Freedom Defined

Question of the Month: Do we as human beings understand the true concept of Freedom or are we doomed to repeat the rhetoric of our forefathers?


What is Freedom? Is Freedom that elusive thing that George W. Bush spends countless hours extolling for other countries all the while limiting civil liberties in his own country? Is it that elusive thing that has our Canadian Soldiers in Afghanistan instead of safe at home? Or is it the ability to think past the double speak of the propaganda that is shoved into our consciousness everyday?

Freedom is defined as “1 : the quality or state of being free: as a : the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action b : liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another” in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. The concept once defined is not so abstract as it would seem is it? In reality, freedom is a much more complicated thing than the dictionaries, poets, activists, writers and politicians would have us believe. An informal poll done by email received several different definitions of freedom. My good friend (and one of the smartest people I know) who we call Minx defined freedom as “…fully knowing and appreciating your capabilities as a person, and having nothing or no-one to impede or prevent you from growing and stretching them to their fullest extent”.

In essence, Freedom is being you, owning your actions and your thoughts. The word Freedom is used fast and loose today. It is being used to justify everything from promiscuity to war. People use it when attempting to justify a lifestyle that some may find objectionable and others use it to justify actions that are truly unjustifiable.

To look around today, one can see that the essence of what is true freedom has been lost in an avalanche of bastardization and propaganda. People are now following their “leaders” like lost little sheep. Right has become wrong and wrong has become the new right. Free speech is shot down as unpatriotic and free expression shot down as wrong.

When did people start allowing themselves to be led around by the nose? When did it become ok to NOT question a decision made by an elected official that affects everyone’s quality of life? When did everyone decide to just “go with the flow” and allow themselves and their needs to be subverted?

The question of the month was “Do we as human beings understand the true concept of Freedom or are we doomed to repeat the rhetoric of our forefathers?” It seems that we are in fact doomed to repeat the rhetoric as we have not reached the stage of critical thinking required to experience true freedom. So long as we follow like lambs to the slaughter, we are doomed to repeat the rhetoric of our forefathers.