Freedom...

I did my Veteran's Day post on Tuesday. And, despite humorous reports to the contrary, I did actually mean every word. It was not sarcastic or tongue in cheek...I was serious. Now, I wanna have a little talk about the freedom that the veterans have bought us...

Freedom doesn't have limits. By it's very nature, it is limitless. True freedom is known as anarchy and, while anarchy really doesn't work from a practical standpoint, the idea of being truly free has a certain charm. But, we are people, who must live together in a society, and, in a single context, anarchy and freedom seem to go hand in hand, when ultimately implemented, anarchy ends up being one man's freedom to infringe upon another man's freedom. So, we can't have that.

So, we will place limits on our freedom. These limits, IMHO, should center around the idea that your freedom cannot do harm to another person, thus infringing their freedom. Do what you want, as long as you are not hurting nobody else. Seems simple enough and completely fair. But then what does it mean to hurt someone else? How clearly defined does this harm have to be?

Let's look at some examples of personal freedoms that I feel have been infringed at the expense of harm. Some I agree with, others I don't:

Murder. If I kill someone, that is pretty ultimate harm. So that freedom has been taken away upon pain of harsh punishments up to and, in some cases, including my own death.

Rape/Battery. I can't attack someone physically and cause harm to their body. Another pretty clear one...after the results, the victim is undoubtedly injured, so we can't have that.

Sex with Children/Child Molestation. Initiating sexual contact with a minor who has not developed into an adult member of society is damaging on a lot of levels. Children do not have the experience and education of adults and cannot comprehend all of the complex levels of sexual activity and the emotional and physical consequences that go along with that. So, the potential for harm is so great that we can't allow it.

These are gimmes. There's a reason they are all crimes...the harm to the other involved person is pretty undeniable. What about situations that are a little more grey.

Abortion. Is there harm? Some say there is a child, some say it is only the potential for a child. Who's freedom is paramount, the mother or the fetus/child? We currently allow abortion because we don't, as a society, have universal agreement over the definition of 'child' and when life begins. But this is a very controversial freedom because we do not agree on whether or not harm is being done.

Guns. Our Constitution seems to guarantee the right to personally own guns. But, while the vast majority of individuals who choose to own guns, do so responsibility without any harm-related incidents, there are some exceptions in which guns are used to do harm. Again, the potential for harm seems to fuel an argument against restricting the freedom but the argument fails because the gun itself is not harm.

Smoking. The use of tobacco products was legal for a long time because the harm was not clear or, later, limited to the user. However, it became a common belief that tobacco use had the potential to harm others, so the freedom was restricted. The focus seems to be reasonably aimed at preventing the harm to others but, recently, the unpopularity of tobacco use has led to crossing that line. The question becomes...what about hurting one's self? Where does the limit of the infringement of freedoms in the name of preventing harm lie? As smoking restrictions become more and more complex, this question will need to be addressed.

Speech. We can say what we want, right? This is a biggie, not only because this is a long revered freedom in our country that is most often clearly omitted in other societies, but because it is one that we exercise with regularity. Further, we've long established that, as adults, we exist in a world where words cannot constitute harm. Sure, words can be hurtful but that doesn't really hurt us, so we are willing to leave this pretty much unrestricted.

Why do I bring all this up? Well, recently, I've seen a backlash against freedoms. People that are quick to cry foul because the exercise of freedom is repugnant. And they demand restrictions on the freedom in the name of preventing clearly undesirable results. For example,

There's a guy, Rev. Fred Phelps, who has come to believe that God punishes our society's tolerance for homosexuality by causing deaths in military contexts. Seriously. And, as such, he tries to address this issue by protesting at the funerals of gay men and military veterans killed in the line of duty. Say what you want about this... (Personally, I'll say it is lame, fucked up, class-less and completely disrespectful. I wouldn't lose any sleep if someone choose to beat this man's ass, as long as that someone is arrested and charged with assault and battery and pays his or her debt to society)...This is FREE SPEECH. This is freedom.

There's a company, Amazon.com, who we have all come to appreciate and admire. They sell a book called the 'Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover's Code of Conduct'. This book is, technically, legal. Of course, the conduct it advocates is not but the book itself does not guarantee or even cause the conduct. Again, say what you want about this...It's FREE SPEECH. But, this didn't stop everyone on my twitter feed, from that guy I met a party one time to rapper/actor Ice-T, to lose their minds about this...Yes, it is deplorable and disgusting...but where does it end? As of now, I can't find the book on amazon's site. I guess they bowed to pressure and took it down. My relief that some mentally ill pedophile might use this book as a courage catalyst to act on his broken emotional feelings and harm a child is not outweighed by my disgust that we so quickly lose sight of the exercise of freedom on Veteran's Day. But my disgust is still there.

Freedom is important and must be respected. There are ways to deal with idiots without restricting everyone's freedom. When a woman named Rebecca Rooney realized that the death of a local soldier, Sgt First Class CJ Sadell, in Afghanistan would draw the attention of Rev. Phelps, she didn't take to twitter or the Supreme Court to advocate and establish a restriction of Freedom. She took her freedom out and exercised it better. She organized town residents to show up early and take all the parking spots at the funeral. When Rev. Phelps' group showed up, there was no place to park. And, as anyone who has gone to the mall at Christmas will tell you, no parking is a bitch. I mean, it's important to spread your mistaken and despicable misinterpretation of the Lord's word, but not if you have to walk like a half mile up the road to do it. So, they went home.

Like almost everyone I've seen today, on this veteran's day, I too am proud to be an American and thankful for our veterans' work to protect that way of life. But, when I think of Rebecca Rooney and the fact that Sgt. Sadell's two sons didn't have to endure any idiots at their dad's funeral, WITHOUT anyone stomping all over freedom to do it, I'm even MORE proud.