Freedom--what is it good for?

Explosive freedom

Boom! Several giant explosions rolled across the Eastern Colorado plains, one right after the other. The sky lit up with crackles of light, shining brightly in the dark sky. Snaps! Fizzes! Whirrs! all echoed through the dry, night air.  All was as it should be on a normal,  American Independence Day …. However, this was no normal Fourth of July. There was a 96,000 acre fire raging a scant 2 hours away, along with 3 other major fires burning up 41 square miles per day! The city's fire department was responding to a 44% increase in calls and nearly 100% of the state was experiencing severe drought conditions, making it a virtual tinderbox prepped to explode in a raging inferno! All it would take was one spark and one gust of wind. Despite the danger, local neighborhood denizens were setting off explosive devices and watching the fireworks float back down to a free, yet very flammable, America.

Is this individual freedom without regard for the safety of others what the Founding Fathers imagined when they gave life and blood to free us from the tyranny of England?!

Freedom's Two Faces

Freedom has two sides. Side one is negative freedom. This is freedom FROM something. American revolutionaries wanted freedom from oppression, high taxes, and a lack of say in colonial affairs.

Once freedom FROM something was achieved, then what?

Side two is positive freedom. This is freedom FOR something. In other words, once freedom from England was unlocked, what was the way forward? What did the revolutionaries gain? Those revolutionaries gained a right to vote, a right to acquire, and political autonomy. As the years progressed and freedom became more free for others, women also gained the right to vote, as did other disenfranchised groups. More people groups gained autonomy and the ability to become more of who or what they desired.

However, American freedom has taken this idea of individual autonomy and the right to be whatever one desires to an extreme. Whether it's shooting off fireworks, ignoring the speed laws, refusing to obey a government mandate, or ransacking the United States Capitol, working against the laws of a legal government in order to exercise one's FREEDOM are far from the initial concept of American freedom. This American individualism leaves out a crucial concept of freedom, and that is the freedom to live in a civil society.

• "Individuals exercise [self-government] by their single will, collections of men by that of their majority; for the law of the majority is the natural law of every society of men." (Thomas Jefferson)

• "The very idea of the power and the right of the People to establish Government presupposes the duty of every Individual to obey the established Government." (George Washington)

• "Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for the profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men." (John Adams)

• "No member of a society has a right to explicit advantages or profits derived from the public, which are not consistent with the public good." (Benjamin Franklin)

Watch the nose!

A family gathers in the night, determined to celebrate American freedom they way it was intended to be celebrated! As darkness falls upon their neighborhood, they send up fireworks to explode into showers of sparks, glorious in all of its beauty! Amidst the oohs and aahs a small spark settles, unseen, on dry grass. Unnoticed in the night amidst the excitement of fireworks, that small spark catches a blade on fire, which ignites its neighbors, and soon the greedy flame is devouring larger and larger patches of grass. Discontent with its meager meal, the hungry flames begin to attack trees, leaping from branch to branch, exulting in its freedom to BURN, BABY, BURN! Soon, the ravenous flame makes itself known as it creeps up to a family's home. Perhaps the playground in the backyard catches fire first, or the dog house, or the treehouse! The family awakens, grabbing children and valuables, making 9-1-1 calls, perhaps even futilely throwing some water before fleeing the raging flames! By morning, the neighborhood lies in ashes ….

Individual freedom uncoupled from responsibility to the greater good wreaks more havoc than shooting fireworks in an area under threat of extreme fire danger. The Greek philosopher, Plato, understood this well over 2400 years ago, when he wrote this:

‘The great natural good of life,’ says the democrat, ‘is freedom.’ And this exclusive love of freedom and regardlessness of everything else, is the cause of the change from democracy to tyranny.

Tyranny comes about when we, as individual people, forget that what the Founding Fathers understood--our personal freedom ends where another man's nose begins.