent will prevail. This hardly in any way diminishes the role of God, it just clears up the manner in which God rules the world----by a system, not by God micromanaging all that happens, metering out individual punishments and favors.
It is probably a real effort for any of us to respect the freedom of others to be eccentric. Freedom is only possible where people respect diversity. Sometimes the U.S. acts a bit daffy when we insist that imposing a type of government on another country is a righteous act carried out by our 'freedom fighters'. I think people in countries like Vietnam had about enough of our 'freedom fighters'. They were never really free until they suffered the loss of 2 million of their own at the hands of our 'freedom' fighters. Certainly the 2 million dead aren't free. Well, maybe they are.
Until there is equality before the law for all, there is no real freedom for all. I think personal happiness is tied to freedom. Numerous polls on which nations have the happiest people seem to center on Scandinavian countries and Costa Rica. Costa Rica? The U.S. is quite far back in the pack, like 23rd. The explanation given (if the polls are legitimate) is that in places like Denmark the people are free from worry about education, health care, job benefits, and retirement benefits; they work a 37 hr week, get 6 weeks vacation every year, have excellent public transportation etc. Of course their tax rate is over 50%. Americans would almost all say they would rather die than pay a 50% tax rate. But then again, I guess the Danes are more interested in being free from worry about their basic needs while Americans are more interested in the freedom to pursue survival of the fittest.
Perhaps Americans are too competitive---too concentrated on being sure someone else gets the short end of the stick. In one sense America is a great place to amass great wealth for those with the talent to do so, and Denmark a great place to relax, smell the flowers, and be happy when enough is enough. They also live the longest in these Scandinavian countries. It just amazes me that people can be happy in such a cold climate.
It does not escape my attention that those countries in which people are the happiest are never those countries where sectarian religion has strong control over the nation's government. I suspect it would be difficult to be happy living in a place where your own religious beliefs are thwarted by someone else's religious beliefs being the law of the land. Beliefs are important to everyone, some more than others, and the freedom to act on your own religious beliefs is often essential to personal contentment.
Today another kind of freedom is in the forefront of concern: the freedom from violence. When the economic gap between the rich and the poor or middle class widens, as it is doing today across the globe at an insane exploding rate, the pressure for those less fortunate to resort to violence multiplies as the their economic woes worsen. As human overpopulation of the globe proceeds at a similar insane rate the competition for dwindling resources like land, food, homes, and jobs increases, and again, the propensity for violence multiplies. The question is not why terrorism exists, but whether it's acceleration can be halted without responsible human reproduction reducing overpopulation and stopping the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few. No ethical society would ever let wealth become accumulated to the extent 3% of the people own 90% of the wealth in the country. And that is exactly where America is today.
Jesus and most all major prophets and ethical leaders in history have rejected violence as a means to an end, other than to save oneself or a nation from attack by insurgents from outside or within a nation. Now that we have a global economy it is not clear how national patriotism is beneficial at all. When our own government orchestrates the killing of 2 million Vietnamese, the same number of Jews killed by HItler, or drops 28,000 bombs on Iraq, and builds hundreds of military bases on the soil of other nations----when any government behaves in this fashion, their own citizens or group of citizens angry about this or that will respond with violence to solve their problems too. When our own country spends more on military hardware than all the other major military powers combined, is it any surprise individual Americans insist on having their own super efficient assault weapons? Freedom from violence is becoming one of the most difficult freedoms to achieve. Violence begets violence. We all know this. We really do, but we are descendants of the 'Wild West', 'manifest destiny', 'You can run but you can't hide', 'dead or alive', lynching for justice, and more recently torture of prisoners. With all this penchant for violence at the very top of our society, any freedom from violence for the rest of us is doomed. When I was young, not exactly eons ago, I never, at any time, worried about being shot in school, friendliness with strangers was expected, hitch hiking of non existent concern, child rape a rarity, and Americans were beloved across the globe. If people saw an American plane in the skies they waved---in scores of countries they now tremble with fear. In terms of deaths, military bases, destruction of property, and displacement of families, modern America is the World Champion. No other nation comes close. How the hell could this have happened?
Freedom and justice for all. America has proudly extended justice for all, steadily reducing the number of Americans who left outside justice for all. Freedom, on the other hand, is another story. Many aspects of freedom elucidated above are slipping away, especially freedom from fear about health, violence, job security, financial security, and all the problems associated with human overpopulation. For increasingly more people freedom is beginning to mean nothing left to lose. Terrorism thrives on this kind of freedom.
