With the 4th of July coming up, it’s only appropriate to reflect on Freedom and what that really means.
Perhaps it is inevitable in the history of any nation that things will dilute over time. It has happened to countless nations and countries over the centuries. Things don’t always go out with a bang; sometimes it is with just whimper.
With the world in the state that it is in, it sometimes confounds me the things that people fixate on. Issues become issues that shouldn’t be issues at all.
Some things in life are not black & white. Some things dance in the gray, never really becoming clear no matter how much science, thought, or philosophy is put into it.
But some things are black & white. Some things are clear. Some things are not up for debate. Freedom is one of those things.
When I was in high school, a very wise and very old government teacher once said to me, “Your rights end where your fist ends and another’s face begins.”
You never appreciate such teachers enough at the time. Our rights end only when they infringe on others’ rights. Not before, not after.
We don’t get to pass laws that infringe on others’ personal choices just because we have moral objections to them. That is a dangerous, horrible web to start weaving.
That is a web that we have been entrapped in before, yet never seem to learn as a nation how to avoid. It was wrong when we did it to Native Americans, it was wrong when we did it to African Americans, it was wrong when we did it to Japanese Americans, and it was wrong when we did it to women.
Freedom is choice. We have no right whatsoever to even consider laws which would forbid people to make personal choices that do not affect anyone else. No right.
It is one thing to have a personal objection to an action; it is quite another to enforce those objections on others. There is a difference between what is good for the country and what is good for an individual’s soul.
Freedom must be preserved. It must be maintained. It doesn’t matter if actions are morally right or wrong; it matters whether they infringe on the Freedom of others. It is a very simple litmus test. Very simple.
On this 4th of July, we should all remember what Freedom really is. With an election coming up, we would do well to sort out the issues appropriately and understand what is an issue of morals and what is an issue of Freedom.
This is our country, and its strength was built upon Freedom. Don’t let personal judgement get in the way of doing the right thing, championing the right cause, or making the right decision.
As a nation, we are better than that.
Hear, hear.
In the words of William Jefferson Clinton, “It depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is.”
* Our rights end only when they infringe on others’ rights. *
How do you define the word ‘other’?
Does the venn diagram of ‘other’ include these folks inside the circle?
- Unborn Fetus
- Non-US citizens living illegally in the US
- Animals that are used to make fur coats or for medical testing
- A ‘person of interest’ in the War on Terror
I think if you look closely, you will see the grey…