What is this Freedom
Anyway
Lots of talk on Face book and other Social Media about the
Trump election and of course the Brexit out election, so I think this is a bit
of a different take.
When I listen to my American friends, who voted Trump it’s
all about abortion, and along with that an anti what they would call
libertarian swing, when you listen to the Brexiters, it’s about freedom from
the shackles of the EU, jobs, and the fact that the elite have ignored us and
what we really are saying and wanting. There
are so many similarities in the reasons in both countries.
I am sure that I will not be the first to say this or the
last but is it a cry for freedom, freedom from the elite, the professional
politicians, freedom to as they say in Brexit so that we can be in charge of
our own destiny as a nation, (fat chance of that).
So what I will not be first in saying is I wonder if the
libertarians have overplayed their hand. If I ask myself where I sat, I am sure
many people would put me in the libertarian camp. I don’t think I have the right to tell other
people how to live, act, sexual preferences, dress, even politics.
However I do object to being told that I must
agree with what I don’t agree with, that I am not allowed to express views that
are different to what has been deemed by the liberally lobby to be politically
correct.
I do object to having to make
cakes with slogans on that I don’t agree with.
I do object to being told to be silent because that what I think , be it
on sexuality, marriage, politics, education family or whatever is different to
yours. That is where the hand has been
overplayed.
Now I do want you to be able to express your opinion, even
if I don’t agree with it, I want you to put forward your argument even if I
think you are wrong, I don’t want you to make a cake expressing my opinion
which you disagree with if you don’t want too. I even want you to be able to
have platforms to speak on, I don’t want universities and the like banning
speakers that they don’t agree with that is not grown up students studying that
is childish. But that is where we have
got to.
And so to the ballot box and now I have the chance to vote
for what you don’t want and won’t like because that is my last chance to
express a view that is different to yours.
Yes I know that ultimately it will hurt me, but I have been cornered. It
is a bit like what happens in riots, we burn down the buildings that serve us,
accommodate us, help us, not at all sensible but for a very brief moment it
makes us feel better, even if long term it makes us worse off than where we
started.
It all comes back to that freedom that we feel has been
taken away, Socrates said in that first treaty on politics way back in 399 BC
that democracy is about equality and freedom and we all want to be equal and
freedom is that we can all do as we like.
We could argue about where that equality has got us to but let us look
just at the freedom. We can all do as we
like, the problem is that currently you can do what you like but I am not
allowed to say I don’t agree with you!
It’s an old chestnut, but we do not understand freedom. We cannot do as we like there are rules, not
just governmental rules, and Gods rules if you like, or you probably will call
them rules of nature.
You can’t jump up
in the air and keep going up; the law of gravity makes sure you come down. Saying you don’t believe in the law doesn’t
not work, so if you jump of a tall building hoping to go up you might but not
in the way you intended.
The same
principal applies to governmental laws in certain situations, so in the UK the
rule, law, of the Road is drive on the left, if you chose to ignore it and dive
on the right, you will end up a mess pretty quickly.
Now tell me this, here are two inexperienced climbers, they
both arrive at their chosen challenge, one says I am free to climb this
mountain and I will do it by myself. The
other say I am free to climb this mountain and he hires the best guide he can
find, who ties him by rope to himself and they both climb together, and come
down together. The free climber dies on
the mountain side. Which was free to
climb?
So are you free, well if that means you can do as you like I
doubt it.
There is a time recorded in
the Old Testament part of the Bible in Judges 18 and 21 which says ‘and every
man did what was right in his own eyes’
actually it was chaotic and awful.
When we think that everything we want to do must be right, because we
want to do it is very dangerous, to society but to us as an individual also;
There are many things if you want to do it, I can’t really stop you, but please
don’t make me agree with you, or silence me or stop me from saying something
opposite to your opinion – when you do that what happens in a democracy is that
there is a back lash and you get what we have in two recent elections.
Dylan says in one of his great songs, whoever you are you
have got to serve somebody, and he is right. The Bible puts it a different way,
but it’s really saying the same thing it say whoever commits sin is a servant
of sin, (John 8:34.) I know sin is not a politically correct word, but there
you go again, and I know many don’t believe that it exists, it just a different
behaviour model.
Of course Jesus said
something else about serving somebody He said to those who were following him,
there to serve him, I no longer want to call you servant but rather friends
because I want you to know what I am doing.(John 15.15)
Maybe being his friend
we could climb that mountain.
Free, well just what
is freedom?
Adrian Hawkes
adrianhawkes.blogspot.co.uk
Edited K. Lannon
W. 1118
24TH January 2017
