Freedom: It's the new "people"

It's kind of a slow news day, and I don't have too much to add to the Supreme Court discussion, so I'm going to break out something I've been meaning to write about for a while.

All the jingoist sentiment that has surfaced after September 11 seems to have one thing in common: it always invokes the cause of "freedom." First it's "terrorists hate us because of our freedom," then it's "freedom fries," "freedom isn't free" and finally the "Freedom Tower." All this rhetoric strikes me as a little, how can I say... Soviet. We've also dusted off that crappy patriotic Lee Greenwood song and continue to play it during the seventh inning stretch.

The similarity with the Soviets and their use of the concept "the people" is how little discussion actually goes into what these words mean and how best to accomplish the goals of being free or serving the people. Freedom is not an abstract concept. Every time the government makes a rule, it cuts down on your personal freedoms. Is it a big deal that my freedom to grow the grass in my lawn more than 6" tall is restricted? Not really. How about that the Government has unprecedented power to snoop on me without probable cause? Bigger deal. What about freedom to political speech, manifested in a possible flag burning amendment? Huge deal.

Thus, the word "freedom" has been drained of its meaning and turned into a simple euphemism meaning something innately American. I'm totally free, so long as I don't want to disagree with a particular administration. Then I get accused of hating freedom, or not supporting the troops. Why don't we actually talk about freedom?

It clearly should be limited. The US government should have three priorities, which are often in conflict: liberty, security and equality. Obviously, there are many times when the values of security and liberty do not coincide. This is when a debate is necessary. It may be that the PATRIOT Act is an abridgement of our freedom needed to preserve security. But it's absolutely criminal to paint the ACLU or liberals more generally as freedom hating. How is it hating freedom to want to protect civil liberties?

Freedom no longer means the ability to act and think as one so chooses. It's come to be a euphemism for American exceptionalism; a cat call and not a tangible goal. It is a terrible disservice to everybody to give the 9/11 memorial a euphemistic name, and build it 1,776 feet tall. This is the triumph of symbolism over substance, right in the footprint of our national tragedy.