Okay So... What is American Freedom Then? (The Freedom Papers)

“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. 1, December 19, 1776

Without a doubt, the thing most threatened in our world today is freedom. No, this is not a ‘foil on your head’ conspiracy about how aliens are coercing our government to take our freedom away. No doubt, whether aliens are involved or not, we can see that some of our most basic rights are being threatened. I am not talking about a threat to freedom from legislation or bad politics. I am talking about a threat far graver; we the people are falling out of touch with what freedom actually is.

You could sit down with any group of people and have a conversation that lasts for years and still not list every problem that we are facing in this country today. One of the greatest contributing factors to this is a hijacking of words and a redefinition of terms and ideals. It would be no small observation that we are facing these crises in all facets of life, least of all the abuse of the term ‘rights,’ which by their very description draw the conclusion that you have a right to do them only because they are the right thing to do. Liberty has been hijacked to mean ‘the right to do as I please,’ which is a laughable oxymoron. All incarcerated prisoners were free to do as they pleased; none of them had the right. Law has been stolen away to mean ‘whatever I see fit.’ These days, laws justify action instead of re-iterating right behavior. We are of a mind that fundamentals change as though the law of gravity could be changed, and this only demonstrates our delusion of the word ‘law.’ Of all of these misnomers, none is worse than the abuse of freedom, especially freedom as the Founders saw it. Unfortunately, the clarity of this term is made muddy by the media and politicos who stamp about in the water before we drink it in. The fact is that rights, law, and freedom are very simple terms; the trick is to preserve their simplicity. I once saw a bumper sticker that read, ‘The Government’s Philosophy: If it isn’t broken, fix it until it is.’ Although I cannot disagree with this observation from our current state of affairs, it wasn’t always so. The hinge point to understand freedom is to recognize the difference between liberty and license so that you can discern true freedom from the stolen phrase of ‘don’t tread on me.’

The American idea is that a free people should govern themselves. That is the Founders’ dream in its simplest explanation. So of course, don’t tread on us; however, we can never tread on others and their freedom. This uniquely simple yet beautiful idea can only stand upon a greater foundation if it is to stand as an ideal government. What do I mean by this? It means that a specific set of scenarios have to be pre-supposed in order for this to work. First and certainly most important, freedom is not contingent upon a government’s ability to give it. I hope that you know that the United States Government does NOT give us our freedom. That is neither its task nor its right. Freedom exists outside of our nation’s government & outside of ALL governments, for we are all endowed with the inalienable right to freedom no matter what century or time zone. This distinction was once so reasonable—so profoundly apparent—that our Founders could only describe it as ‘self-evident.’ Man is meant to be free! But if there is such an unattainable dream as this, from where does it come?

The Founders were very clear on the source of freedom, but they were even clearer on where it didn’t come from: your fellow man. They knew it is usually one force that drives the many regimes of man’s making: tyranny. Tyranny is nothing more than the social engineering of cultural paradigms to depreciate freedom. Tyranny dons many ugly heads of state, but they all seek to fulfill the basic concepts of politics that are self-supporting: security of a region, definition and defense of its borders, and a relationship to foreign powers. Civil rights and comfort for the masses are always last on the list and even so, the masses obey. They willingly sacrifice their own freedoms, rights, and pursuits of happiness for primal needs. In any society where a few control the scope and direction of the people, we see direct proof that a people made weak by tyranny will give up their freedom for security. They will give up their future pursuits and dreams to ensure they have enough food today. This is an important distinction because America is nothing like this. We believe that we are free peoples and that the function of the government is to serve as basic overseer and defender of our freedom. Now I cannot say that modern American government looks like this, but I can attest to the fact that this was the original design. The American idea requires a great amount of fierce independence from its people; there must be a desire to take stock of one’s own lot in life, bearing in mind that the trailblazing cannot use others as stepping stones. This is why ‘don’t tread on me’ is an incomplete ideal; it must be exclusively paired with justice if it is to become truly American.

It is no small thing that those living in the New England frontier found themselves putting all security and comfort aside, clinging to justice, and striving for still something better. By no means was it comfortable or secure to revolt against arguably the greatest empire of all time. The freedom that we experience today was hard won from the British, but the greater triumph was in dispelling the conventions of tyranny. (After all, George Washington almost became America’s first king!) In retrospect, we have come full circle to again robe ourselves in tyranny, as our cultural paradigms are engineered to make us epitomize an entitlement that is defiant of itself, all because we lost the totality of freedom. We will give our freedom away not understanding that it is our only entitlement. America is not one more imperial power amid the great empires of the past. We are not a people whose freedom comes from the king or the government. We are a people who understand that we have value, dignity, and worth greater than mere commodities for a country. We are a people who know that we are born free, and that a government (regardless of type) cannot re-define that freedom, re-structure it, or take it away. Our freedom is ours, and not at the mercy of any man. But this begs the question: if freedom is neither from the government nor from man, from where does it come?

