Hate Freedom

Because Freedom is hate now

Enough with the Freedom already.

Last week, Arizona became the Westboro Baptist Church of States. Their legislature passed a bill that would allow Arizonans to refuse service or otherwise discriminate against homosexuals based on “sincerely held” religious beliefs (just in case anyone’s commitment to Christ wasn't sincere enough for a gay-bashing license).

America’s sandbox joined other states (most notably Kansas) in recently pushing the envelope of good ol’ fashioned hate, by which I mean Freedom, to new limits.

Actually, they pushed it to old limits, limits that haven’t existed in polite society since polite society acknowledged what Congress acknowledged after the Civil War: that citizens are citizens, and that there can be only one law for all of them. That war, and the subsequent Civil Rights movement a century afterward, are held up as great moments in the history of freedom, when in fact they were great victories over Freedom, by which I mean hate.

What the Confederate South wanted was Freedom. Ask them then, or ask them now, and anyone with the Stars and Bars somewhere on their person will tell you that they were standing up for their rights as Americans to follow the dictates of their hearts and their interpretation of holy scripture, both of which told them that blacks existed to get the cotton picked and occasionally dance for their amusement.

What the segregationists of American apartheid wanted was also Freedom. Ask them then, or ask them now, and anyone who would bar a fellow citizen from having lunch in their restaurant will tell you that they’re standing up for their rights as Americans to follow the dictates of their hearts and their interpretation of holy scripture, both of which tell them that gays are gross.

Freedom marches on, and here we are, with everything from gay segregation, to wage slavery, to environmental destruction, to religious persecution, to the right to own a bazooka handcuffing itself to Freedom and declaring that where those things go, so goes Freedom; usually as a bald eagle passes overhead.

As those fueled by hate continue to assert the Freedom to encode that hate into law, a final conclusion draws nearer. As the Freedom to discriminate, the Freedom to enslave, and the Freedom to kill are held up as standards of the American way, we edge closer to the ultimate Freedom: the Freedom to pervert logic by being Free enough to deny freedom to those who aren’t Free enough to oppose the notion.

This week, a GOP lobbyist angling for relevance took what he hopes is a bold stand in the name of Freedom, drafting legislation to ban homosexuals from the NFL. This lobbyist and those who take him seriously are so Free that they can reconcile denying freedom with Freedom. They would deny the league, the teams, and the fans the freedom to root for a gay player based on said player’s exercising the freedom to fuck men- all because condoning the freedom to “choose” homosexuality would encourage more freedom than Freedom could stand.

And Freedom, for its part, proceeds towards its ultimate fate in the land of the Free. One day, Freedom will come full circle, until the Free-est among us are Free enough to shred any semblance of freedom from their sphere of influence.

One day, folks in Kansas and Arizona will be Free enough to live a life Free of gays and trees and Darwin and Muslims and arugula. They’ll be Free enough to free their world from all these things, and then other things, and others, until Freedom finally swallows its tail and the universe collapses into a singularity of pure, unadelturated Freedom.

Probably as a bald eagle passes overhead.