Real Freedom

So today we celebrate our independence. It’s comical (if by comical I mean terribly tragic) that most of the people in the United States don’t have any idea what today is about. It really is not about the rights in the Constitution… not that most would even associate it with that. The Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787 and went into effect on March 4, 1789.

See, none of that has to do with the 4^th of July.

Independence day, July 4, 1776, was the day when we declared to dissolve “our political bands” with England. For all of the flowery, elegant and prophetic language throughout the Declaration of Independence, I’ve always been most fond of that simple phrase…

“…to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another…”

Whenever I go to vote I feel like I am exercising my own declaration of independence, dissolving the political bands I had if I wasn’t pleased with my representatives.

Real freedom. It’s bound to mean something different to everyone. From marriage equality to the right to bear arms (again, something that is not part of the Declaration of Independence), many of us perceive our deserved freedoms differently.

Transcendentalists in the first third of the 19^th century (e.g., Thoreau, Emerson, etc.), rejected organized religion and political parties as infringements on their freedoms. They felt that people were basically good, and that community was truly formed when people represented themselves; when people stood for what they believed.

I did a report on Henry David Thoreau when I was in middle school… and it all made sense to me.

People ask me what my political affiliation is and I respond quickly with “yes.” I don’t like political parties much. If asked to elaborate, I vote based on one issue… social justice, which makes me align with the Democratic Party now. But even writing that sentence makes me flinch a little. Because I hate being put into a box; because I don’t fit into a box.

Real freedom is being able to agree with part of a platform and disagreeing with another part.

Real freedom is Nelson Mandela fighting for an entire people to be heard.

Real freedom is focusing on the type of life that I want to live instead of telling other people how to live.

Real freedom, above all else, is fighting so that everyone has the right to live the life that they want to live. To have those “certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Love who you want. Marry whom you want. Live how you want. Be who you want.

And exercise your Declaration of Independence often; sever the political bands that exist, where those bands no longer serve you. Exercise them from your polling places, from your soap boxes, from your television remotes, and from wherever else you can.

Happy 4^th of July