Last weekend I was at Indiana University’s homecoming. I was intoxicated, because freedom. My friends and I were leaving the apartment before heading out to the bars when we ran into one of the neighbors having a cigarette by himself. “How’s your freedom tonight, sir?” I asked him. “Uh.. my freedom?,” he responded. “Everything secure tonight?” I went on to say, by now at everyone’s annoyance.
The point is, at some places and some times in this world, freedom wasn’t a thing. Our founding fathers said fuck that. So props to them. I know it’s all obvious, but I think it’s really important to see why our country has been so successful. I don’t think it’s really any different than how any one person becomes successful. What I was really getting at with my ridiculous impromptu conversation with the kid smoking the cigarette outside his apartment was that every governmental and personal decisions we make are centered around a balance of freedom and security. As important as it is to have freedom, it seems just as important to avoid danger, and these extremes sit at the ends of every decision we make for ourselves and our society.
Props to America for being able to recognize that every decision is difficult, and it takes the people of this country to come up with how we want to be governed. Props to America for seeing that power is dangerous, that it needs to be shared and recycled. Props for choosing the colors red white and blue because green and orange just weren’t going to cut it. Props for making us be responsible for what actually matters to us and believing in the people to be active and educated members of a community.
And most importantly, props for letting yourself become more and more American with every passing generation. The preamble of the constitution is like a template for us to perfect. We establish justice, ensure tranquility, provide for defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our prosperity. Props to every American establishing justice, ensuring tranquility, providing for the defense, promoting the general welfare, and securing the blessing of liberty for all of us and our prosperity.
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- “Because Freedom.” - October 27, 2014