How important is it to you to be able to be and think and believe in freedom and safety?
How important is it to our societies to afford citizens these rights?
What happens when these freedoms are denied and meet with punishment and even torture?
How does this oppression curtail our development as societies?
As people?
How commonly are these rights withheld?
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MieH7ll6-W8]
#1 – Speaking for myself, nothing is more important.
#2 – Not terribly important for most…so long as other, more basic needs are met.
#3 – I was quite emotionally reminded of that dynamic earlier this evening while watching a brief PBS NewsHour interview with Gerda Weissmann Klein. (Take a look I think you’ll see what I mean…and then some.)
#4 – As the bird video illustrates, nothing is accomplished as a result of complacency. Especially when compared to what might be accomplished, and/or experienced absent (unreasonable) restraints. Gerda (in the link above) underscores that contrast when she ends, tearfully, with three words: “Only in America.” Most of us born here have little understanding of what those words truly mean to those who weren’t.
#5 – Perhaps you’ll find the answer to this one (metaphorically) if you click here…. 😉
I was very impressed with Gerda Weissmann Klein – such a wonderful attitude in spite of her suffering. Thanks for the link (and the comment!)
My thoughts are that when we regularly experience freedom, we fail to have an adequate concept of what loss of freedom represents. Even though we see the stories on the news, or we watch the videos or read the magazine articles, if we do not experience loss of freedom in an intimate way, we conveniently put our awareness on the back burner and go about the mundane business of living.
Your bird in a cage video is a simple way of demonstrating the difference. Thanks for sharing the video, and for taking the time to ask the question.
That is an excellent point – perhaps the solution is to be aware that this is a danger in our relative freedom? It is an interesting video, isn’t it? Thanks.
Deprivation of freedom is indeed death of the spirit–better to be physically dead and alive in the spirit forever!
What a succinct way of putting it! Thanks so much.
Have you read my Democracy and Diversity post? That wasn’t intended to be a shameless plug, I just think about it every time I read your blog – thanks for inspiring me to get back to work on part 2!
http://everythingreform.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/democracy-and-diversity-pt-1/
I have an it is an excellent post – as indeed is Pt 2! Thanks for the link and your comment.
By the way, what happened to that lovely gravatar you used to use?
It reassigned itself and refuses to come back (I’m not joking!!)