by Samuel Maxwell

Created on: December 11, 2010   Last Updated: March 11, 2012

ARE WE FREE?

Part I

Sometimes it is appropriately beneficial, and not just pleasant, to be guided by the popular will. Often though, it is not wise as the majority may be foolish and trivial. Society should be heedful of the majority, but listen to and protect the minority just as the majority should be protected from an over committed, obnoxiously loud, and dictatorial minority. Some opinion groups are radical, extreme, and violent, while others are naively impractical. Regardless, it is frequently the minority that drives change both for our advantage and disadvantage.

Each individual must decide on his or her own red-lines – the points beyond which they believe their freedoms and society's core values have been corrupted and distorted beyond the constitution's keen. Complete safety may be purchased with the surrender of privacy, speech, and choice; however, the price will then be paranoid distrust in all that surrounds us, both animate and inanimate. When everyone is a suspect that must be watched and cannot be allowed to think and speak their thoughts no matter how wise or vile, then eventually no one will be able speak out loud as the acceptable range of opinion will continually retract and the secluded quietude needed to gather our thoughts ceases to exist altogether. Then something in society's body dies just as assuredly as if blown up by a terrorist's bomb or another enemy's missile.

Though this price might be deemed necessary and correct at the time, it can only be even dreamed possibly worthwhile when those to whom we surrender ourselves are competent and trustworthy. One should always remember that once a right has been surrendered, it can only be retrieved with considerable grief and cost. And those to whom the prize has been awarded will eventually no longer occupy these positions – their successors or the successors to their successors will inevitably be proven useless and untrustworthy. When a critical mass of citizens - not necessarily an absolute majority - decide that life is more important than liberty, then liberty is gone and the defeat has come to pass despite our best intentions and efforts.

Part of the price for freedom is a certain lack of safety, since perfect safety can only be purchased with the currency of a perfect lack of freedom. While regulation is a necessity for the harmonious functioning of a large and complex society, there is no need to apply oppressive strictures to an individual's personal existence, since

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>