Price of freedom

Freedom of speech is not just the ability to say what you believe without political correctness or coercion but also to stand there and hear someone else shout at the top of their lungs that which you would adamantly oppose.

Freedom means to accept that there are some things beyond your control. That you can't stop every madman, that you can't stop every terrorist, and that you MUST stand up against those who would exchange your freedom for security from these threats.

Freedom requires that corporations be allowed to be just as charitable as people and just as corrupt as people. Society has a broad range of people and you can expect nothing less from other free institutions. There will be great corporations as well as ones that want to rip you off. There will be strong supportive unions who understand market forces and work to better their workers as well as the company they work for and there will be power hungry unions who care more about imposing their will on their workers, the company they work for but all persons as well. There will be strong freedom loving institutions as well as those who call for the end of every freedom we cherish. Having this spectrum is brought about by freedom. Desiring something other than this spectrum is actually supporting tyranny.

Freedom requires a sense of personal responsibility. As long as people believe they "deserve" something they haven't worked for and didn't earn simply because they are less well off than someone else, or because they were oppressed in the past or because they didn't have the same opportunities as someone else, there is no freedom. People will always think this way, it is called covetousness, but we make a mistake when we choose to say the role of government is to take money from one person and give it to another. This is nothing more than coercion or the government compelling you to do something. Freedom requires the act of giving or helping to be a voluntary one. Without the ability to choose what happens with your money, you can't choose which people you want to help. Nobody can help everybody, but we can all choose to do our part. Freedom is also accepting the reality that some will choose to do nothing. This is called greed and selfishness and it isn't illegal. It may be immoral and sinful, but that's only if you subscribe to a belief system that would call it that.

Freedom is recognizing that people have the right to be stupid! It recognizes that people will discriminate against other people. It means you fight with your last breath to point out these wrongs, but accept with your mind that you can't force people to fit into a mold and no matter how much legislation or government coercion you use, there will always be discrimination.

Benjamin Franklin said "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Modern America is closer to losing freedom than we've ever been. We've chosen to live with airport security and allow common rights violations by the TSA to secure freedom from terrorists. We've chosen to allow the continuation of the Patriot Act which targets specific populations and groups just to make ourselves feel better. We've chosen to expand the role of government beyond foreign and interstate commerce to allow it to control intrastate commerce in the name of what is right and just and to prevent discrimination and the use of substances we know are harmful. We've chosen to ignore the idea of personal responsibility and instead required the government to regulate behavior by coerced giving, coerced education and coerced speech (political correctness). We've chosen to slowly give up the very thing we claim to hold most dear. Our FREEDOM!