The True Test

"Even damnation is poisoned with rainbows" ---Leonard Cohen

"Even a bird is chained to the sky" -----Bob Dylan

What is freedom? Like "truth" or "justice" everyone has their own definition. But at the root of freedom is this: to protect it you must violate it. Just as peace rests on a willingness to kill if necessary, freedom only exists if one if willing to deprive another of the same in certain situations.

This contradiction is precisely why we'll never agree on what freedom is. Is it given by God or men? Is its purpose to allow all behavior, or to keep people free from certain types of behaviors? But most important of all the queries is this: when is it acceptable to take someone else's "freedom" in order to secure your own?

Americans have a cultish fetish for "freedom", much of which is entirely rational; the founding of America did more for the palpable reality of "freedom" for more people than any other event up to that point in human history.

We all know how imperfect the freedom was, especially at the beginning, but America has added priceless timber to the reality of freedom, not least because it has not hesitated to kill for it (1776, 1860, 1941).

But what kind of freedom? Much of America's concept of freedom is tied up in property rights. In America, the individual's "freedom" to own things is held superior to the welfare of the society as a whole.

During the Cold War, we all know that very little of the "free world" was actually free. (South Korea, South Vietnam, Iran, Chile, etc.) None of these nations accorded their citizens any of the freedoms we hold dear, save one: the freedom to amass as much wealth as possible. Is it not telling that this one "freedom" was deemed sufficient for entrance into our club?

To many cultures, if not most, this is a rather perverted definition of "freedom" ; it is simply the "freedom" to be selfish and exploitative. It's much more complicated than that, of course, but we would do well to consider that critique.

What of freedom of speech and expression in general? Again, this is a good thing, but to many cultures, especially Islamic ones, "freedom of expression" seems more like "freedom to peddle pornography and to ridicule God's prophet in newspaper cartoons". Ridiculous? Maybe. But not entirely.

Would an Egyptian father want his daughter to have the "freedom" to watch and emulate American television and movies, where nearly 100% of the sex depicted takes place among young and unmarried people?

Would a peasant in Cuba want an American corporation to have the "freedom" to "own" the very land he lived on and the very sugarcane that he cut and harvested with his own hands?

Another of America's definitions of "freedom" is tied up in the Puritan ethos of pleasure-as-sin. If if gives you pleasure, it is a sin. Now, while this is occasionally true, it's a rather dim vision of life. Marijuana laws are perhaps the ultimate example. There is no other rationale for denying people the freedom to do as they please in this regard other than that some people are scandalized by other people enjoying their lives on their own terms.

So American notions of freedom are not as streamlined as most of us might think. Consider, what is a greater infringement on the "freedom" of all Americans: someone smoking a joint during the Daily Show, or corporations being "free" to donate an unlimited amount of money to national elections?