Tag: freedom

The Boundaries of Freedom

You’re going to Disney World.

Sheer joy washed over my face as I heard those five magical words.

I was 12 years old, and I was finally heading to sunny Florida to experience the happiest place on earth. But there was more to it than that.

You see, my paternal grandparents would be the ones taking me and my sister down to Orlando. So, my parents left us with an assignment.

We were to look through a kid-friendly Disney World guidebook they provided us. Then we were to compile a list of our favorite rides at each of the resort’s four theme parks. That list would eventually be shared with our grandparents.

My sister and I dove into this project. And a few days later, we reported back with a list. One that nearly every ride.

Our parents cringed.

You kids do realize you won’t get to all these rides, right? they asked rhetorically. There will be long lines for some of them, and the parks are only open so late. Plus, your grandparents aren’t spring chickens, and you’ll need to go at their pace.

A few weeks later, we were in the land of Mickey Mouse. And it was just as my parents had predicted.

We got to some of the rides we’d earmarked. But we were nowhere close to completing the list.

It would take several more visits over decades for me to get to everything I wanted to experience at Disney World. And I’m not sure my sister ever crossed off all the items on her list.

Freedom has its boundaries.

As I write this, our nation is on the cusp of celebration.

The sun is out. The heat is on. And Independence Day is around the corner.

The Fourth of July is always full of extravagance. Bountiful burgers and hot dogs. Star spangled attire. Fireworks shows that light up the July night.

But above all, it’s a celebration of freedom. A reminder of the moment when America decided to go its own way, creating a nation on a foundation of liberty.

Freedom can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. But recently, one interpretation has taken the fore.

Yes, many across the nation now consider freedom to be the right to do whatever I want, in any circumstance. It’s something I call absolute freedom.

Much like my younger self at Disney World, the proponents of absolute freedom expect to have it all. But unlike my younger self, they seek to bulldoze any limitations to that expectation.

It’s why we see grown men throwing toddler-like tantrums in public forums. It’s why we see lawsuits aimed at even the most minor of inhibitions. It’s why we see such rudeness and cruelty in many interpersonal interactions.

Absolute freedom is having a moment. And it’s absolutely un-American.

Let’s wind the clock back to the year 1787.

America had declared its independence 11 years prior. It had spent much of the intervening decade in a war with the British to preserve its sovereignty.

Once that war had been won, America had taken an initial stab at governing itself. It didn’t go well.

The initial governing charter of this nation – the Articles of Confederation – was too weak, decentralized, and ambiguous to stand on its own. Indeed, a farmer’s rebellion in Massachusetts had already proven the impotence of the agreement.

So, our fledgling nation’s leading figures met in Philadelphia to hammer out a new, all-encompassing charter. One that would become known as the United States Constitution.

At its core, the Constitution was – and still is – a mix of rights and responsibilities. It outlined the rights of Americans and set up a federal government to protect such rights. But it also assigned responsibilities to each party.

These responsibilities defined the contours of the newly minted freedoms. For instance, all individuals maintained a right to free speech. But they had a responsibility not to slander or defame others. And the government was split into three branches, each with distinct mandates for aspects of governance.

This setup provided a roadmap to prosperity. Individuals had the liberty to thrive, so long as that prosperity didn’t come at the expense of the society they inhabited.

This covenant that was widely accepted for the better part of two centuries. Indeed, most of the arguments during that time regarded access to constitutional protections themselves — the rights of Black people, women, and so on.

But now, the absolute freedom movement is gaining steam like a menacing thunder cloud. It’s claiming that the good of society is secondary to the prosperity of individuals. And it’s offloading the burden of responsibility entirely.

Our founding fathers are likely turning over in their graves at this development. It violates the spirit of the Constitution they drafted.

And yet, they are partially to blame.

You see, the language in our Constitution is broad and ambiguous. Such wording was designed to make it applicable beyond the lifespan of its authors. But it’s also made it all too easy to poke holes in its principles.

That’s what’s happened recently. And we’re all worse off because of it.

There’s a scene in the TV show 1883 that still gets to me.

Legendary rancher Charles Goodnight is commiserating with wagon train leader Shea Brennan on the plains of what is now western Oklahoma. Goodnight mentions the advent of barbed wire fencing and laments how it will change the region he calls home.

Within that statement, Goodnight seems to be grappling with the meaning of freedom itself. He loves the principles of the open range, with its promises for prosperity. And yet, he recognizes that boundaries will make life tougher for the dregs of the region – namely, bandits and cattle rustlers.

