(Or, If It Feels Good, Do It)
Hate and oppression depend on fear to inhibit and discourage communities from fully enjoying our liberties and living our lives to their self-fulling fullest. But we must bear in mind that being too afraid to take positive action will not eliminate the source of the fear. Allowing fear to prevent us from enjoying life only emboldens the agents of fear to oppress even more.
In other words, there is more to be feared by allowing ourselves to be intimidated than in finding our courage in the face of evil.
The insufficiency of advocating freedom in the abstract
The United States has wallowed in ritualized, ceremonial proclamations of allegiance to freedom and liberty for an entire century. Every Fourth of July, we celebrate “liberty.” From coast to coast, our Pledge of Allegiance promises “liberty and justice for all” — even as the reality on the street is moving further and further away from these ideals.
If repetitious proclamations of “liberty” actually made one damn bit of difference, our nation would not be on the verge of the total loss of its freedom and liberty at this very moment.
Freedom must be practiced to be meaningful
Freedoms tend to fade out of existence when they are never used. When a person, group, or society never exercises their freedoms, then no emotional attachment to those freedoms ever forms. When people or a society has no emotional investment in their liberties, there is little to no motivation to fight for them or preserve them.
Freedom benefits most when we practice it in view of others
For freedom to really take off like wildfire, let the world see you living it! Courage is contagious, and the more people who dare to be themselves and “do their own thing” as we said during the Counterculture, the faster it will spread — and more importantly, the sooner it will be valued on a personal, emotional level.