Freedom is More Than Just a Word
An Essay
by Michael G. Crawford
Freedom. It rings of the right to make your own life, your own decisions.
But on occasion the word and the doctrine have been misused. So misused it disgraces those who have died for true freedom in our past.
Freedom does not mean all rights for all people. What! you say? What is this treason?
Would you allow a rapist the freedom to rape at will? A dictator to choose his night's pleasure in some poor young girl plucked from a crowd of young servants? A criminal to take your hard earned possessions by invading your home? Of course not.
No, freedom must be tempered with justice. And that is the problem with freedom today. It lacks the justice our forefathers took such great pains to write into our constitution.
During the early days of the American colonies, Britain's "high born", the rich and powerful landowners, high merchants, and politically connected officials determined that a man working in a coal mine was a slave. Even when a law was passed to allow a young man to make his decision to end that slavery at age twenty-one, the rich mine owners ignored the laws until laborers finally banded together and stopped the work. Labor unions proved their worth then despite the high born staging riots and voicing rhetoric to that now familiar call of "no one is free to tear down our society". It was justice that managed to overthrow the tyranny of those days. It was justice that led to our country's call to abolish those parts of English hippocracy from our newly formed nation.
But today union's have a difficult time. Why? Because the word freedom has somehow become the word indulgant. A decent wage is different than a fair wage. A fair wage is surely different than an excellent wage. Electronics workers in Silicon Valley earn an excellent wage, one perhaps better than in most parts of the United States. Thus unions have an extremely difficult time getting organized there. Perhaps that is as it should be. Unions help the needy, not those with "excellent wages." So do we abolish unions? Certainly not. Like our system of checks and balances, the unions serve as they couldn't in the beginning, as a check against greed and government foilbles. Have unions helped the autoworkers of America. Not at all times. High U.S. wages helped create a horrible economic burden that greedy American auto companies chose not to shoulder. Thus today, we have a market place where other economic giants like Japan and the Europeans were able to walk in blithely and steal away vast segments of the U.S. Auto market. You can't blame unions alone, but they were part of the problem. Abolish them? No. Reform them? Absolutely.
Outside America, though, freedom has come to be yet another meaning. It means that Palestinians who have wandered the dry country of the Middle East for centuries can now turn to a piece of ground cared for by others, enhanced by others, and say, "That is mine. My ancestors toiled on this ground, their camels trod and dropped their waste here. Therefore it is mine." So they are now freedom fighters. Fighting for the freedom to steal land from the Israelis and Arabs alike. I wonder how Egypt would respond if suddenly the Palestinians decided that Cairo was once a Palestinian playground, therefore it should be ceded over to the Provisonal Palestinian Government.
When American colonists used slave labor for their plantations, they became as tirannical as the British high born before them. It took nearly a century for America to realize its mistake, and then nearly another century to truly liberate men and women from governmental participation in predjudice and unequal treatment. Yet minorities still fester under unfair treatment. As do many in the so-called majority. The Palestinains (how does one really differentiate a Palestinian from a jew or arab...their roots seem to be so intermingled!) are now the down-trodden Middle Eastern minority. Forty years ago it was the new nation of Israel that was the victim. How things change is such short time.
Is freedom the right of a minority to make the decisions for the majority? Has the pendulum swung the opposite direction as America tries to correct the wrongs of the past? A backlash against desegragation and quotas for minority hiring and acceptance to colleges has been sweeping this land. The pendulum swings in the opposite direction from the sixties. So we shouldn't be surprised the pendulum has swung in a similar fashion in other places in the world.
None of us will have freedom until the pendulum stops its swing, balanced in the center. No one should get preference. This doesn't mean there cannot be merit for performance, nor that no one individual is disallowed success just because another does not achieve that goal. The socialist method was to make all equal except for the leaders. Communes to share the burden of labor as well as share the wealth weren't the answer either.