Our freedom does not come from nature or the laws of nature which only humans can observe. The gazelle does not understand its species (much less its genus or higher), and every course of action is made by instinct rather than reason. Humans have a unique, free will to defy our instincts, but this hardly gives a man license to do whatever he sees fit! For this free will liberates the human mind from instinct only to introduce it to the conscience, that mysterious force that will not go unanswered. It is only in this elevated state where man can weigh the scales of justice. Our intellect is leading us to something far greater than a primal existence. Freedom is more than average and more than an accident of natural evolution. It is an extraordinary anomaly in the human race that yearns to break out of tyranny, yet once released proves to be impossible to reign in without justice. Tyranny is much more akin to the ‘laws of nature’ and would insist that we be less than we are designed to be. It is only the radical notion of freedom that breaks through tyranny’s grasp. Through the Natural Law, man can claim a freedom which declares that we are all worth much, much more. This Natural Law is bold enough to proclaim freedom by striking down the abuse of free will. It does not do this by any edict of nature but by a truth which transcends it. And if this Law and its freedom are not natural, then perhaps they are supernatural.

This is how the Founders saw it. Whatever claims have been made as to their religious affiliation, they were grounded in the belief that freedom was a supernatural and inalienable right. They believed it was a self-evident truth, that it was a part of the makeup of man, and that this right is not granted by any institution. These rights came from the highest authority—one which could not be challenged by any human force. The Founders believed that any securities granted by tyrants were, like sins, empty reflections of actual freedom, whose promises could only deprive a man of being truly free. Possessing this insight is the only way to understand the freedom that forms the American idea. This means that you don’t have to be ‘saved’ to be American. It only means that to embrace American freedom, you must either be a theist or willing to subscribe to the Natural Law which this Creator demands. As Benjamin Franklin put it, “rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.” The supernatural gift of freedom granted to man alone is clearly defined by The Declaration as “endowed by our Creator;” a gift that can never be earned or taken. Thus America acknowledges that God gives us freedom, and the only function of our government is to be a safeguard of this freedom, embodied over the safe haven that is American soil. Admittedly, our current government looks nothing like this, but in the beginning it was not so. We have experienced a recent, rapid, and deliberate movement away from these ideals held by our founders, ideals which were carried long into the twentieth century and reiterated at the highest ranks of our government:

"Without God, there could be no American form of Government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first -- the most basic -- expression of Americanism. Thus the Founding Fathers saw it, and thus, with God's help, it will continue to be." -President Eisenhower (spoken in 1955)

There is a reason that Jefferson used the word Creator. If the God of Abraham was only one god among many, then his authority would be no more powerful than another god (or the powerful kings of men for that matter). Jefferson boldly announced that these rights were “endowed by our Creator” to tell the world that the one supreme GOD—the source of being itself—grants American freedom. The Declaration of Independence is a declaration of allegiance to this Creator GOD Himself and the Law He ordains. Only upon this foundation could we begin to boldly govern ourselves. Without this first premise of authority, no law can stand supreme. This is pre-supposed in the very essence of the American idea that a free people should govern themselves. A free people can govern themselves ONLY when they have an undeniable and supreme authority on which to base and preserve their freedom. The beginning of the end is when we start to ‘change’ what that means.

So, from where does our freedom come? GOD. Everything else is just a cheap imitation, the fool’s gold of tyranny, including these postmodern regimes who have abandoned the freedom of our Founders for a tyranny of their own making. This is not an argument for the existence of GOD. It is the simple observation that the men who founded our country swore their allegiance to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. To GOD almighty, the Creator of the Universe, whom they firmly believed to be the Judeo-Christian GOD of the Old and New Testament (through which He authored the Natural Law). This makes American freedom a very contingent subject indeed, one which demands far more than license—it demands liberty. American freedom is contingent upon the justice of Natural Law being granted unto all peoples, and it is much more demanding than brute force or unchecked satiation.

Our current government is morphing into an institution of securities, betraying the original idea that American political action should be a protector of the supernatural power of freedom. Whether you or I believe in God is irrelevant. What is relevant is that this country declared that man is free—and by God—no man can take that away. Yet that is exactly what is happening. We are living in a time when more ‘freedom’ is extended to us by our government than at any time in American history and that is a problem. It reeks of the tyranny that the American idea defeated—the same tyranny that our postmodern culture has been trained to embrace. Soon our government will be like any other that has decided to choose its peoples freedoms, leaving us nothing more than ‘free’ persons without the ‘right’ to be free.