A future with such boundaries would be both sustainable and inevitable. Even the earliest titan of the region could see that.

Barbed wire fencing didn’t end up taming the west on its own. But it certainly helped matters.

Indeed, the frontier of yesteryear has generally been stable and prosperous for the better part of a century.

Let’s not undo this principle.

Not in the west. Not in the north. Not in the east. And not in the south.

Freedom is a blessing. One of the greatest ones we have access to.

But it’s not unlimited.

Respect the boundaries. Respect each other. And respect this great place that we call home.

We’ll all be better for it.

The Cost of Free Choice

As we sat down at a table at a Mexican restaurant, my friends gave some advice.

Don’t worry. You won’t even have to look at the menu. They only serve nachos, enchiladas, and fajitas. Simple enough.

Simple enough. But also, kind of complicated.

The nachos, you see, were smothered with cheese – an ingredient I could not digest. The enchiladas were smothered in sauce, making a mess inevitable. (Oh, they also had cheese, for good measure.) And the fajitas required extra effort to assemble.

Where were the steak tacos I was craving? Or, to that end, the tamales or flautas?

Not at this restaurant. And so, my options were crude.

Order the fajita platter I didn’t want. Or go hungry – and explain to my friends why.

In essence, there was only one choice. So, when the waiter turned to me, I blurted out Beef fajitas, please, without a hint of hesitation.

My friends were right. I didn’t even have to look at the menu.

There are many reasons why this restaurant kept its menu so tidy.

Convenience. Simplicity. Tradition.

But also cost.

Mexican food, you see, often draws upon common ingredients. Corn tortillas. Flour tortillas. Salsa. Grilled steak. Grilled chicken. Peppers. Onions. Spiced rice. Refried beans. Cheese.

It’s the way that these items are assembled that comprises a menu. It’s what makes tacos different from enchiladas or burritos or chimichangas.

This interoperability makes ingredient costs a minor concern. Everything except the meat is generally affordable – no small detail in an industry with tight margins.

But preparation costs? That’s a different matter entirely.

It takes more work to, say, season grill a carne asada to perfection than it does to roll some shredded chicken in tortillas and smother the whole plate in sauce. It takes more work to assemble grilled skirt steak into tacos than it does to bring it to the table wholesale as fajitas.

This restaurant we were visiting was known for running a streamlined kitchen. Minimizing preparation costs were the ethos of its menu.

It’s a menu the restaurant has long mastered, to critical acclaim. But for someone like me, it took the words free choice off the table.

Literally.

Being saddled with one undesirable option at a restaurant might seem like a first world problem. And indeed, it is.

But this frustrating moment represents the tip of an iceberg. An iceberg sabotaging the fundamentals of our society.

We claim to live a land with liberty and justice for all. And for the most part, we do. We are free to vote, work, and entertain ourselves as we see fit.

But the options we have when exercising that free choice? Those have a cost.

Consider governance. As a representative democracy, we elect leaders to run our country’s affairs on our behalf. Those elections are open to nearly every American adult, free of charge. And myriad efforts to restrict these rights have been quashed over time.

But the choices on our ballots? Those are not nearly as open as our right to choose from them.

Not just anyone can make a serious run for office. To be viable, you need sterling credentials, a semblance of name recognition, and money. A lot of money.

You don’t rise from nothing to become President in America. You just don’t.

The earliest occupants of the office – our Founding Fathers – were wealthy plantation owners. Despite humble origins, Abraham Lincoln gained acclaim as a lawyer before pursuing the White House.

Even modern-day outsider candidates — Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan — had a leg up over everyday Americans. Obama earned a law degree from Harvard University, while Reagan earned acclaim as an actor. Each amassed a small fortune before even turning to politics, let alone pursuing the highest office in the land.

Make no mistake. Politics is awash in money. Money provided by special interest groups, by mega-donors, and by the politicians themselves. There’s a reason why the size of a candidate’s war chest matters as much as their poll numbers.

This creates a contradiction.

When we step into that voting booth, we exercise free choice. Free choice among options who paid to play.

The people whose names are on that ballot don’t seem much like us or relate to our lived experience. If we were to draft a list of who would best represent us, they likely wouldn’t make our Top 10.

And yet, here we are, left to choose between them. To decide whether Option 11 or Option 14 should be our Number 1.

We might want tacos, but we’re offered enchiladas or fajitas.

Free choice carries quite the cost. Make no mistake about that.

