Saturday, July 4, 1998

The din of freedom

By Tom Ehrich

c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is a pastor, writer and software developer living in Winston-Salem, N.C.)

UNDATED - The measure of America is freedom.

Not economic prosperity. Not a capitalist economy. Not military might. Not natural resources. The measure of America, 222 years ago and today, is freedom.

Freedom of speech - even when people say hateful things, like taunting a politician, abusing the flag or shouting racist filth.

Freedom of religion - even when wealthy churches take full advantage of tax laws favoring charities but give little back to the community; even when bigots don pious robes and preach hatred in the name of God.

Freedom of the press - even when reporters are too lazy to check the facts, editors inflame public debate, TV cameras invade personal tragedy, and advertising managers dictate news policy.

Freedom of assembly - even when talk turns to rumoring and common sense is shoved aside.

Freedom to petition the government - even when lawsuits wax frivolous and clog the courts; even when government officials grow weary of public clamor.

Freedom of opportunity - even when new aspirants bring unfamiliar values and challenging behavior.

The center can look out for itself. You take the nation's measure at its margins. Do those who espouse unpopular causes feel free to speak? Do minority faiths feel free to worship? Can skeptical reporters fire questions at officials? Can fringe parties get on the ballot? Can unskilled immigrants enter the marketplace? When citizens are frightened, do they call the police or buy guns?

Abuses of freedom are legion and usually make good sense to some people. King George III was ruling the American colonies in the manner of all colonial rule - a self-serving manner that we ourselves pursued in chasing "merciless Indian Savages," as the Declaration of Independence called them, from the land they inhabited prior to our arrival. From a throne in London or a coal company's tower in Pittsburgh, exploiting someone else's human energy and natural resources makes perfect sense.

In every age, the wealthy and powerful believe their desires merit favored status. To that end, they import slaves to farm and cook, build railroads with forced labor, put children to work at treacherous looms, send miners underground with no safety equipment, and use lawyers and well-lobbied politicians to gain advantage.

It is always surprising to the powerful when the exploited stand tall for freedom. It is confusing to the safe when the endangered stop accepting hazardous conditions. It is confusing to the satisfied when the dissatisfied voice their anger. It is confusing to religious absolutists when other avenues to God demand respect.

Over the years, the clever have learned to exploit the confusion and uncertainty that accompanies freedom. They call striking miners "communists" and label striking autoworkers as greedy. They call the divergent "immoral" and "enemies of God." They use information and advertising to manipulate the unwary and turn democratic politics into moral crusades.

A free nation isn't a tidy spectacle. Human energy, when given free rein, tends to churn, challenge and insist on change. Free thinking produces not only clever marketing plans and profitable inventions, but crazy ideas and endless questions. Free movement turns prairie into city, and Main Street into Wal-Mart. Free religion questions the very existence of God.

What will be our capacity for being offended? Perhaps that is the dilemma of modern American freedom. We don't face a despot like King George III, or foreign troops massing at our borders. What we face is each other.

The maddening side of this American experiment is that human freedom, when allowed to flourish, is noisy, discomfiting and offensive. Freedom stirs in us our own capacity for unfreedom, our willingness to stifle the new and to demonize the divergent in order to feel secure.

We have learned to dress up our unfreedom. "Traditional family values" sounds better than "do it my way or else." "American way of life" sounds better than "no more immigrants." "Neighborhood schools" sounds better than "keep blacks out." But within our code phrases is the harsh reality that freedom carries the highest of all costs, which is self-denial.

Preserving American freedom occasionally means sending troops to war. But the grinding work of freedom is to tolerate the noisy, churning and offensive things that we do when we feel free.