Saturday, December 30, 2023

Ready for America to be free again

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for November 26, 2023)




How long has it been since you heard someone say "It's a free country"? I used to hear it almost every day. I haven't heard anyone say this for years now. Another thing people no longer say is "This mammoth steak is delicious". No one says either phrase anymore for the same reason. No one is eating mammoth steaks and America isn't a free country.

Sure, if all you want to do is agree with government opinions and be obedient to its edicts, you're still free. A slave is completely free if he wants to be enslaved. This isn't what I want. I want more.

See how free you are, or remain, if you have a difference of opinion with government. Or if you simply won't accept and repeat its lies. The political prisoners of the January 6th protest discovered how unfree America has become. I wasn't surprised. Were they?

The single purpose of Congress is to make up legislation, each word of which chips away a little more of your freedom. If you establish a system explicitly designed to destroy freedom, how long until you have no freedom left?

Can you name anything not regulated by a large number of government rules? I can't think of a single thing. That's not freedom. Even with rules applied to everything, additional rules are constantly piled on top of those already imposed.

What sort of sick person would think this is any type of freedom?
"Freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do." ~ former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani, March 1994

No, Rudy. You couldn't be more wrong. That's authoritarianism-- the opposite of freedom. You either don't understand freedom or you were lying for political reasons.

Freedom is doing anything you want. This is why freedom needs to be tempered with responsibility to result in liberty, not crushed by political authority.

The late author L. Neil Smith had proposed a moratorium on new legislation to last one hundred years; the only thing Congress would be allowed to do in the meantime is abolish laws. It's a good start.

I'm ready for America to be free again; to hear people say "It's a free country" and mean it.
-
I couldn't do this without your support.