Freedom?

        Hmmmm…. Not too sure where to begin on this one.  Well, I should first explain that I went for a road trip today, and I tend to get my best thinking done on road trips.  As I was driving home I began thinking about freedom.  Not the usual sort that people talk about when they want to write well-meaning but poorly thought-out country music songs about wars in which they never served, but I’m talking about real, actual, tangible freedom.  And the phrase “Freedom Isn’t Free” bugs me to no end, because I’ve never heard a veteran use that phrase ~ it’s always on the bumper stickers of the same people who listen to the well-meaning but poorly thought-out country music songs about wars in which the artists never served.  Freedom, turns out, is perfectly free for 96% of the population, but I digress.

The truth is that freedom is not equal everywhere in America, and it’s because different state governments have different ideas on the role of government, and people in different states have different ideas about what they will and will not allow their governemnt to get away with.  According to the early Americans, the role of government was to leave the people alone unless the broke the law, in a nutshell.  It’s significantly more complicated than that, but that’s the gist.  And that’s a pretty good gist.

        So then I was thinking about what makes a state free or not free, and I came to the conclusion that there are two different definitions we have to look at: freedom from government and freedom to pursue individual interests.  The first is straight-forward ~ that type of freedom means that the government has more of a hands-off attitude toward the people.  The other means that a feller (me, in this case) is free from government and societal restraint to pursue his interests in life.  Now, a feller could be perfectly free in a more restrictive state if his interests don’t include certain things that are banned by that state.  For example, if you never have the intention of carrying a gun, you wouldn’t feel restricted in states that have strict gun laws.  But, then this crosses into both of the aforementioned categories of freedom.  So, basically, different people feel different levels of restriction based on their interest areas.  That’s why some folk prefer some areas and other folk prefer others.  No right or wrong on this one; just personal taste. 

So, at the risk of laboring the point, let’s talk about how this affects me.  I decided while driving back today that, at this point in my life, I am more free than I’ve ever been.  I live in what is arguably the second-most-free state in the country, following Alaska, who has no laws at all, apparently.  My state affords me near-perfect freedom to follow my interests, and to take a gun with me when I do.  My state provides more protections of personal liberty than any other (ref: New Hampshire State Constitution), and that is important to me.  In essence, the state leaves me alone, unless I break the law (and even then they don’t really seem that interested) or cross an ecological conservation boundary.  But it’s important to put up some limits, otherwise people would be running amok.  Darn those amokers.  People as a species are too selfish and stupid to have perfect freedom.  There always needs to be some responsible control.

But it isn’t just legal freedom that’s important.  One needs to develop his interests in an environment that can serve to nurture his interests.  For example: if someone liked rock climbing, he would be rather restricted from that living in Kansas.  If someone liked not being eaten alive by giant mutant vampire mosquitoes, living in Alaska might put a damper on his plans.  So it isn’t merely freedom of government that is important to the total freedom concept, but it’s also freedom of opportunity.  And where I am at right now provides me with every opportunity to pursue my interests within a short driving distance.  That, coupled with a car and flexible hours at work, then add in permissive (often neglectful, actually) government, gives me more freedom than I ever before have known.

There are a multitude of things, notions, circumstances, and concepts in my life right now that also contribute to my being more free than I ever before have been, but I shall save those for another time.

So, I guess after thinking about all of this, I need to identify my greatest need for personal freedom…

…one sentence that will be the sum total of everything I wish to do in life and everything I hope to accomplish…

…one sentence that will define who I am and where I am going…

…just a few words to demonstrate perfectly my personal philosophy on why it is important to me to have personal liberty and to live in the best possible place for me to exercise that personal liberty…

…and I think it goes something like this:

I need to be free to drive off into the hills any time I want to find out where the pavement ends.

        Yes, I think that does it nicely.

        I also had another thought today, and that is that only people under the age of 10-years-old should be allowed to vote, because if a politician can’t explain what he’s planning to a 10-year-old, the plan is much too complicated to be effective.