The Faces of Freedom

As we approach another Fourth of July I have been thinking about freedom. I have been thinking about what freedom is and how we think of it. My first thought is how proud I am to live in the United States and to have watched its evolution from my early years in the fifties till now. The changes were not always peaceful but none took total insurrection. When I was a kid there was a great deal of differences between people. Our respect for each other has come a long way since then. Diversity is now the norm and the country is more of a melting pot than it has ever been. It is not perfect; there will always be people that believe everyone should look, believe, and act the way that they do and, although it isn't mentioned a lot, that small fraction of people that think that way are spread across all races and lineages. European/Americans do not have a corner on that market. Overall more people are getting the respect that they are due, more people are free and that is a great thing for America.

Freedom for Women

Another thing that should fill every American with pride is our evolution toward equality between the sexes. Even as a kid I thought the girls were as smart as the boys and sometimes smarter. I have to admit at that time I could not have imagined women in the physical roles that they easily take on today, but I have never considered our ladies second class citizens. It wasn't easy but the struggle was within the system and it worked. There are still some fights for equal pay for equal work and hopefully those issues will be cleared up soon. Overall women now enjoy the freedom that came with the maturing of our society. Their freedom makes us all freer.

Privacy

There is another face of freedom. Privacy has always been a part of freedom. I grew up with the stories of the Nazi and then the Soviet secret police and what a nightmare it was to live in a society where you were watched all of the time. Unfortunately we have that kind of society now, but not for any sinister purpose. We have that kind of society for protection, but I will paraphrase Ben Franklin and say if you give up a little liberty to gain a little security you will deserve neither and lose both.

The Bush administration did wire tapping for a good cause, but they ignored and bypassed the court. The United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (or FISC) was specifically set up to oversee cases involving wire taps of the type the administration wanted, but the administration chose to ignore that safeguard to our freedom. I believe they were only tapping into suspected terrorist communication but it shows what the government will do. It shows that the people in the government will ignore our rights when they choose.

We have red light cameras, speed cameras, and we have traffic cameras. They all are useful and for a good cause but they all can be used for other purposes. We have GPS and cell phones that use signals that can be tracked. We allow security companies to monitor our homes and we think it makes us safer. We will also put monitoring in our cars so we can track our kid's movements. There is enough technology right now to allow someone to track our every movement. These ideas do not make me feel free.

My wife and I only use cell phones when we really need to call someone. Of course that doesn't help; if someone wanted to find me they could call my number and get a fix when I answer. We only use GPS on long trips and we don't have Low Jack, OnStar or any security monitoring systems on our home or our cars. That may leave us at more risk but we decided to take that risk and keep some privacy.

Freedom is Ours to Lose

In general, I have a great respect for our government and our law enforcement agencies. They are bound by rules that protect our rights and, for the most part, they follow them. When they don't; it is up to us to show a level of outrage that will put them back on track. The fact is they are not going to do anything that we don't allow them to do. Freedom is ours to lose. The more our citizens turn to crime, the more restrictive laws will be put in place, with our blessing.

Unrestricted capitalism played a big role in getting us into our present economic situation. The people on Wall Street could not restrain their greed for the sake of the market and we all lost. Now there will be new regulations and new restrictions.

Gangs and criminals terrorize our streets so we will accept more surveillance to feel safer. International terrorists threaten our safety so we will allow more aggressive interrogation techniques to find out what they know.

All of this makes sense until you realize once these practices are in place there it is hard to control how they will be used. Today they may be used against the evil doers but what about tomorrow. We just have to be careful that we don't give away freedom in the midst of our fear.