Education seems to an answer to many of the world's woes. For instance, in America, we have had a difficult time working out how to be fair with higher education. When colleges simply take the best students available, that is not discrimination. To force a college to take a certain number of minority discriminates against the perfectly acceptable students of the majority. Reverse discrimination does not solve the problem of discrimination, it is just a solution of the very stupid, punishing the majority for not being a minority. But some redress seemed necessary, some action to correct a problem. Unfortunately is was just that...some answer, not the right answer. We tried to solve an inadequacy with an ever more chilling inadequacy. You cannot fight to gain fairness with something just as unfair.
The solution is to raise the academic standards of every child in America. This does not necessarily mean better testing, although that can help to define the problem areas we need to work on, but it also means inspiration, motivation, and reward. If a young child in the inner city is not motivated to learn in school, creating scholarships or entry quotas is only a band-aid over the most severe of cuts. You are probably helping some, but you are almost just as probably helping those who really don't need the help as much. We need to focus more of our energy on that child that turns to crime or a child who "has it made" yet just gives up out of confusion or disgust.
When a suburban high school student, with all the benefits of being in the majority, not worried about hunger, but severely bored or disenchanted with life chooses not to continue school, isn't this just as tragic as the inner city child deciding to sell drugs and drop out of school? The same disease has struck them both down before they have even realized the smallest portion of their potential.
Why then would either child choose a life that has no promise. The reason is freedom again. They have the freedom of choice. Our society has given them the freedom to be all that they don't HAVE to be. The freedom to live off welfare and to steal if that isn't enough. To sell drugs to have the things that working hard would have got them. To be lazy instead of earn their rights. The right to demand rights they haven't earned is not freedom, it is just a new form of tyranny.
How can the country that is destined to lead freedom into the new millenium stand by and watch its own children forsake their freedom and choose to be the functionally unemployable rather strive to learn and become a contributing part of our society? Where is that glorius American future in the new millenium going to be if half our children will not be prepared to man the jobs our bright new future will require? What will the majority look like in the new Millenium? Will the current majority have become the minority as immigrants who realize the worth of our system are the only ones who take advantage of it?
And if we have a problem like that at home, is it no wonder that we knash our teeth at the skillful games played by someone like Saddam Hussein. We have in that person someone who wants the freedom to kill his own people with weapons of mass destruction, to throw off sanctions and inspections as if he somehow has fulfilled magically his commitments which were agreed upon at the conclusion of the Gulf War? Where is our commitment to correcting the behavior of that tyrant?
The problem is that freedom word again. We have exercised our freedom to elect a leader in our country who has managed to pull together a team which knows very well how to weild the sword to get what they want, but not how to motivate and enrichen without jabbing out with that same sword. Using the stick and no carrot seems such an easy way to get things down in foreign policy, doesn't it strike you that anyone with false bravado could do it? Certainly. Really effective and truly inspired leadership is finding a way to achieve the real goal you seek, by using methods that are not so obvious, and perhaps a little wiser. There isn't anything wrong with taking the easy course when it will achieve what you want. And there is nothing wrong with applying the stick to the butt of an errant child like Saddam Hussein. But achieving the impossible perhaps is the sign of truly inspired leadership. Life is not full of easy answers, in fact few decisions in life will be easy So let's train our people to overcome the difficult answers. Let's also elect leaders who can ignore the easy answer when it doesn't serve. In the case of Iraq, the easy answer is probably not the right one. Soon, however, we will be faced with a violent confrontation in the Middle East. Our leaders need to prepare for that eventuality and make sure our country will be able to deal with all the ramifications that confrontation will present.
For instance, we hear, again, that now it is the time to get rid of Saddam Hussein and help a new government grow in his place. As if that time wasn't seven years ago at the conclusion of the Gulf War. Why didn't we simply write the terms of the cease-fire so that Saddam Hussein, a bonafide war criminal would be turned over in 30 days or the bombing would resume? What happened to that quite logical goal? What happened to our resolve? Why didn't we see that awful man hanging from a pole in Geneva following a war crimes trial? Instead we have given him the freedom to be a war criminal with impunity. Perhaps the world leaders are all to blame, just not the American leadership.
Moreover how can we now assume we are the ones to help a new Iraqi government get created? Do we have the right to say, "okay, you are the new government, how can we help you." It seems American foreign policy is rife with attempts to help put in place new governments, that later we find are oppressive or malignant, and then we either have to replace them again, or take them on as an adversary. What business is this of ours? Iran is an example of a country where our meddling has resulted in exactly the opposite outcome from our original goal.
