Freedom. Can we adequately understand its value and appreciate its definition as applied to our lives individually, as a community, a nation and within a global society?
Merriam-Webster informs us that freedom is the state of being without coercion or constraint in choice or action and the liberation from slavery or restraint or the power of another. America, unlike any other nation, was founded by this pursuit. As a destination for explorers or as a refuge for the Pilgrims, who journeyed to the New World to escape the oppression of a government-sanctioned church that coupled forgiveness and faithfulness with financial extortion and exploitation, America is, as Francis Scott Key wrote in our national anthem, the land of the free.
Robin SmithThis land of the free, founded on its citizenship's certain unalienable rights endowed by our creator, is home to those who enjoy the freedom of a democratic republic that permits and protects the rights of speech, property, self-defense, privacy-free association and others enumerated in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Within our borders are those who respect the rights of others in good faith, hoping their rights will be respected equally; individuals and families fleeing the absence of law or a corrupt government to find refuge in a nation of laws, not of man; and folks who want to live life to its fullest by seeking the equality of opportunity, the pursuit of happiness and the dream of better.
Among those freedom-loving individuals, however, are also those who use the activities of freedom for less-than-noble pursuits.
Many of the struggles we face in America are unique to our nation because of our nation's uniqueness - our commitment to freedom. Those freedoms create an environment intended for the best of humanity: the freedom for all to learn, to work, to own personal property and wealth, to speak freely, to defend these rights and to live as individuals, self-reliant without the enslavement of the government or a ruling class.
However, those who pursue an agenda that establishes their power over others use this same environment for their purposes, ones that are uncivil, corrupt, tyrannical and even dangerous.
Where do we see this distortion of freedom?
We see it on college campuses in the form of censorship and indoctrination when a group is silenced as another is selectively promoted. We see it in vile pornography that objectifies children and women who are exploited for profit. We see it in the raging debate about guns in which the obscene profiteering from sales of graphic, violent video games and Hollywood-glorified violence on the silver screen is apparently OK while the ability of citizens to own guns for self-defense or recreation should be curtailed.
We see it in the movement of America's enemies within our borders to infiltrate and undermine our unmatched way of life, whether the terrorists of Sept. 11, the Boston bombers or the ISIS-inspired potential bomber caught in a Utah high school last week.
John Adams, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and our nation's second president, declared, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
Freedom exists among individuals who can be trusted with its responsibilities and duties.
Robin Smith, a former chairwoman of the Tennessee Republican Party, owns Rivers Edge Alliance.