But At Least We're Having the Conversation OR I May Not Agree With Your Decision to Be Horrible But I will Defend With My Life Your Right to Try to Be Horrible

Freedom is an odd thing. No...

More precisely, our sense of freedom is an odd thing.

Or maybe it's our sense of liberty that is odd- maybe I think of them as the same thing.

Maybe I'll slip back and forth here... That's what you can expect.

It seems that we think of freedom as some unconditioned will; in order to be free I have to be able to do whatever I want. There can be nothing that determines what I will do other than my will. Save except for those things that force us to exist as human, we are only free if we are Hercules at the Crossroads- free to choose good or bad.

If that were really the case, I would hate us for our freedom too. But I don't think anyone really lives that way- well no one that we wouldn't call crazy lives that way.

It's something else. It's more about saying "You're not the boss of me." Saying, "You're not the boss of me," corresponds to the way we seem to live our freedom, but saying that means, "I'm the boss of me," and meaning, "I am totally in control," might relate to something we like to say we have but it certainly assumes much more volition than any one can actually know.

It seems we are the boss of us, and knowing who we mean by we, the greater the group that is we, and the more whatever collective-singular-inflective pronoun that reflects the collection of components that constitute that sense of us fits here-awareness there is, the greater a sense of freedom there is.

Maybe I should just have written "self-awareness."

Of course that's just me...

Who else could it be?

Anyway, with that, there are things that just do not correspond to greater freedom.

God's favorite Senator, Russ Feingold, peace be upon him, has stated that he will vote against the nomination of Mukasey for AG. Questions about warrantless wire-tapping, executive power, and torture are foremost for him. He seems to think that it's not enough that Mukasey say waterboarding is despicable or that he hems and haws on the balance of power among the branches of government. (In case you forgot since high school: congress is not subordinate to the president).

These, especially the waterboarding, are not "agree to disagree" or "we'll hash it out later" things; they get right at that sense of who we are.

There is little value in the discussion itself. We shouldn't be happy that at least we're talking about these problems because a.) we're barely talking about them and b.) that's not freedom. Freedom is not in the possibility or ability to talk about or do these things and any sense of freedom that rested on the possibility to choose this or, worse, on its use, is a cheap freedom.

Certain things are beyond the pale. Knowing what those are and being clear about it is where we see who we are.

Hey, maybe in that sense, some people really do hate us for our freedom.
Some of them act badly because they've had a hard life, or have been mistreated... but, like people, some of them are just jerks
Love Minus Zero/No Limit- Bob Dylan
Ever Fallen In Love- The Buzzcocks
Hotwax- Beck
Pressed in a Book- The Shins
Strange Brew- Cream
Excuse Me Mr.- Ben Harper
Watch That Man- David Bowie
Harrowdown Hill- Thom Yorke
Surfwax America- Weezer
Gaite Parisienne- Offenbach
Solbury Hill- Peter Gabriel