We have the freedom to make a truly momentus mistake by pomposuly thinking we can pick a government for Iraq. We must remove Saddam, but let his people choose their own new government. But then, quite possibly, it is too late to for us or anyone to do so without returning to the Gulf War scenario. We may have lost the right to make those kinds of changes this late in the day.
Is freedom the right for Saddam Hussein to starve his people while rebuilding his military? Does Saddam need a military? What is the threat? Does anyone believe his neighbors are going to attack him? Does he? There are only a few uses for an Iraqi military, and that is to allow Saddam to exert his control over the inside of Iraq, then foist that control beyond Iraq's borders. So it is clear we must do something. And of all the nations, who has the will and leadership to take on such a challenge. Certainly not Australia or Japan. No, as usual, the leader is America, freedom's hero nation.
So we extract Saddam's freedom of movement by controlling the air space around his borders. We contain his freedom to move weapons toward his neighbors. And we prohibit his production of weapons of mass destruction by refusing to yield on inspections looking for production facilities, and continuing to monitor dual use facilities. He is not free to manufacture Sarin, Botulin, Ricin, Anthrax, Aflaxin, and VX. He does not have the freedom to generate weapons grade plutonium. He does not have the freedom to build ballistic missiles so he can threaten his neighbors. He was convicted in the court of world opinion as a despot, and his sentence is loss of many of his freedoms. Is this permanent? No. HE simply has to become the steward of his people, comply with the sentence of the world court, and yield. Once he has done this, his country will return to prosperity. Why hasn't he done this? Because it is not in HIS best interest. When his people are prosperous again, they will turn to look at the world and suddenly ask, "Where are our freedoms? Why can't we have the right to elect our leaders? Why can't we choose and make our own decisions? This is why we face crisis after crisis in the Middle East.
But look at our own country. We let criminals out of jail because we don't have enough jail space. We have murderers, and mass killers waiting on death rows, but few are dieing at the hands of the executioner. The murderers have the freedom to live despite their act of murder. We seem to have lost the will to keep our commitments in the criminal justice system. No wonder we don't have the fortitude to persecute and hang the likes of Saddam Hussein.
No wonder our youth are confused and don't know how to move their lives into a positive and constructive contribution to our society. Criminals roam free, murders watch television all day, and the Iraqi despot simply prods the world community on an annual basis with total impunity. What is the point to living when it has such little meaning? "Who is in charge, and do they care about someone as insignificant as me?" our children must ask themselves.
We have the freedom to change the world. Fry the murderers so we have more space for the rest of the criminal element. We have the freedom to inspire our youth to turn away from "do nothing" to "do something". We have the freedom to show our youth how to learn and grow instead of give up and take the easy road to gangs and crime.
To "learn" instead of vegitate and fall into despair of living hand to mouth. We have the freedom to pry the hands of a young criminal off the rail leading downhill into hell. We can show our young that crime is not a rewarding life, and the gangster is NOT a romantic, macho, inspirational figure. We CAN make hardwork and constant learning a way of life and show the rewards that come from that pursuit. But that means we have to make sure the rewards are there and extremely visible. We have to show the justice in the toil. People really don't mind working hard for a reachable goal, one they feel is fair and balanced to their effort.
So many people today work at jobs that barely support their families. Why is that? We have a marvelous opportunity to teach and inspire all people in this country. We have a country with plenty of wealth to distribute to all our families without resorting to socialist experiments that have proven a failure time and time again. We have the freedom to not only make new jobs, but motivate people to find the enjoyment in these new jobs.
"Well someone has to do manual labor, right?" Sure. But why can't someone who doesn't want to do that hard labor, someone who wishes to do more with their life have the freedom to choose to do more? Is it only the hard work in learning new things that holds people back from doing more with their lives? Can you believe it's all about being lazy? No of course not. It is motivation and time. Is their something preventing them from improving their lives if they want to? Surely. It is motivation and time. We have the freedom to make the time, and we are free to inspire those who desire a better life to go for their dreams.