That’s just the way it is. Some things will never change. That’s just the way it is. Yeah, but don’t you believe them.

Bruce Hornsby and the Range rose to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart on the strength of those lyrics nearly four decades ago. Hornsby and his band found acclaim. And yes, they earned quite a bit of money in the process.

The central premise of those lyrics remains a work in progress. We are still working at breaking barriers, eliminating preconceptions, and defining what’s possible.

I believe in that work, and the mission underpinning it. But I also believe it’s critical for all of us to be clear-eyed about something fundamental.

We may have been bestowed the right of free choice. But the power contained within that right is minimal.

Sure, we can help determine who sits in the Oval Office. Sure, we can help determine which automaker sells the most vehicles.

But there are other forces — capitalist forces — that put those options on the table for us in the first place. And it’s within those forces where the true power lies.

It’s my sincere hope that someday, that process will be more accessible. That we’ll be able to determine what makes the menu, not just what we want to order from it.

But that’s a long way off.

In the meanwhile, maximizing the power of our free choice means getting comfortable with three words:

Follow the money.

I am. Are you?

On Personal Liberty

It’s easy to speed on the streets of Midland.

The roads are wide and relatively free of traffic. The sky overhead is a cloudless blue that seems to stretch on forever. And the West Texas terrain is dry as a desert and flat as a tabletop.

In such a setting, the speed limit signs seem to be a suggestion. There’s no reason not to zip it across town.

And in my early days living there, that’s exactly what I did.

However, I soon discovered the cost of such expedience. All too often, a traffic light would turn to yellow as I was barreling toward an intersection. I would have to speed through the light before it turned red when this happened; I didn’t have enough space to slam on the brakes in time.

I generally made it through just fine. But one time, the light turned red just as I hit the intersection.

Now, I had learned years earlier that there is usually a buffer zone after a traffic light turns red. There are a few seconds built into the cycle in which the traffic lights in all directions are red. That way, any remaining vehicles can clear the intersection.

So, I wasn’t worried about getting broadsided or t-boned by another vehicle.

But what I was worried about was something I saw right above the light standard. That something was a traffic camera.

I knew that these cameras could single out offenders. They could identify vehicles that entered an intersection a second too late. And they could help the police send traffic tickets to those drivers — even if no officers were on the scene.

I had heard horror stories of this happening in other cities. So, I would always be cautious when I saw traffic cameras while driving in Miami, New York, Boston, Washington or a host of other cities.

Now, here on the plains of West Texas, my nemesis had returned.

Great, I thought. Just what I need.

Over the next few weeks, I patiently waited for my traffic ticket to come in the mail. And I kept a watchful eye out for more traffic cameras. Given my low salary, I couldn’t afford a second ticket.

But the first traffic ticket never came. For it turns out those cameras weren’t to nab red light runners. They were there as a public safety protocol.

Officers might pull the footage if there was a bad accident near the intersection, or if they were trying to locate a stolen car that might have passed through. But they weren’t using it for a traffic ticket scheme.

I should have expected this news. Texas has always been a haven for personal liberties. A place where homeowners are allowed to defend their properties with shotguns, and motorcyclists can ride without helmets.

Liberty lies with the individual. And so does much of the burden of responsibility.

While the rule of law exists in Texas, the extent of its reach is restricted. So, Big Brother would likely not be out to get me for hitting an intersection a hair too late.

I later found out — the hard way — that some cities did maintain red light cameras, when I got a ticket thanks to one in Fort Worth. But in recent years, the Texas Legislature has actually worked to dismantle such systems. That type of surveillance doesn’t jibe with the Texas ethos of personal liberties.

Personal liberties are not limited to Texas. Indeed, they’re a cornerstone of American society, and prevalent in the western European ethos as well.

As westerners, we are accustomed to a certain brand of freedom. To having room to roam, free of prejudice.

I, as much as anyone, know the benefit of personal liberty. It hasn’t just allowed me to skirt a traffic ticket or two. It also allowed me to move to Texas as a young adult so that I could chase my dreams.

If I had grown up in Asia, the Middle East or Africa, there would have been plenty of stigma behind such a move. There is a longstanding expectation of familial collectivism in those societies — an obligation to support one’s relatives over time and remain in close proximity to them. Relocating thousands of miles away to start anew would certainly raise eyebrows.

But not in America. In America, personal liberty reigns supreme. Or at least it did until recently.

