Sun, 04 Jul 2004 19:20:29
What do you stand *for*?
Everyone, especially on the Internet, talks about what they are against. The Laughing Wolf brings up a great question that I will answer on this, our nation’s celebrated birthday.
What are you for?
Kathy K, in a reply to LA’s entry, already gave my answer, but I’m going to give it anyway: Freedom. Everything I think, everything I am, everything I do stems from my personal ideals of societal freedom. Freedom to be, to grow, to learn and to fail. The freedom to take a chance, to fly too close to the sun, to create a new idea or a device or a work of art and the freedom to offer it to others. Freedom to share, to gather together, to talk, to argue and to be safe and secure in our persons and possessions.
Freedom.
It’s why I oppose the things I oppose...I prioritize what I see as assaults on freedom, and I make an effort to tackle them in the order in which I see them as dangerous. It’s easy...too easy, to take freedom away. AN act of terror, a response to that act, a bad law, an errant comment, a controlling spouse or parent, an oppressive school system, police force or federal agency...there are far too many ways to lose freedom in America.
Thomas Jefferson once said “The ground of liberty is to be gained by inches, and we must be contented to secure what we can get from time to time and eternally press forward for what is yet to get.” And so it is easy to lose freedoms, and damn hard to get them back. After two hundred and twenty-eight* years, we still aren’t as free as we could be. Our country has a framework that allows us to move and grow in ways we haven’t yet tapped into.
I urge everyone reading this, please, don’t lose sight of the ideals of freedom. Let’s stop making laws and proposing amendments that would restrict freedom. Everything we do as a nation should be to espouse and demand more freedom, not less.
Freedom. Always.
* - Yeah, my math sucks. Originally that read “two hundred and 18” :)
Posted by JimK at 07:20 PM on July 04, 2004
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#3 Posted by ownwomon 
on 07/05 at 03:13 PM -
I couldn’t resist… Freedom is given to each and every one of us by God. Or upon your birth for those in the audience who do not believe in a Creator other than a mother and father. This is absolute. It is the birth right of every human being. Granted, not all individuals honor said freedom responsibly. And there are those,in their treachery,that rob others of this birthright. Freedom is not proprietary to the United States. Beware the age-old manipulations of moral relativism. And as I humbly hope I remain a person in search of the truth, I’ve included a link to what I find to be an enlightening dialogue regarding the previously quoted Thomas Jefferson.
http://www.uncommonknowledge.org/800/829.html
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#1 Posted by Drumwaster
on 07/04 at 09:36 PM -
Right on, Jim… (One small point, though: it’s 228, not 218.)