Define Freedom

How do you define freedom?

I started Liberatus in 2015 partly because it’s ambiguous what exactly we were fighting for in Congress. While we said we were fighting for freedom, in the words of former Congressman Raul Labrador, Capitol Hill “is a place that just sucks your soul.” But why?

Abraham Lincoln framed our problem well in 1864:

The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name, liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names--liberty and tyranny.

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act, as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails to-day among us human creatures, even in the North, and all professing to love liberty. Hence we behold the process by which thousands are daily passing from under the yoke of bondage hailed by some as the advance of liberty, and bewailed by others as the destruction of all liberty. 

Liberty as he noted is not only freedom from rule by political tyrants, it’s also relational and by nature of being relational it’s also economic.

As an organizing purpose, we started Liberatus by redefining liberty for our time as the creative pursuit of truth and beauty, and exploring this definition of freedom through an online journal. It is a faith-rooted definition, because fighting for freedom should look, act, and feel like freedom, not as an ideal but rather as daily construct.

Ultimately, the exploration that we did as a community led to identifying the faith-rooted lifestyle actions that we hope to inspire: collaborate, build trust, and build endurance. Since freedom is relational, we experience it best when we have unity, and in a political context, these actions are components of unity. While unity is more than a feeling and can’t be forced, coerced, or established, I think that we have identified a pattern or form for how it exists.

When we feel that our work in politics is a soul suck, we can regroup and identify areas for improvement when we view our work as an endless exploration of how to collaborate, build trust, and build endurance.

WEEKLY ACTION POINT

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Mission: Inspire American Unity

Liberatus is a political organization and publication exploring how we make our country more just and free for the next generation. We create inspiration for American unity in beautiful, well-researched and faith-rooted illustrated journals, written by professionals across the spectrum, to inspire lifestyles where we collaborate, build trust, and build endurance—because nothing changes if nothing changes.

Journal Entry #153

ISSUE 022: FOUNDATIONAL ETHOS — PART 4