You know … I get so tired of people sending me emails that are supposedly supporting our troops and trumpet how “freedom isn’t free.”
It’s not? Isn’t free the very definition of freedom? You know … it’s like … freedom … and everything?
Besides, I don’t see any connection between the wars we’re fighting over seas and freedom. That’s not protecting our freedom, it’s making new enemies and imposing force upon other nations. There’s nothing free about that.
Besides, we’re not very free in this nation anyway. After all, if we’re so “free” why do we jail more people than any other nation in the world … more than double the runner up, good old communist Russia. Seems like Russians are more free than us, if you go by that number.
Freedom is supposed to mean the ability to live your own life without having someone elses (or some government’s) will forced upon you, and yet our government has laws for every aspect of our lives … from what we can put or not put into our own bodies voluntarily … to where our pets can poop. It does not mean having an abundance of choice of things to purchase and pay for, which it what many people seem to think it means. I mean, for crying out loud, people don’t even seem to care that their basic rights are infringed upon every day in various ways, so long as they can go to the mall or shop on the internet.
Are we really free here in the USA?
Are we really free at all?
AlinaPhoenix's Weblog - Only Occasionally Obscene 
dansalt said,
November 18, 2008 @ 3:21 pm
Thought-provoking stuff Alina.
I can’t speak for freedom in general, but I think the quotation you highlighted is a poignant play on words. What it’s essentially reminding us, is that in today’s world, one person’s free will, or a nation’s free will, invariably comes at a price – it’s not just given to us “for free”. Our right (or priviledge, depending how you see it) to free will, is defended and must often be protected. Sad, but true.
So the military “Freedom isn’t free” is saying that these guys are “fighting for your right to be free”. However – whether the cause they are fighting for is truly justified, or if they are really being motivated by freedom, is another matter, and one that I don’t profess to know enough about world affairs/politics to be able to judge.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of people out there who consider that it is their “free will” – their “freedom” – to punish those who don’t conform to their religion, or their ways. In doing so, they rob their victims of their own freedom. So who is right? Are we all right, or all wrong? If we leave people alone, and just concentrate on our own nation, will these people leave us alone? Unlikely, because we will still be living our lives in a way which insults their religions and way of life. Do we let them carry out their “free will”, or do we protect our own “freedom”?
I’m not saying that every fight is justified, or that every cause is genuine – politics plays a heavy part in every “for the people” decision. But I do agree with the saying – freedom is most definitely NOT free.