Freedom's Meaning Lost

“The Divine Knowledge has ebbed out of us, and we do not know enough to be free.”

~ Daniel Webster

Have you noticed?  When the election season rolls around, nobody talks about freedom anymore.  Sure, that word is sometimes still dropped into campaign speeches, sprinkled like salt over a bland plate of political platitudes.  But freedom is never the primary subject, let alone the goal of modern political messaging.  It’s just a rhetorical enhancement, that leaves the scene as quickly as it arrived. 

Why do you suppose that is?  What does that tell us about the personal convictions and motivations of most political candidates who flash across our TV screens?  What hearts beat in their chests?  What passions and convictions guide their souls?

Maybe we’re asking the wrong question.  Yes, politicians have their own beliefs and agendas.  A rare few have beliefs that run deep enough to not be shaken.  But most politicians are pragmatists.  Their goal is winning elections.  They are mostly a reflection of the political marketplace where they sell their services.  When candidates have nothing deep or important to say about freedom, that may be saying more about us than about them.  The “sellers” are concluding that freedom, beyond being a quaint abstract, has no buyers.  That freedom and liberty are irrelevant to us, the voters -- throw-away lines for speeches only.  Not something to truly contemplate and embrace, let alone apply to today’s issues.

When we lose our yearning for freedom, we lose respect for the freedom of others at the same time, and the animus and social chaos we see around us should be of no surprise.  Freedom has been replaced by the secular, the superficial and the selfish.  When the flame of freedom dies in our own hearts, who but we ourselves are to blame for a culture of control that now smothers free expression and free thought?  Is it not the utter disrespect for the freedom of others (upon which our own freedom depends) that has brought us to a place where corporations, city governments and college campuses dictate to employees, citizens and students exactly what they cannot think, cannot hear and cannot say?  Meanwhile, we signal to the politicians that freedom isn’t that important anymore. 

Perhaps we do this because we no longer understand the meaning of the word itself.  To the extent that it is spoken, it is profoundly corrupted by the political establishment of both parties, but especially by the Democrats and the political Left.  For it is the ideology of the Left that is dedicated to expanding the size, power and coercive influence of government in our lives – the extreme opposite of personal freedom.  The ideology of take whatever you want from others and call it a “right.”

Case in point: the Montana Democrat Party’s Montana Freedom Rally, held in Bozeman the same night as the Trump event.  The primary “freedom” they were promoting was something they call “reproductive freedom.”  Maybe I’m dense, but I can’t think of a single politician who wants to stop men and women from reproducing.  Last I heard, America isn’t even reproducing at a replacement rate for its population.  So reproduce away!

But no.  The Democratic message is not about pink and blue baby booties.  It’s a much darker theme, painted in the color of death.  They’ve turned the word freedom on its head, to mean the denial of human life to another human soul.  It’s the claim that your personal desires and demands are more important than another person’s very life.   Jefferson said, “the God who gave us life, gave us liberty,” so the first freedom is life itself, or all our other God-given freedoms are meaningless.

Freedom requires faith in a free society and in our ability to thrive and prosper in an “unplanned” state of liberty under law.  It calls for a belief in something far bigger than ourselves, and requires that we respect the freedom of others as more important than our own.  The miracle of freedom is how it produces the very best in all of us, establishing a foundation for mutual respect and genuine peace, without the government spying on us and without angry elites telling us how to live. 

Maybe we need to start reaching for something higher, something nobler than just asking politicians what the government can do for us today.  Maybe we need to begin talking about freedom again.

A former Bozeman small businessman, Roger Koopman is president of Montana Conservative Alliance.  He served four years in the Montana House of Representatives and eight years as a Montana Public Service commissioner.

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us un peace.  We ask not your counsels nor your arms.  Stoop down and lick the hands that feed you.  May your chains set lightly, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”

~ Samuel Adams