Some Facts About Freedom

When we have freedom, it may sometimes seem commonplace which it isn’t. And some among us may look over the fence and wonder if some other way of life might be more effective than freedom which it wouldn’t. In a free land we may sometimes become annoyed with error and inefficiency. And we may hear many high-sounding proposals that are offered in exchange for freedom. But freedom isn’t something that you give up for anything else. And if you do, you have made a bad bargain. Many millions of unfortunate men know this now. We may complain at times, and we may have cause for complaining, but before we look longingly at any other way of life, we should remember that there are many men who can’t complain without penalty. Freedom to criticize and complain is one of the precious privileges of freedom. Certainly it shouldn’t be overdone. But neither should it be suppressed. Freedom from responsibility is one of the inducements sometimes offered by those who advocate less freedom. It has an appealing sound, but it is a false freedom for every time we let someone else do for us something that we should do for ourselves, we have lost some part in determining our own destiny. Cattle, so far as we know, are free from responsibility. They eat corn contentedly. But they aren’t free. Perhaps they don’t want to be. But men do. And what free man, despite his problems, would be willing to live the life of a man who isn’t free? And those who advocate the sacrifice of our kind of freedom on the grounds that it is inefficient haven’t faced the facts. It isn’t perfect, to be sure. But show us any other way of life that has given as much to as many. The so-called greener pastures, which are sometimes said to be so lush by those who would lure us to them, are not green with the grass of better living. If they are green at all, it is not unlikely that they are tinged with another kind of green. And notwithstanding all the faults or inefficiencies that are or could be charged against our way of life, the world has yet to produce a nation of free men who do not live life more abundantly than those who are committed to any other course. No man is so well off without freedom as he could be with it.