Land of the Free

Free- Able to do something at will; at liberty… Am I able to leave this country’s borders at will? Am I able to decide how I’d like to spend all of my money at will? Am I able to smoke a plant at will? Am I able to marry whomever I would like, or even define the word (marriage), at will? Am I able to pay a consenting adult, for sex, at will? Am I able to drink sodas more than 32 oz., in certain parts of the country, at will? Am I able to pay workers (like anyone would work for me!) less than $7.25/hr. at will?

What made, and should make America great, is the opportunity to be had here and the freedom to choose one’s own path. The questions listed above are meant to get you thinking about how free the “Land of the Free” is. Would I rather live in Zimbabwe? Nope! This is my homeland and I want to see my countrymen thrive. Know that I’m only ever cheering on my country and its leaders, hoping for a time of blossom.

It’s saddening to me that we seem to be on the wrong track at the hands of our millionaire, elected elite. The general public hold a large share of the blame. “We” are either truly buying into lies that loss of liberty will lead to prosperity, or we’ve been overcome with Stockholm Syndrome. We vote for garbage policies and policy makers who have little regard for our interests, in the name of democracy and freedom. Instead of NOT choosing the (R) or (D) “we” check the boxes based on a single letter, and never send the message that we’ve had enough of the trash that is Congress today.

Even our “champions of freedom”, whether it be economically with Reagan or socially with Obama, are immense let downs! They both have few problems with the fact that I’m not truly free to do anything in my first paragraph. Clinton sanctioned to death hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in the 90's and Bush just bombed them to death in the new millennium!

Police and SWAT teams raid the houses of innocent people monthly, if not weekly, often times maiming or killing family members (including pets) and yet it takes until 2014 and the unfortunate deaths of two unarmed black men to make us realize how out of control the police state is becoming.

The idea that one is free in our current state is not a cohesive one, when looking at the definition of freedom. Liberty is an older, seemingly out of date word, at times, but the amount each individual possesses in a country is the best measuring tool when it comes to modern day freedom. I’m not at liberty, in 2014, to not pay my taxes. Eventually, I’ll be thrown in a cage with murderers, thieves, and rapists. This does not sit well with me! If “freedom” can be taken away at a moments notice for non-violent acts are we really free at all?

We are born. We go to school. We go to work. We hope to retire. We die. What if it didn’t have to be like that? What we lived to thrive and not just survive and be slaves to a system, a broken system at that? What if instead of chasing a piece of paper at the cost of $100,000+, just to chase more paper, so that you enjoy life for a few years before death; what if we actually did what we are passionate about?

There are over 310,000,000 people in this country, and over 310,000,000 passions for life. One person might have a calling for golf and he or she might work for less than the average income so that they can play more golf. They might take a job that’s the brainchild of another’s passion for making top notch toilets. There is no shame in that. The best result of liberty is that people are free to choose what they’d like to do and pursue it without regard for anything else.

In today’s world, of 25%+ tax rates, with no choice of secession, mandatory insurance, 110 years of dependence on oil, wars on drugs, on people and lifestyles from the largest bureaucracy of all time..there is little room for people to do what they love. Without love in the world.. we might as well not even live. When people stop doing what they love for fear of artificially created failure, what else do we have? We are conditioned to fail and fear of failure never stopped true, passionate people, but when a system is in place, like today’s U.S. government, the odds are ever against us!

What’s the solution to the madness? Can such a corrupt and large bureaucratic state be changed? I will tell you one thing, if the change happens in you, you can become the first domino in a mass effect. The true reason for this writing is that you will be uncomfortable with how things are, and you will question the world around you. If the status quo can be conquered, then there are no limits to what humanity can achieve. If we live with the garbage in (politicians), garbage out (3 branches of government) system we will deteriorate into nothing. History will look back on us as the one nation that had it all and lost it, not from a foreign enemy but from the enemy of complacency.

The true test of a nation is not a time of war, a depression, a famine, a nuclear stand-off, no! The true test is who are we when nobody is watching. Who are we? What do we stand for, what legacy will we as individuals, and as a collective whole, leave behind? If I have children I want to raise them in the land I know to be home, but I will not hesitate to take them to a freer nation (New Zealand for one), because I don’t choose where I was born. I do choose what to do with my life, I do choose not to vote for the political trash, I do choose to be free over all else. After all: Free- Able to do something at will; at liberty. Choose life, liberty, and the pursuit.

-Elliott Emerson