In this c. 1772 portrait by John Singleton Copley, Adams points at the Massachusetts Charter, which he viewed as a constitution that protected the peoples' rights.
What is "freedom?" Janice Joplin sang of it in the famous song "Me and Bobby McGee." Freedom is many things. Writing this and publishing this blog is a U.S. Constitutional right of freedom of speech and press. I am free to make choices and free to reap the consequences of my choices. So where does freedom start? It is only just to acknowledge that freedom came to me at a grisly cost. The blood of my Native American and Anglo ancestors paid the price for me to live and exist in a "free" society.
As the season turns to Autumn and the leaves turn with wisps of cooler winds, I make my way through the pain of my recent spinal fusion surgery. You see, I am free to push forward from the pain and make my way to Native Roots Market in the old downtown district of the lovely university town of Norman, OK, USA. I am free to pick out some butternut squash grown locally. Native Roots allows me to choose a charity for the discount I get for bringing my own shopping bag. "Put my token in for the Norman Women's Resource Center."
Just a little shopping trip, but it says so much about our freedom. I can think of several scenarios that would not allow me such freedom. In "the land of the free," I might have been a Japanese-American in 1942 and been forced from my freedoms and into an internment camp. I could have been a clerk in a 1984 Orwellian Amerikka and been sentenced to reprogramming because I was a "thought criminal" having natural desires and a secret love of the arts.
Freedom is something that is/was paid for, it is earned and learned. Freedom is greater than any amount of material wealth, ask anyone that has ever been arrested. There are those who want to capitalize by seeking to limit the freedoms of others. We do well to stand vigilant to expose this. We live in a day of war-mongering and we Americans have allowed our Constitutional freedom to be exacted from us under the guise of a "War on Terror," The Patriot Act. Craig's Cornucopia launches her maiden-head voyage, her captain a Husband, Dad, Grandfather, Uncle, Cousin, and Son: Craig Allen Corbin.__©2011 Craig A. Corbin
I really like the notion of freedom not only being "earned" but also "learned," or, in the case of children who grew up entirely under the Patriot Act, it looks like it will have to be re-learned. This can be a painful, disquieting process that propels us out of our comfort zones, but it is absolutely necessary to reach any real peace within ourselves and exact any positive change in our communities.
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