Freedom
Celebrating the 4th of July in September
© Bryan Zepp Jamieson
7/1/05
http://zeppscommentaries.com/Sociology/freedom.htm
Over the next few days, there’s going to be all sorts of self-congratulatory editorials in newspapers all around the United States, marveling over the fact that the country will be 229 years old. The usual clichés will be dragged out, on how this nation was conceived in liberty (actually, it wasn’t; in truth, the fact that it explicitly was not "in liberty" is why it was conceived, but that’s a side issue) and all these truths are self-important, strife, misery and the pursuit of sappiness, in the name of the fodder, the gold coast, and Mastercard, forever and reruns, amen.
What you most likely WON’T see in all these editorials is discussion of individual liberty, what it means, and what it really takes to secure it. Papers will mention Ben Franklin and Patrick Henry without really discussing what they really had in mind for their countrymen.
Here are some of the things about liberty that the papers won’t mention.
You don’t have to respect and obey your elected officials. In fact, you’re much better off if you treat them the same way you would treat a suspected shoplifter in your store; watch them closely, expect them to try to rip you off, and bust them when they do.
"My country right or wrong" is utter bullshit. If, in your best opinion, your country is wrong, then it’s your duty to try to set it right. When I hear someone say "My country right or wrong," I immediately think this is a person who lacks the moral courage to support right and oppose wrong. The original phrase, by Carl Schurz, a 19th-century writer and office holder, was; "Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right." See the difference?
"Majority rules" is just another form of tyranny. The founders knew this, and devoted (wholeheartedly, if imperfectly) government power to protecting the rights, not of the placid majority, but of the minorities of all kinds. Rights that exist only until you need them are not rights at all, and so if you base your notion of freedom on the self-reassurance that they haven’t come for you yet, then you are not free.
You can have as many gods before you as you want. One, hundreds, or none; it’s all the same in the eyes of liberty. If you have a god that you like to putter around with and prop up into a universe-encompassing power, that’s fine, but don’t expect the government to help you in that endeavor. Similarly, you can take the name of the lord any way you damned well please. The notion of blasphemy is incompatible with a free society.
The military is a dangerous tool, not an idol. The founders dreaded the establishment of a permanent standing army, because it is the nature of military leadership to despise and scorn freedom and democracy. That is why they placed the military under civilian control, and hoped mightily that civilian control would never devolve to a child who wanted to dress up and play soldier. If the morass of Iraq has one beneficial lesson to teach, it is that the military has feet of clay, and the child in the white house has a head of clay. If you believe the military should be above reproach, then that’s exactly what you get: a military that is above reproach. And there is nothing more dangerous or destructive in all the world.
If you tell people whose views you don’t like to shut up, you just stepped on your own rights. Jonathan Swift wrote of how people who broke their eggs at one end persecuted people who broke their eggs at the other end, but what Swift didn’t mention was that society is fickle. The same laws that afflict one set of egg eaters while comforting the other in one generation will be used to opposite effect in the next. Any move to denigrate the rights of others will inevitably be used to denigrate yours in time.
"Common sense" is a term meaning "what the herd believes." One reason America has a representative democracy in a constitutional republic is because the herd rarely if ever knows what the fuck it’s talking about. That’s why we have elected reps – to do that. Yes, we’re hiring shoplifters to watch the store. So no system’s perfect.
Any politician who waves the flag or the cross in your face should be booted out of office and never taken seriously as a political candidate again. No politician ever has the right to tell you how you should love your country, let alone stand up for your country. (Loving your country and standing up for your country have the same moral origins, but in an honest person often have opposite results), and CERTAINLY no politician has the right to tell you what God thinks you should do about your country.
Capitalism made America strong, but it never made it free. Quite the opposite, in fact. Contrary to what "free market" advocates claim, capitalists hate competition and attempt to quash it. They hate any form of accountability that might hurt profits, and that includes paying damages for any injury done to you by their desire to maximize profits. The rich aren’t "the enemy" but they certainly are not your friends: when, as often happens, your interests and theirs are not in harmony, they won’t hesitate to leave you holding the short end of the stick. Nor does immense wealth bestow wisdom, compassion, or love of freedom on big business. Anyone who says it does is just advocating privatized tyranny, as opposed to the regular kinds fabricated by church or state.
Finally, you’ll see a lot of mention this Fourth of July about the Declaration of Independence. Which is fine: it’s the sort-of anniversary of the signing of that particular document that is being celebrated, after all. But the Declaration is really nothing more than a bitch-sheet against King George III of England, who was already too crazy to know what it said. He’s dead, and nearly all the items complained about in the Declaration are now moot. The only group trying to pretend it has any real relevancy today are the religious whacks, who take one vague reference to a deistic "creator" and try to pump it up into proof positive that the United States was supposed to be a theocracy.
If you want to celebrate America’s real birthday, wait until September 17th. It was on that date, in 1787, that the Constitution was written. It, and not whines about the price of tea, is what America is really all about.
If, on the other hand you don’t want to dwell on the Big Issues this warm, sunny weekend, and you just want to snarf hot dogs, watch fireworks, and enjoy the freedoms the Constitution defends, then go on and have a Happy Fourth of July!
You’re free to do so.