Wednesday - July 26, 2006
What is Freedom?
There are a lot of confusing things said about
freedom. Ayn Rand once remarked several decades ago on the vapid thoughts of
young Americans who thought people in the USSR were "free" because they were
allowed to listen to rock and roll, even though they had no political rights,
their professions and property were controlled by the state, and they could be
stood up against a wall and shot or sent to a gulag on the slightest pretense.
This perverse understanding of freedom
is now changing how we view our own freedoms. We've had the Supreme Court tell
us the state can take away our property and our land and give it to big
companies to use for their profits. We are told how much money we can spend on
expressing our political speech. We've been told that some of our speech is
"hateful" and thus illegal. Heck, the government finds it in their power to
design our toilets for us and forbids us to use ones that are reliable. The
encroachments to our freedoms are growing far beyond my ability to enumerate
here.
Now in the news is a new assault
on our freedom. We no longer can choose our medical care.
A family in Virginia, perhaps for religious
reasons, does not want their son to receive chemotherapy for Hodgkins disease.
The son agrees. They want to control the disease with a special, well actually
not that special, diet.
First, let me
say that these people are kooks. Hodgkins is a disease that many people survive
by using chemotherapy. Anyone not taking advantage of available cures is a
fool.
But aren't we supposed to be in a
free country? If you aren't free to choose how you treat a disease, if you
can't choose to make a value judgement on whether or not you want to suffer the
side effects of chemotherapy, if you can't comply with devoutly held religious
beliefs (no matter how misguided or foolish), then you aren't
free.
I don't agree with this foolish
boy and his irresponsible parents. I have little sympathy for any religion,
especially a religion that denies the benefits of medical science, but the
nature of logic is that it can only be discerned through disciplined thinking.
I wish all people had disciplined thinking and were able to act logically, but
free people should not be forced to be
logical.
If we can't form our own
thoughts and act according to them, then we are no longer free. There was once
a time when Americans understood this. It appears that we no longer
do.
Post
Script
A judge has granted a stay on
the forced treatment of the young man in question. I'm sorry that this boy may
die, but I rejoice at his newly granted, as if it were something to be granted,
freedom to choose how he confronts his illness and even his death. We'll have
to wait and see what the appeals courts decide about which of our freedoms we're
allowed to retain.
Go Back to the Start, Do Not Collect $200 Send me your two cents
|