The global pandemic has forced our society to retrench. To keep a lethal virus from spreading unchecked, we’ve had to put some short-term burdens in place. State and local governments have closed businesses, banned large gatherings and required people to wear protective masks — all, ostensibly, in the name of public health.

It hasn’t always gone smoothly. The mask issue, in particular, has become a flashpoint. Some have refused to comply with the order, citing personal liberties. Some business owners have done the same in the face of forced closures. And many people have thrown parties that willfully violated bans on large gatherings.

All of this has led to a new definition of personal liberty. In a pandemic era, the phrase refers to selfish petulance. To grown men and women throwing temper tantrums when they’re asked to sacrifice for the common good. To the worst in us, not the best in us.

To be sure, these recent actions show more of what’s wrong with America than what’s right with it. They’re not a good look.

But they represent a narrow view of personal liberty. And we need to see the entire picture.

 

Let’s go back to that moment when I was sure a traffic ticket was headed my way.

I took it a bit slower on the roads of Midland. And I would slam on my brakes every time I saw a yellow light ahead of me.

I was driving in fear. Out of a sense of financial survival, yes. But also out of skepticism toward Big Brother.

And yet, such changes didn’t make me a safer driver. My hard braking ahead of an intersection increased the chances I’d be rear-ended by another vehicle. And all that time I was taking it slow, I was preoccupied with the thought of another traffic camera somewhere, or a potential yellow light a half mile down the road.

Looking back, it’s a minor miracle that I didn’t get into a wreck during that time.

This incident underscores why personal liberty is so important to me. And to our society as a whole.

For without that benefit of the doubt, that implicit trust, problems are inevitable.

Sure, people are more compliant with the rules when there is constant oversight. But the sense of paranoia that accompanies it can prove to be a powerful distraction.

This distraction sets in like a fog. And so, people are less effective at the task at hand. They’re less creative, less adventurous and less capable of handling the myriad dangers of everyday life.

So no, Big Brother is not the solution. We need some semblance of personal liberty in our lives.

Now, such empowerment does come with responsibility. In times of crisis, we should be using our personal liberty for something more sensible making a scene in a grocery store. We should focus that energy on the common good instead.

Yet, even with that caveat, personal liberty is a crucial component of who we are. It doesn’t belong on the chopping block, even when the going gets tough.

So, let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Our health and safety are paramount, both in the moment and for the long haul. But we don’t need to abandon the principle of personal liberty to protect them. We just need better judgment.

Let’s resolve to find it.

The Wreckage Of Radical Thinking

These are trying times.

Our way of life is under attack by those we cannot understand, and who refuse to understand us. Undocumented people within our borders cause uncomfortable situations, while a booming international drug business is causing problems on multiple fronts. The color of our skin can be a de facto death sentence in certain encounters with law enforcement. Our rights to self-defense, privacy, speech and religion are threatened by — of all things —our own actions.

These are turbulent times indeed, compounded by our collective difficulty grasping one key concept.

Complex problems can’t be solved by simple solutions.

A concise rational statement. But we seem to have lost all rationality these days, as many are  convinced that by simply removing a set of people from our midst, we’ll make everything better.

It doesn’t work that way. Why? Because no matter how you classify us — black, white, Asian, Hispanic, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, cops, businesspeople, journalists — we have rights in this country. We have rights to live and defend ourselves. We have rights to spiritual beliefs and to free expression. We have rights to moments of privacy. We have rights to public safety. And, provided we don’t unduly impinge upon the safety of others, we have a right to freedom.

Change is good. Progress is good. But when radical responses to injustice catch fire, an entire subset of our society is denied these inalienable rights — and everything that we should stand for goes up in flames.

It ain’t progress when we ostracize all law enforcement officers for the abhorrent actions of several bad ones. It ain’t progress when we propose disarming our entire society completely, even in the wake of senseless tragedies. It ain’t progress when we threaten to kick out all the Mexicans, or all the Muslims.

For when we do all this, we succumb to closed-mindedness. We regress into an ugly past where some human beings within our borders were considered three-fifths of a person based on the color of their skin. We open the doors for those with the lethal combination of ultimate power and evil intentions to order a mass exterminations of a subset of our population. We threaten to shun our societal values — the unique mixture of cultural diversity and universal rights that has allowed our culture to transform the world.

So, when it comes to pushing our culture forward in the wake of tragic setbacks, we should not let our emotions goad us into radical decisions. Instead, we should show restraint and take a more moderate, central path toward improvement.

By staying true to who we are, we can ensure that who we will be is so much better.