Liberty! Do we have it?

Apr 24th by Linda

“Government is the absence of liberty.”

One very popular song annoys me.  It’s the country song with the line, “I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free.”  How does that guy know he’s free?  Somebody told him, “Americans are free.”

I felt free when I was a little girl and my grandma would march us all around the piano in a two-room schoolhouse singing, “God bless America.”  That song would not be permitted in a contemporary curriculum.

My father once built a restaurant from the ground up without any plans.  He wanted to see if he could do it.  He knew the rules, and he had to jump through some atrocious hoops to get permits and approvals after-the-fact.  Aren’t Americans supposed to be innovators who push the envelope?  If we aren’t allowed to, we’re not free.

We’re not free when our money is involuntarily withdrawn to bail-out banks, and industries…and European interests.  We’re not free when our money buys lighted signs and radio ads reminding us to “stay alive” and “turn off the stereo”!

My dairy farmer friend is told where she must sell her milk, how much she’ll be paid, how to care for the cows and where their manure must fall.  She’s not free.

My husband is not free.  He is required to pay union dues to work his job.  Sherry Loar was forced into a union in her own home!  She has been a babysitter for 30 years, then she received notification that she was, as of that moment, a union.  She asked, “Am I management or labor”?  (See Mackinac Center website for information about her lawsuit.)

People up north aren’t free to ride their 4-wheelers.  My boys aren’t free to sell worms or minnows.  We’re not free to fish.  (Can you afford fish anymore?)

None of us is free when our financial transactions are monitored.  We’re not free when our doorways have GPS markers.  We’re not free when our voices are recorded as we cross the Mackinac Bridge.

References to American freedom are nostalgia, and I prefer to be a realist.  We’ll never recognize true freedom as long as we accept the current definition.  We are not free.

Patrick Henry:  “For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it.”

That brings me back to the song.  “I’m PROUD to be an American…”  One of my favorite books says, “Pride cometh before a fall.”  I’m GRATEFUL to be an American.  I’d be more grateful to be a truly free one.

Linda