Freedom Lost & Found

"It means if there's something wrong, those who have the ability to take action have the responsibility to take action."
--Benjamin Franklin Gates (National Treasure)

Why do people choose to give up a large amount of personal freedom? Some individuals are willing to trade personal freedom for security. Classically, this meant physical security. Individuals were will to serve others in exchange for the protection that rulers could provide from physical attack. Today, however, the security many folks seek is social in nature. They would like to be fed, have a house, a job, health care. And they are willing to give up personal freedom to the State in exchange for social security.

Other individuals may just feel comfortable in an unfree state. Perhaps they become 'institutionalized' like old Brooks from Shawshank. Perhaps they believe in the age old idea of the feudal state, and that they belong to the servant class. Some may not understand what freedom is, or maybe they place a low value on it.

But there are a great many people who understand freedom and value it highly. They believe that the right to personal freedom is self-evident. Yet, over time, they cede personal freedom in lieu of a more powerful State. This, to me, is the most curious group.

Of course, regaining liberty that has been appropriated by government may require physical countermeasures. And given the State's tendency to accumulate power, liberty-minded people might be in a constant state of revolution in order to maintain/regain freedom.

It turns out that many have written about this problem. John Locke, in his Two Treatises of Government (1690), observed that:

"Such revolutions happen not upon every little mismanagement in public affairs. Great mistakes in the ruling part, many wrong and inconvenient laws, and all the slips of human frailty will be borne by the people without mutiny or murmur. But if a long train of abuses, prevarications, and artifices, all tending the same way, make the design visible to the people...tis not to be wondered that they should then rouse themselves."

btw, if the 'long train of abuses' piece sounds familiar, it's because Thomas Jefferson adapted it  for the Declaration of Independence.

The answer, then, appears to be that liberty loving people are willing to put up with some appropriation of their freedom by government. A point will be reached, however, where they will push back.

Given the long train of abuses that have been accumulating over the past 100 yrs, I wonder whether that point of pushback is upon us.

A reclaiming of freedom.