Freedom

                                                               Freedom

         

“Let me warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party...It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles animosity of one part against another.”

                             George Washington (in his farewell address)

In celebration of the 4^th of July, let's take pause to consider some of our history and the nature of freedom. Freedom has come to have a connotation of me, my team, my views, and my company getting our way, winning, crushing the opposition, getting a million 'likes', getting elected, etc. There is a long running history of this warped and pathological perspective of freedom.

George Washington's prophetic words hold true to this day, they are a commentary on the enslavement of polarity and the limits that we place upon ourselves in the name of freedom. Real freedom is a solidarity of mind, body, spirit and community. In the Buddhist tradition happiness and freedom are independent of circumstances and perspective, freedom and fulfillment lay in the recognition of oneness and a skillful response to the present moment...chop wood, carry water, when hungry eat, when tired sleep.

The election of 1800 was a turning point in American history and set the stage for political parties and ideology to become the contentious, self-interested polarities that they are today. In republican ideology, political parties were dangerous and undesirable, and by their very nature they purposely promoted discord. This is because a party, or any party line by a group is self-interested at the expense of the greater good, it does not bode well with opposition, critique, and questioning. By necessity the party must incite rancor and discord to rally their supporters.

In 1800 the election between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson represented a level of enmity that makes modern mudslinging mild in comparison. The Federalists, which Adams represented, believed in a strong centralized federal government: Republicans, represented by Jefferson, argued that such a government endangerd republican liberty. They both are right! But according to the rules of party politics, you can't both be right, and you must have an enemy. Talk about a danger to democratic freedom!

One of the many sychronicities of the very frail beginning of our republic and what's happening today is that Adams signed into law the Alien and Sedition Acts. The Alien Act raised the residency requirement for immigrants to become citizens from 5 to 14 years, and empowered the president to expel aliens deemed dangerous (think President Trump). The sedition act empowered the government to fine or imprison anyone who opposed “any measures of the government, aided any insurrection, riot, unlawful assemble, or combination and wrote, printed, uttered or published...any false, scandalous, and malicious writing” that disparaged the government (think Julian Assange).

All violent revolutions eventuate in civil war; America, France, Russia, to name a view. This is because the pendulum of polarity will always swing the other way, due to the force of social gravity. What is demonized today will become popular down the road, what is considered oppressive in one faction will be the very essence of liberty in another, in the 60's Ram Dass wrote "Hippies create police, police create hippies."

The liberties and freedoms we are privileged to engage and express in our country should be embraced and skillfully used for the greatest good. The diversity that exists in opposition to any particular view is a good thing, and our freedom is not dependent on rallying a campaign of hate (even if what we're campaigning against is hate). There is a dialectical process that brings truth to the surface if it is engaged without attachment to the outcome, this is the nature of a democratic dialogue. Trying to understand first before you are understood is the hallmark of compassion and enlightenment. This is all a tall order to live and practice, but I believe it is the true cost of freedom.