Free

On this Memorial Day, a day of remembrance for those who have died in war, we at the Blasphemy Blog have encountered the phrase "Freedom is not free." This phrase is a lie. Freedom is free.

Allow us to explain.

When people write that "Freedom is not free," they mean to say that only through some sacrifice, in this case the sacrifice of lives of soldiers in war, are we as citizens of the United States "free." This argument runs directly counter to the words of the founders of our country, who wrote that all people are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

We read these words to mean what they say: our freedom is ours because we are born free; we were created free. Governments, soldiers, and dictators can take away freedom, but they cannot give it. Freedom is in us because that's the way we are made.

The Revolutionary War did not free us from anything. After the war was over, George Washington might have been declared King of America, and his descendants might still be our kings. Thankfully, we decided to be free by living free.

Abraham Lincoln said, "As a nation of free men, we will live forever or die by suicide." He was talking about the Civil War, but as was so often the case with Lincoln, his words had another layer of meaning.

Lincoln spoke about the preservation of the Union, but he did not here mention that Union; he spoke of "free men." Individual people decide whether to be free or not.

We don't think it's a radical thing to say that war tends to decrease, not increase, freedom. In a war zone, people have fewer choices about how to live their lives. Armies are everywhere during a war, and armies as institutions tend to frown on personal freedom. Travel is restricted during war. There are fewer things to buy. The main freedom that results from war is whatever unknowable freedom the dead enjoy.

Freedom is an inalienable human right, but war is an inhumanly cruel thing. And it destroys freedom just like everything else.

The farther you are from war, the more able you are to enjoy your God-given freedom. And consider here the wisdom of the World War II conscientious objector. He was asked, "What if everyone, like you, refused to fight in the war?" He said, "Well, if everyone refused, there'd be no war."

The counterargument to this is that the bad guys will keep trying to kill us long after we refuse to kill them any more. This is true; the bad guys are like that. But we at the Blasphemy Blog have a positive view of humanity and believe there to be only a small number of truly evil people. And we think that all of us good people can deal with them. But only if the good people stop fighting in wars.

Then we can all be free.

A person can live in a free society and not be free. A person can live in an unfree society and nevertheless seize freedom. Freedom is more than a state of mind, but it does begin in the mind, in our conception of ourselves as individuals who matter in the grand scheme of things.

Freedom is not an absolute good; we give some up when we give police jurisdiction over us, so that we can be more secure in our homes. In exchange for the comfort and love of human relationships, we give up the freedom to come and go as we please, staying with our friends even when they are annoying and we'd rather be free to hang out with newer, funner people.

But freedom is largely a good thing and most everyone wants as much as they can get.

So, take it. It's yours. No charge.

still here

We at the Blasphemy Blog will return some time in the future.