Instead of taking care of the idle, we should figure out ways to help those who seek to improve do so. Help a mechanic take a day a week to attend classes...classes that open up a new career opportunity if that is what is desired. Help a working mother or a single Dad get a day free from duties at work and duty at home, so they can learn something that will break monotony or seeming rut that they have fallen into. For that matter, perhaps half our work force could be doing their work from home using telecommuting technology. What prevents this? Nothing but ignorant and frightened corporate leaders who shirk from improving their own employee's lives.
We have the freedom to motivate and inspire everyone to do more with their lives and contribute to a more humanistic society, one centered around life's achievement, AND the right to enjoy the fruits of our labor. We have the freedom to allow our workers to spend more time at home with their families AND get more work done. Isn't that worth the effort? Isn't that worth the investment in technology and infrastructure?
The work situation has other problems. We are still a society when one person looks at another and says, "I don't want to hire that one!", not based upon qualifications but age, color, or whim. How can any one person make a judgement upon an applicant's merits in a few minutes of contrived and a totally partial (as opposed to impartial) set of circumstances. Few American companies know how to or choose to conduct impartial and fair hiring practices. Any interview process that lasts less than a day is a contrivance and a wholly invalid means for determing the right candidate. Yet the practice is used to "weed out" nearly 80% of all candidates for a job. Oh we are very careful to ensure race, creed and gender are not part of the hiring criteria, but there are other prejudices at work in America's hiring processes. Anytime one person has the power to reject a candidate, our system has failed to exercise not only good judgement, but has failed to be impartial. We have given the freedom for that person to be a small but significant tyrannt...just as if he were a mine owner in Britain two centuries ago. We have given a wrong kind of freedom to those who would promote their actions of unfairness with the excuse being they are trying to be expiditious. Your reason to hurry is not my reason to sit by and condone injustice.
Our government continues to baffle its constituents. Who didn't laugh when a President tried to take the credit for balancing a budget when the Congress, by law, is the body that makes that all possible? I mean seriously. Is it a coincidence that we have a totally different crew in Congress than we had before...and that there is now not only a balanced budget AND a high probability of a surplus?
But even that Congress gleefully parades out the soft money story and then surprisingly does nothing to fix the problem. What's that all about? Only a fool could not figure out that our politicians CAN'T live without soft money. Otherwise wouldn't they have done something about it? More disgust and confusion, but not only for the young but for everyone in the country.
The I.R.S. abuses show the contempt government employees have for the common citizen, and yet what has been done. Not much. Who hasn't met a government employee who delights in their power over the common person? Wasn't the sixties as much about fighting the society that wasn't serving the people it was meant to serve? Is it time for a new revolution in American affairs? Perhaps. It is ironic that the product of that era are the people in power today who blithley say "We are doing the best we can" yet still offering the same lack of solutions we had three decades ago.
So here we sit, the epitomy of freedom, America. With all our freedoms we obviously have added yet another freedom to the mix. The freedom to really mess things up. This is not the freedom I learned about, this is not the freedom I yearn for. This is not how I want to go forward into the new millenium. I want America to be not only the strongest nation, but the moral nation. I want America to set a standard for fairness that no other can touch. Fair in education. Fair in employment. Fair in law. And fair in following up on our committments...like keeping our promise to veterans, the aged, the retired military and retired government workers. Like punishing when we say we are going to punish. Life imprisonment should mean the convicted should die in jail, just like capital murder means capital punishment. If we carried out capital punishment, there would be room for those sentenced to a life in prison. If we made more of our serious crimes capital crimes we would have more room for career criminals and more room for petty criminals as well. What good to our society are violent, repeat offenders. Use a gun twice (oh okay three times) and you fry. Maybe then our youth would see what the real rewards of a life of crime are. Maybe then we could breed criminal behavior out of our people.
We DO have the freedom to make life fair. We CAN make it possible for the disenchanted youth to lead a life away from crime, a life that is rewarding and has enormous and visibly attractive benefits. A life that makes it worth the effort to learn and grow. We have that freedom because those who have gone before us applied themselves to make that effort in their time and for their children. Now its our turn to do the same for our time and our children.