Liberty

Sadly, Americans have forgotten who we are. We were founded and largely populated by immigrants driven from our homelands for daring to practice faiths that differed from the majority. To in turn, despise and suppress a minority faith for any reason – including the sins of their former countrymen – represents a serious blow to the American experiment.

The people that wish to harm the United States aren’t simply trying to destroy our buildings, our property and our lives. It is more sinister and more abhorrent than that. They are trying to separate us from our Enlightenment.

How are we choosing to fight repressive nations and cultures? By repressing our own citizens? By stooping to the level of our enemies? If you listen to the discourse and positions being taken around Park51 and many of the arguments since 9/11, that seems to be what we are intent on doing. As Americans in the truest sense of the word, we are better than this.

Liberty is the sibling of Love. It is not logical. It is very far from safe. Contrary to popular contemporary belief, Liberty does not guarantee success, security or happiness. It may even hasten our material demise. Liberty is that delicious risk that wells up from the bottom of your stomach. It only guarantees a journey on the unpredictable path steered by the crosscurrents of Free Will, Chance and whatever Divine Wind fills your personal sails. The route is unknowable to you or anyone else but you know in your heart you are supposed to embark.

And like Love, life is meaningless without true Liberty.