Freedom

What is freedom? Opportunity. Potential. While wealth can enslave, poverty in its essence does enslave. Freedom includes the right to a good education, for without education, potential is limited and opportunity dies. Freedom involves a life free from fear, where governments enable and cherish their people rather than enslaving and killing those who disagree, look different, appear weak. Freedom allows a people a say in how they are governed, rather than a government that dictates who can and cannot live, what can and cannot happen, how things can and cannot be. Freedom includes a right to proper nutrition and clean water, basic medical care and proper shelter. Freedom includes the ability to explore potential, to follow dreams, to create opportunity. Freedom includes the ability to work, to provide for one’s family, to have a say in who you marry and to create a family if you choose. Freedom: a basic tenet of a handful of governments, a basic right for some provided, a basic right for most withheld, stolen, and abused. Those of us who have freedom, who cherish freedom, who believe in freedom should not by our actions, our prejudices, our purchases, our employment, our habits, our luxuries, or our choices prevent others from experiencing freedom. The freedoms the United States holds dear should not include the freedom to do as we please to other nations or peoples, to manipulate others to get what we want, to rob others of basic rights and freedoms so that we may enjoy luxuries we blindly consider necessities. We have allowed our freedom to corrupt us instead of using our freedom to free others, and we have the responsibility to change that abuse of freedom.