A Living Will .net

Both the word “freedom” and the word “security” are emotionally loaded.

They don’t necessarily mean what we think they mean. Most often when people refer to security, they mean a condition where there are no worries or no concerns for the present or future. When they speak of freedom they mean no constraints or no rules. Neither definition is complete or adequate to true security or true freedom.

If we expect our government to provide security then we must realize we will have to sacrifice a portion of our freedom. In general, we cannot have both at the same time.

The 2001 Patriot Act is a good example of this choice. As a reaction to the insecurity and fear caused by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington D.C. the lawmakers in Washington overwhelmingly voted to dramatically sacrifice freedom for security.

Security is primarily an emotional desire. People want to feel like they are safe, like someone will take care of them, they want to feel like there are no worries. Welfare systems are based on this emotional need for security. Why will a person, who with a little effort could be living in a more comfortable life style, remain dependent on Welfare? Some say it’s laziness. Probably partly that’s true. Of course there are cases where due to injury, illness, or other circumstances there are few other options. For the majority of cases though, I would say that people remain dependant because they feel the check from the government represents security. They emotionally feel that they are being taken care of. They now have no worries.

Security means never being wholly responsible for either yourself or others.

Security means living conservatively, not taking risks. Keeping your head down. Never venturing your opinion or your money or your body for anything.

Security means accepting and regurgitating the opinions of others.

Security means being taken care of by someone else, and that someone in turn controls that part of your life over which you desire security. If you want someone to make sure that in your old age you never want for funds then you must relinquish your decision making regarding saving for your retirement.

Freedom, on the other hand, requires individual responsibility. Including the responsibility to take care of your own economic future, to meet your obligations, to accept your own fault and correct it when necessary, and to care for your own family.

Freedom requires education–not the passive education acquired in government run schools (doesn’t anything prefaced with “government run” just smack of inefficiency and hidden agendas?), but rather a personal self-directed and continuing education acquired through study and observation of a life time. Free people must understand history, the causes, effects, mistakes and triumphs. Free people must understand economic systems. Free people must understand their own political system and why it says what it says.

Freedom requires moral absolutes rather than relativism. A people cannot say it’s wrong to kill, but not point to some authority. In America we have always said we believe in God and our laws have been based on the Ten Commandments. Recently this stance is under attack. The problem we run into then is: if it isn’t wrong because God says so, then why is it wrong? If it’s only wrong because of a “social contract” or because of some human-made morality, then that morality can be changed by the same humans who instituted it. Now that’s insecurity.

Freedom requires accepting the risk of failing. If you fail financially, get hurt, make a mistake, or hurt someone else you have to accept responsibility and the consequences of your failure. Of course an environment of freedom also provides opportunity to start again.

Freedom requires sacrifice. You cannot possibly have freedom without fighting for it physically, philosophically, and economically from time to time. There will always be people ready to take it from you.

An interesting aside: In Mormon doctrine they teach that before the earth was created two plans were presented. The first advocated freedom (including the freedom to fail) and personal responsibility. The second was a no-fail plan where everyone would be forced to comply with the rules. The champion of the first plan: Jesus Christ. The champion of the second plan: the Devil.

The founding fathers of the United States of America believed that government should infringe on freedoms as little as possible. They set up a system where the government provided a secure environment, but where individuals were responsible for their own welfare in all respects. They even went so far as to specifically guarantee certain rights that they felt were in danger of being taken by government. Nearly all those rights from the first ten amendments to the Constitution have been seriously eroded in the subsequent two hundred years, most of them in the last fifty. The pace at which we are losing our rights in the name of security has picked up dramatically in the last decade.

Ironically, the greatest security is possible when we exercise our freedom to secure ourselves financially, physically, and otherwise. The greatest insecurity occurs when we abrogate our freedom for the security someone else offers us. We can never be sure when they will change their minds.

In reality we all live in a balance between security and freedom. That’s not a bad thing necessarily, but we should all realize that when we’re asking for security we’re giving up freedom.

Michelle L. Copher

Camden Roosevelt Apartments For Rent – Washington, DC

City of Thieves: A Novel $4.50 ….

Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect and Inhumane Treatment Inside Th U.S. Meat Industry $13.83 With powerful descriptions reminiscent of Upton Sinclair’s masterpiece The Jungle, this book takes a shocking, frightening look at where our beef, poultry, and pork are “mass-produced.” Photos….