What Does “Freedom”
Mean?
Richard
Salbato - May 4, 1009
My latest Newsletter, “Dignity & St.
Joseph, the Worker” prompted such a large response
(100% good) that I have decided to expand on the theme of dignity. As expressed in the last article we are born
with dignity and we or others can do nothing to add to our dignity as humans,
but can only take away that dignity by failing to live up to it.
The
two major reasons for this dignity are that fact that we have free will and can
never die. These are the two reasons we are made in the image and likeness of
God. We will expand now on the meaning of free-will. Free-will means that we have the freedom to
choose good and evil, truth and falsehood, love and hate, and/or peace and
war.
All
this implies that we have the freedom to choose, and so, freedom is the subject
here. We know from the above that God
gave us freedom, but what does this word mean?
How do we protect our freedom?
How do we use it for our selves and the common good? Should we give up some freedom for the better
good of all?
The enemy of freedom is force, coercion
and/or psychological aggression. These enemies of freedom are not the same as the consequences
of using freedom badly. God does not force us to do anything, but He does have
consequences for choosing evil over good.
Consequences are always there when we choose the good or the evil. These consequences are even there if we lived
alone in a cave all the days of our life.
Nevertheless, we still are not forced to do this or that.
When we are forced to do anything, we have lost our freedom. Totalitarian governments take all freedoms
from all the people except themselves. Anarchy gives individuals total freedom,
but does not protect the weak from the strong.
Democracies give freedom to the majority, but not the minority. Pure Capitalism
gives freedom to the rich but not to the poor.
More on this later!
False Freedom
There is no limit to the sophisms by which the
attractions of the word ‘freedom’ can be used to support measures which destroy
individual freedom, no end to the tricks by which people can be exhorted in the
name of freedom to give up their freedom.
Liberal do-gooders have tried to expand the meaning of “Freedom” to include
freedom from poverty, starvation, treatable disease, and even from making the
wrong choices. "
This false idea of freedom takes away the freedom to fail and suffer the consequences
of failure. This false idea of freedom takes away freedom. In order to reward failure, government has to
take from the successful and give to those who failed, and do so without their
permission. In other words, forced
charity, and force is not freedom.
What right does a man have to free medical care, who
spends 20% of his income on beer but nothing on health care insurance. You
could solve the uninsured just by making insurance mandatory, just like driver’s
insurance. It would cost the tax-payers nothing.
The unforeseen consequence of this false idea of freedom is what breeds and
rewards failure and failure fails. Even governments fail and many have. I would
not be against this government failing, because people would wake up and build
a better nation. (Note One)
Government’s First Job
The first job of a good government is to protect freedom and in order to do
this it must be the regulator of equal fairness and justice – fairness and
justice for all. All authority, in
Churches, Governments, or Family must be protectors
of the rule of law just like sports games.
Imagine a basket ball game without rules, and referees to enforce these
rules. In order to give equal opportunity for two teams to win or loose a game,
we first must have equal rules and someone to enforce these rules. It takes very little money to pass rules of
fairness and enforce them.
When the rules of fairness in sports are found to be unequal, new laws are
passed to equalize the game. The same
was true in
It was always interesting to me that the richest people in
When the government gives billions of dollars to failed banks, they create
an unfair advantage to the big banks over the smaller banks. When it is not fair, it is not freedom. Allowing them to be so big in the first place
was not in the interests of fairness and justice, therefore it is not true
freedom.
It was this government’s unfair refereeing that caused all the recessions
and depressions of this country. This recession was because the governments gave
big banks and FM and FM unfair advantages over the free market, which created
the bubble. Now to correct the
government’s own mistake, they want to take 30% more of our freedom to bail
them out.
The next bailout will be Cap and
Trade.
Pure Capitalism does not
work
If pure capitalism were allowed like many want
(Libertarians), it would be like a basketball game with no rules and no referees. Capitalism, with rules and regulations to
make competition equal and fair is the greatest system in the world. Without the rule of law and regulations for
justice and equality, it becomes no better than Socialism. Every social system that works depends on
justice and fairness.
We still today do not have a proper Capitalism with
fairness in
The fundamental danger to political or financial freedom
is the concentration of power. The
existence of a large measure of power in the hands of a relatively few
individuals (government, business or unions) enables them to use it to coerce
their fellow men.
Preservation of freedom requires either the elimination
of power where that is possible or its dispersal where it cannot be eliminated.
Freedom in our daily life
As said above, God does not take away our free-will - our freedom to choose
right and wrong. But He informs us of
the consequences of these choices. In the same way we should kindly inform our
children or friends of the consequences of our freedom to choose, but we should
never force them to the point they have no freedom. “You do not like the rules; you have the
freedom to leave. – You do not want to study; you have the freedom to fail. –
You do not want to work; you have the freedom to be poor. – I am not going to
reward you for choosing poorly.”
I have seen husbands loose their freedom of choice by nagging wives; and
wives loose their freedom by abusive husbands. Even children can loose their
freedom of choice by abusive parents. Consequences
yes, but coercion no.
To be free we have to be free to be a failure. But most of all we must
protect by all means our own freedom and the freedom of others even if we have
to use force to do so. To sit back and
watch women or children being abused and do nothing cannot be justified. To allow yourself or others to be abused in
any way even with the coercion of words – nagging, should not be tolerated.
History of Freedom
Before showing the perfect examples of the real meaning of freedom, let us
look backwards into history.
Cain and Able had freedom but Cain did not respect the freedom of
Able. Hence started
the idea - “I want freedom even at the expense of your freedom”. Afterwards the earth divided into two
societies, one that respected everyone’s freedom, and the other that was
coercive with power.
Even after the Great Flood and the one family that survived, the world was
divided into two societies, one of freedom for all, and the other freedom for
only the strong, who took away the freedom of the week.
The greatest of examples of a coercive society was
Besides
Then came Christ, who founded the most perfect society
of freedom in history, the Catholic Church, with a Written Law Constitution, of
perfect freedom for all. When the Church
converted the Emperor of Rome, the world almost became free of coercion, but
when the Emperor outlawed Paganism and confiscated their temples, he violated
the concept, “Freedom”.
Even under the Catholic King system (even though many of these Kings were
very holy) the only real freedom was in the hands of the kings and who else
they wanted to give it to. The Kings
owned everything and the people owned nothing except what the kings wanted to
give them.
During and after World War I, most of these kings were overthrown in favor
of republics but these all became more totalitarian than the kings, Communism, Nazism,
Socialism, and Military Dictatorships.
All except one, that became the third government with Written Law as the governing law, the Constitutional Republic of the USA.
The “Rule of Law” was the power of this government. In other words, rule by written law and not
by people. The object of this law was to
give everyone the maxim freedom and protecting everyone’s right to freedom,
from the coercion of others. The “rule
of law” was the only job of the government, to protect you from taking my
freedom, and me from loosing my freedom to others – to protect you from me and
me from you, but not me from me.
The original Supreme Court, the 2nd and 10th Amendment
even protected us from the government.
(Note One)
In ten years the
(Note Two)
The best common sense promoter of freedom in America today is 14 year old,
Jonathon Krohn.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Krohn
(Note Three)
Internet related items:
Freedom of assembly , Freedom of association , Freedom
to bear arms , Freedom of education , Freedom of movement , Freedom of the press , Freedom of religion , Freedom
of speech , Freedom of thought , Intellectual freedom , Sexual
freedom , Suffrage