Freedom

Too many people have only the vaguest notion of freedom. We in America have enjoyed its fruits for so long that many seem to have forgotten all the work required to care for the tree.

Last fall my grandmother died. In an email to fellow West Point graduates I wrote the following:

When she was 21 her country was attacked. Under imminent threat of invasion England cried out for defense, and nana answered the call. She joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service, a "woman's branch" of the army, and served in a mixed-gender anti-aircraft artillery unit. Nana manned the radios, sending verbal IFF (identification, friend or foe) to aircraft and, if they didn't respond correctly, forwarding the location to the predictor, who told the guns where to point, which--well, you know what the guns did...

In the 1950s nana turned one flag in for another, keeping the red, white, and blue. The 4th of July was always a big day in the Miller house. Three colors dominated the house, and even into my years the decorations would come out. It wasn't a superficial celebration or a "We're Number 1" kind of patriotism; it was a quiet, dignified patriotism, the kind that comes from knowing *why* "we're number 1", the kind that comes from staring down the darkness of a thousand-year reich.

Nana understood freedom, in part because she lived under the immediate threat of losing it had the Nazis invaded. Perhaps it takes a direct threat to keep people from taking their freedoms for granted. As Dutch "humanist" Oscar van den Boogaard said, recognizing too late the modern threat to Dutch and European freedoms, "I am not a warrior, but who is? I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it."

Columnist Mark Steyn recently gave an exceptional lecture on the topic at Hillsdale University. I encourage you to read the entire lecture, a small part of which I'll reprint here:

"Indolence," in Machiavelli's word: There are stages to the enervation of free peoples. America, which held out against the trend, is now at Stage One: The benign paternalist state promises to make all those worries about mortgages, debt, and health care disappear...

That's Stage Two of societal enervation—when the state as guarantor of all your basic needs becomes increasingly comfortable with regulating your behavior. Free peoples who were once willing to give their lives for liberty can be persuaded very quickly to relinquish their liberties for a quiet life...

That's Stage Three: When the populace has agreed to become wards of the state, it's a mere difference of degree to start regulating their thoughts...

And then comes Stage Four, in which dissenting ideas and even words are labeled as "hatred." In effect, the language itself becomes a means of control...(Orwell taught us about Newspeak--Darren)

The massive expansion of government under the laughable euphemism of "stimulus" (Stage One) comes with a quid pro quo down the line (Stage Two): Once you accept you're a child in the government nursery, why shouldn't Nanny tell you what to do? And then—Stage Three—what to think? And—Stage Four—what you're forbidden to think . . . .

Which brings us to the final stage: As I said at the beginning, Big Government isn't about the money...Conservatives often talk about "small government," which, in a sense, is framing the issue in leftist terms: they're for big government. But small government gives you big freedoms—and big government leaves you with very little freedom. The bailout and the stimulus and the budget and the trillion-dollar deficits are not merely massive transfers from the most dynamic and productive sector to the least dynamic and productive. When governments annex a huge chunk of the economy, they also annex a huge chunk of individual liberty. You fundamentally change the relationship between the citizen and the state into something closer to that of junkie and pusher—and you make it very difficult ever to change back. Americans face a choice: They can rediscover the animating principles of the American idea—of limited government, a self-reliant citizenry, and the opportunities to exploit your talents to the fullest—or they can join most of the rest of the Western world in terminal decline. (boldface mine--Darren)

“Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.”

Live Free Or Die is more than just a motto. It's a way to think, a way of life.