Freedom: The Battle for Definition

Freedom. Ask any American. They'll tell you that that's what we're all about. And they'll be proud of it. It's hard-wired into our identity.

But if you keep asking, you'll get all kinds of different answers. And you'll tap into much of what the fears of both sides of our ferocious debate are about.

To me, the golden gate of freedom is the First Amendment: more directly, my freedom to do this. I agree with Jefferson, to paraphrase: Without it, no other freedoms expressed in the Bill of Rights are possible--which is to say, one-by-one, they'd be taken away.

For some, it's an absolute phrase, where any regulation by government is a threat and a waste of time and money. For others, it's relative to situations and the maintenance of a society that works, a necessity of liberty under law. The two pull on each other, as they always have. Now they threaten to tear us apart.

Where 45 most wishes to make his own definition of freedom to his advantage is in the economic realm. His seeking of profit has no boundaries of morality, ethics or decency. Just a little while ago today I was watching the Golf Channel's presentation of the first round of the British Open championship (or The Open to those better versed in the world of golf). Suddenly, an ad came on for 45's golf courses that he owns in the British Isles.

Great for him. He gets free advertising for his politics. His name gets on TV, even though, ostensibly, it's without political import. But he's the president, and every single time his name is mentioned (which is why I don't do it here; '45' is as close as I get), he gains from its branding, politically or otherwise. This is entirely inappropriate. It's also a weasel way of reminding everyone watching that he exists and stands for something they might like should they wish to partake of it. (Reminder: There are plenty of other great golf courses in the UK not named after a horrible human being like him.)

He might say that all he's doing is participating in the free market, which people of his type swear by with quasi-religious reverence. Anything that operates within the realm of an attempt to make money is not only fine by him, but is worth trying to do exactly that. Nobody, but nobody, should prevent that, because society as a whole gains from a bunch of people trying to do things and make things that gain profit for them. More importantly, he can make money for himself, which is all he's ever been about.

But this is a clear conflict of interest. Putting his business interests in front of me and wishing to gain profit from it in a foreign country might just make him beholding to that country, which could be contrary to my country's interests. The fact that it's in the United Kingdom and at least on paper it wouldn't seem to be contrary is irrelevant, because later developments in foreign affairs might put our relations at risk. Better to keep things out of that realm altogether. Besides, it's in the Constitution: The 'Emoluments' Clause.

He can deny it and ridicule me if he wants, but it's nonetheless true. I deserve to be left alone to enjoy golf on television without the president seeking yet another underhanded way to put his name out there in front of me--as if by now that would affect my vote. Part of my freedom is the freedom to be left alone. Watching golf on TV should not expose me to surrender it to a president who wishes to personally profit in a foreign country.

I used my freedom of speech. I looked up the Golf Channel's advertising e-mail address and told them to knock it off. I wonder if anybody else did. I also wonder if NBC, which will take over the Open telecasts during the weekend, will also run that ad (and perhaps others; I have no doubt that 45's folks made more than one). Imagine the screaming if the Clinton Foundation followed up (after all, Bill plays golf, too) and put an ad on the telecast as well--and nobody in that family's running for office. It would certainly have as much right, as a non-profit, to call the public's attention to it.

So adherence to the free market, the morality of which should not be questioned, causes conflict and robs people of lots of things. If antitrust laws are voted down, monopolies spring up and the lack of competition hurts the public. If the public can shoot animals, species may be endangered, which would disturb the ecosystem. Creating wildcat sales of sub-prime mortgages, bundled together to create an appearance of monetary stability, can strain banks into collapse and cause an economic crisis. If opioid antidotes cost too much or aren't covered by insurance, people go on being addicted and die. Making as much money as one can, can't be the sole or prime measuring device concerning what is best in a society.

The free market has no morality. It doesn't shake things out so that we're all okay. The winners win and the losers--some of them, anyhow--sleep on the street. One of my most lasting memories of my days of meetings with National Education Association officers on various levels, mostly in large cities, is literally stepping around homeless people in places like DC, Seattle, Portland, San Diego (where an airport etching is specifically dedicated to certain well-known homeless people who everyone knows by now), and Philadelphia. I wasn't going out of my way to find them, either; they knew where to find people with money. Please, sir, moaned someone who was literally lying on a Portland sidewalk, I won't drink too much. And this was mostly before the recession hit.

Conservatives, real conservatives, are mindful of such tragedy, but they caution not to give in to the inclination to remove individual motivation, which has its value of self-esteem and accomplishment, and just create a welfare state where people take from the trough. Okay, granted: Nobody wants that, and immigration creates the potentiality of a permanent under-class where we must perpetually deal with that (A guy on Facebook I recently 'friended' put up one of those dumb posters that said that immigrants were like sperm--a million go out but only one works. Ha, ha. I realized my mistake and blocked him. I don't need anybody who trashes defenseless people.). But throngs on the street don't help anybody, either, and they represent a clear failing of the so-called free market. Besides, immigrants did not make up very many of those begging for my financial assistance on crowded city streets.

Otherwise, would every single one of them be there? Can you be so callous as to pretend that none of them want work? That immigrants just drifted into this country to have someone feed and clothe them? That they think differently than us because we've never seen them before?

That isn't conservatism. That's being reactionary. That's pretending that you're so superior to someone else that only you have the values necessary to be a real American. That you deserve freedom, but they don't. That's the gateway to fascism, which is based first and foremost upon racial superiority.

The "magic" of the free market allows conservatives to detach from the messiness of handling this situation. It gives them the justification, too, to build a wall to keep people out, somehow justifying shutting off one part of humanity so that another can enjoy its freedom (which also means, by the way, that we can trade with the countries from which we refuse refugees, an interesting bit of irony). But they know as well as we do that these people won't be stopped. They want their own freedom from gangs, from paying tribute, from violence, from poverty. They want to try again.

And so they get told: We're all filled up? Go back where you came from? All right, if you insist: We have some nice cages here. It's Texas. You won't freeze.

If this is the ultimate result of absolute freedom, is absolute freedom all it's propped up to be? How's that working for us? Is anybody willing to make freedom a relative term, the degree to which it can be achieved and earned under rules designed to prevent abuse of it?

Believing in that doesn't make one a socialist. It makes one understand that no system works perfectly and that it is damagingly naive to pretend that it does or will. But then, the term 'socialist' is being prepared by one party to make the other look like it's un-American. Is that just politics? Or is it part of the continuing assault on truth?

Truth: That's for next time. Unraveling that is a real maze of spaghetti.

Be well. I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark