Freedom is relative

II find myself sitting home on a Saturday night while the warm summer night pulls at me to take a walk and enjoy a gelato. It wants wants me to stroll somewhere and find a historical touchstone to ground me. I need a bit of grounding. I have spent a lot of time reading the news lately and have come to the conclusion that my definition of freedom is relative.

My thoughts are on overdrive as I still recover from the events of these last several weeks; the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas that took the lives of 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School and the news yesterday that will have repercussions across America for decades. It was the news of the United States Supreme Court’s overturning of the 50-year law of Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed the right to an abortion to every woman in America.

I cannot make meaning of the paradox of these two situations. One represents the brutality of a nation that has many angry and disturbed citizens with free access to deadly weapons with no common solution to control that brutality.

The other is the reality that a minority of individuals can assert sweeping change over the majority and fundamentality change the operating principles that this country has followed for the last several decades. It’s a situation where the minority is setting the rules for the majority.

One person’s freedom can damage another’s

This post may shake some followers from my blog, but if it does, I’m ok with that. I believe it is better to tell my truth and share my feelings rather than just write about places and people that everyone would find palatable and interesting.

It wasn’t just the overturning of Roe v. Wade. It was the door that opened the question whether the Federal government has the right to legislate for the states. It opened the possibility that past precedence is now useless.

This could impact everything that the American Federal government protected: anti-discrimination rules, access to healthcare, environmental protection, in-vitro fertilization and the rules and regulations to commerce, and the list goes on and on. Which basically means, the American country is at risk of losing any type of unilateral standards. It divides the country legally and further reinforces the cultural division that already exists.

Make no mistake, America is already a divided cultural experience. However, when each state begins to legally and willfully operate fully on its own agenda under the banner of “freedom,” well then the Federation has a very good chance of failing. Because everybody has a different definition of freedom and what defines freedom to some is likely not freedom to others. Freedom is relative.

Freedom is relative to the company you keep

To put it in perspective, I researched the anti-abortion laws triggered by this decision yesterday. Quoting the New York Times:

After the Supreme Court handed control over abortion restrictions back to the states, at least nine states that are home to roughly 40 million people quickly put bans in place. Other abortion prohibitions that had been passed in anticipation of a post-Roe legal landscape were working their way through the courts.

In Idaho, North Dakota and Texas, officials said they would wait the 30 days stipulated in their laws for their so-called trigger laws to take effect, banning abortion.

After that, there are another handful of states that will likely implement a ban once their legislatures certify that the ruling is legally valid. It represents a great swath of the mid-western and southern states.

So in total, roughly 26 states in America will probably ban abortion in the coming months.

What is staggering to me is that in those 26 states that would ban abortion, they would be following in the footsteps of the two dozen or so countries that have full abortion bans. Now hold on to your hats and glasses. This is very telling (my citation is from the French newspaper, Le Monde in Paris):

Andorra, Aruba, Congo, Curaçao, Dominican Republic, Egypt, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Iraq, Jamaica, Laos, Madagascar, Malta, Mauritania, Nicaragua, Palau, Phillippines, San Marino, Senegal, Sierra Leonoe, Suriname, Tonga, West Bank and the Gaza Strip. (Now let’s add: Kentucky, Louisiana, Indiana, South Dakota, Mississippi, Idaho, Missouri, Alabama, Kansas, Tennessee, Texas..etc..etc.) Do you see where this is going? Freedom is relative.

I’m going to take a wild guess. Most people from these American states would not find a substantial similarity to these other countries. They would not think they have the same belief systems, right? Many of these countries do not have great records on human rights. Many do not have religious and social freedoms. (I’m sorry if you are one of my readers from these countries, but I must use these as the example of extremes.)

So, what does that tell you about the future in these 26 states? It tells me, if you are a lover of true freedom, I would plan to move. We have all seen this movie. We know how it is going to end. Freedom is relative.

I would not want to be in the position to have to make a decision to have an abortion. God has made the very unlikely for me for various reasons. However, I would not ever want to take that decision away from someone else. It’s not my decision to own.

Freedom is misunderstood

I spent most of my childhood and a good portion of my young-adult years hiding parts and pieces of my life. The parts and pieces considered undesirable or unacceptable to others. If you knew me then, I was overweight and gay. I struggled with an unstable family with it’s usual share of problems. Many of these things I hid for fear of judgement from others. I wasn’t really free to be the full authentic me.

Everyday at school I stood and pledged allegiance to a flag that represented “liberty and justice for all.” However, the reality was, liberty was not for all. It was for a slice of the population that confirmed with a certain set of beliefs and followed certain standards and believed in a certain God.

I remember a few students in my class that sat during the pledge of allegiance. They abstained for religious or cultural reasons from the daily process. In some small way I envied their courage. Of course I appreciated my country, but swearing allegiance to something when I was fully aware at such an early age that I was an exception to the “liberty and justice for all” clause was difficult.

I didn’t have liberty or freedom back then. I was simply compliant with a set of standards and norms that the majority followed and I willingly complied.

Why it is important to me now, even though I no longer live in America, is that I still pay a significant amount of taxes to remain a citizen of that country. It’s true, once you are American, you can never shake that from you culturally or fiscally. But you also cannot shake the fact that freedom is relative.

The process of renouncing citizenship is not easy, and I’m not saying I want to do that. But after the last few weeks, the fiscal republican in me has to ask, “What am I getting for my investment? Do I want to continue to subsidize this American culture and lifestyle?” The social democrat in me struggles with the consequences on human liberty. My beliefs have changed, but freedom is relative.

When you don’t fit into the standards and norms of others, and you are treated differently for your beliefs, then freedom has a different meaning. In actuality, freedom is less free. It’s actually quite constricting.

Freedom to me is the ability to live your life fully without harm to others.

It is the absence of worry when you send your children to school without fearing for their lives.

Religion does not determine your human value, whether it is Islam, Catholicism, Judaism, Buddhism, or Atheism.

Freedom is walking in the city center at night without fear of violence.

Liberty is the ability to make decisions about your own body without having to travel to “safe states” to receive the care you need.

In a free society, becoming sick or terminally ill does not mean financial ruin or substandard care.

Freedom is holding hands and being affectionate with the person you love without being called a fag, lesbian, or queer.

The essence of freedom means you would not be treated differently by your government or the police or the justice system because of your skin color, language or preferences.

True freedom would mean you would not be pre-judged as a lesser being because you don’t subscribe to the same beliefs as others.

A free society would never let so many people go hungry or sleep in the streets covered by tents of cardboard boxes. They would find a way to help.

In this world to be free you have to be accepted without judgement of who you are, where you came from and what you want to be. Above all, do no harm.

These are only my beliefs. You will have your own definition, because freedom is relative.

What’s happening in America

Perhaps it’s not my role to find meaning in this paradox. Perhaps, like many things I have experienced, it has to just be studied and understood. Because in that understanding lies the power to change its course.

I have had many Italians and other foreigners ask me, “What’s happening in America. It used to be a beacon of acceptance and freedom, but now it seems to be heading in a direction that is unknown, dangerous and divided.”

Next week is American Independence Day. Most of the country will gather in public places and listen to music and watch fireworks to celebrate this annual reminder of when America declared independence from Great Britain’s monarchy.

They will sing songs about freedom, bravery and pride while eating hot dogs, hamburgers and corn on the cob. They will be surrounded by strangers with different beliefs and stories to tell.

Perhaps after the events of the last several weeks, they will think a bit differently about what July 4, 1776 symbolized. It was only the beginning of the dream. What was identified as freedom then has changed drastically. Perhaps freedom is not about guns or religion or political parties or inflation. Perhaps it’s about living an authentic life and making your own responsible choices that do not harm others. Living a life that does not limit the ability of others to live their authentic life.

I don’t believe true Americans are ready to let the dream die. There are more of us than there are of them. I believe that now we will define a new meaning of free and brave. It is different than fighting the Revolutionary War, restoring the country after the Civil War or beating back the Nazis in Europe. It will look different than the past, but it’s possible.

I’m not ready to throw in the towel on Lady Liberty, the Great Smokey Mountains, Yosemite and Big Sur. I’m certainly not ready to lose the stories of The Stonewall Inn, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. These are jewels in our culture. They are demonstrations of America’s wild individual bravery at its ever-changing and unbridled best.

The pain of the last several weeks is deep. As I said before, pain is never wasted. It creates something good in the end. If you feel pain, use it. Be empowered not discouraged. Find the good that will come from this. Perhaps this was another call to awake from our slumber and defend the “freedom” that what we have.

This was one of the more difficult posts to write. I appreciate your understanding even if you don’t agree with me. You can comment on the blog (respectfully please) or write me anytime with your concerns or your opinions or your support at: luke@thespaghettidiaries.com Thank you for following my journey. As you know, it has never been and will never be a straight line. How boring would that be? Freedom is relative and it’s never a straight line.