Battleship Reason

I don’t know whether it’s just my biased perception – but it seems to me that as of recently we have seen an increase in freedom-related issues. Whether it’s illegal downloading, or the usual clamouring for freedom of expression – the issue has burst onto the main stage yet again. What worries me however is that many people don’t quite understand what freedom actually means.

In my humble opinion, freedom is the ability to take responsibility for the consequences of your actions. If we look back in history, spoken and written words meant a great deal. Honour, although in certain cases a truly flawed concept, curbed people into minding what they said. You didn’t go around insulting people unless you truly wanted to be skewered with a rapier or shot in the chest. People understood that although you were free to do whatever you wished, others might not react kindly to your actions.

It seems to me that we have lost the appreciation of true freedom here in the west. For the past fifty or so years, most humans in the west have lived more or less comfortably – with the majority of their basic needs taken care of. Our governments are largely liberal – we may speak of them in any manner that we wish to, provided we do not cause harm to others in doing so. Contrast this with China, where information of the Tiananmen Square Massacre is still tightly controlled, and most people are happy to be in any kind of employment. Fighting for freedom in China means that people would get to know the truth of the events and would have the liberty to pursue any career they chose to, instead of being pigeonholed into positions in China’s developing industry. Fighting for freedom in Europe, however, largely revolves around justifying the latest piece of macabre theatre where sheep-clothed actors vomit over a baby seal. When you compare it like that, it puts things into perspective, does it not?

I am all in favour of freedom, in particular freedom of expression. I wish that we had true freedom of expression here in the west. Next time a quasi-artist starves a dog to death for his ‘art’ – a group of animal rights activists could get together and perhaps strip the man naked and leave him in the middle of a city chained to Nelson’s column – their own little ‘art’ project. Or if a “journalist” digs through politicians’ bins in order to uncover more about their private lives, why not publish an official governmental pamphlet describing the private life of that particular journalist – focusing in particular on his or her infidelity to their spouse? We seem to forget that freedom is a two-way street. That is, why, I truly dislike some of the freedom activists – people who nominally fight for freedom, but in truth are just using this to justify their actions to the society. On the other hand, I’m an active member of Amnesty International, and I support activities which increase the awareness of the importance of freedom in countries where freedom is most curtailed.

We should all take heed from the good old Independence War in America. The thirteen colonies had the freedom to chart their own destiny. They chose to do so – and paid the price in blood. That is true freedom.

P.S. For those of you who want to understand more about freedom, here’s two links that will highlight what I mean.
Google UK search for Tiananmen.
Google China search for Tiananmen.

[edit]
Furthermore, a nice comparison of maps.google and ditu.google – in particular highlighting cases of map censorship.