Freedom From Freedom

by J. Paul Henderson

Recently by J. Paul Henderson: Three Hours in Traffic Court Hell

There’s a basic quality of freedom. And Americans have forgotten it. Simply stated, freedom can only be to. It can’t be from.

You can be free to eat, but you can’t be free from hunger. You can appear to be free from hunger, but in reality, freedom from hunger is a privilege bestowed in exchange for giving up another freedom.

The natural state of freedom is always to. Governments can’t grant freedom to because freedom to is a natural right of human kind. We have natural rights and freedoms simply because we exist; not because governments dole them out.

In recent years, the government in this country has perverted the meaning of the word freedom, and in so doing has confused Americans as to the very nature of freedom.

Whenever the government grants "freedoms" to a specific class of citizens, it’s really granting special privileges. Privileges that come with costly strings attached.

Think for a minute about today’s concept of freedom. It’s freedom from hunger Freedom from worry. Freedom from discrimination. Freedom from medical bills. Freedom from anything and everything in life that one might consider unpleasant.

Freedom from discrimination in housing can only be accomplished by taking away the freedom to manage or dispose of one’s property as he or she chooses. The difference between a property owner and a property renter is that the owner may do what he chooses with the property, while the renter has to obey someone else’s rules.

When the government tells a property owner how to manage his property, or to whom he may rent or sell it, the property owner becomes, in effect, a renter. The government is the new landlord. In the name of freedom from discrimination, the government grants a would-be buyer the privilege of buying property the previous owner may not wish to sell him. For whatever reason. The property owner’s freedom to has been usurped by the government in order to grant the would-be buyer a specific freedom from.

But here’s one of those attached strings. As soon as the would-be buyer takes possession of the property, he becomes a property owner and subsequently loses his freedom to.

As more and more segments and classes of society are petitioning the government for special freedoms from, even more people are losing their precious natural rights of freedom to. And sadly, the very same people who’ve acquired special freedoms from are also losing their real freedoms. Their freedoms to.

As more and more privileges (freedoms from) are granted to the myriad of political special interest groups, an increasingly growing number of freedoms to are being forever taken by the government. Eventually, the end result of selling out our freedoms to for specific special privileges will result in the ultimate freedom from: Freedom from freedom itself.

April 9, 2011

J. Paul Henderson [send him mail] lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. See his site.

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