As the nation prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, a good segment of the population disagrees with its founding principles. According to Gallup, 58% of those polled indicate they are not proud to be an American. It strains credulity to think that so many people in the freest country in the world fail to show gratitude to the brilliance of its founding and the heroic men and women who have provided the freedom to pursue liberty and happiness.
One major factor contributing to the unpatriotic stance of so many is the problem with freedom itself. The statement seems counterintuitive because it is hard to imagine anyone not wanting to be free.
Human history tells another story. If we recall the plight of the Israelites and their status as slaves in Egypt, the story is quite illuminating. When the people of God were abused by their masters and their freedom was taken away, God offered them true freedom. God told his people, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”
No longer subjects of Egyptian control, the Israelites were mandated to believe in the one who had saved them and to obey his decrees. When they became impatient and complained to Moses about God’s promise during their sojourn, it was the beginning of wishing for the wrong type of freedom. Besides complaining, the Israelites abused their freedom by thinking that it could be used to make a golden calf and then worship it. How senseless is worshiping a piece of gold? By doing so, they willingly became slaves to an inanimate object created by themselves. This type of freedom degrades them, as it does anyone who confuses free will with true freedom.
The classic mistake of the Israelites has played out often in history and is the problem this country faces today. The belief that freedom is a license to do as one pleases, or that free will is not the same as human freedom. There are resplendent examples of this notion in our secular society. The erroneous stance that killing a child is healthcare, or that gender can be contorted to whatever the imagination can conjure up. Today’s America has golden calves everywhere being worshipped by those who are not proud to be Americans.
To be proud of America, one must accept and agree with her founding principles. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were created on the premise that God is the giver of our rights, and that the freedom necessary to safeguard these gifts cannot be separated from them. Human freedom means an emancipation from all that is false and misleading. It also demands that a person take responsibility for contributing to the good.
Human freedom presupposes that the populace, both individually and communally, must exercise self-governance. Individually, it means discipline and self-restraint. Communally, it dictates a culture and society based upon moral principles. When religion is torn from public discourse, the basis of self-governance is dramatically harmed. Ignorance of and defiance toward the moral order, along with shifting, emotion-driven attitudes, allow for an “anything goes” mentality. If there is no common understanding of what freedom entails, then patriotism can’t exist either.
The challenge we all have is to reject the philosophy that human freedom can be absent from the good. It hasn’t worked in history, and it won’t work now. No wonder, while living in the best country in the world, so many are not proud to be its citizens.
2 thoughts on “The Problem with Freedom”