The 'F' Werd

F

           The manner of direction is as futile as it is flawless.  Failing to feel freedoms forthright face is not something to neither forsake nor forget, but rather, a fearful and fatal fight.  You’re either a foolish freak or a fretting friar to forsake and forget such a fate and fight as freedom’s forthright face.  It has become a furnished fortune, not a fear filled fabricated force.  Take down the fake flag and fierce façade you uphold as your final frontier, for anarchists fails to foresee the fallacies of the fallen future fetus, lacking faith’s fire and the female’s fortitude.  Foolish is the man without frugality, flexibility, and feeling.  Their fate holds only frailty and fallacy which eventually leads to a freedom less fatality.  While the felon fornicates his life away, we will stand as a firm force on the foundation of our fortified Father.  As the feather falls from the fierce falcon, we will fill our faith with fire and fortitude.  We will find the fresh face of a freedom’s fight.  Our feet will feel the forest floor knowing of the fortune of the foolish, feeling less man.  Our stomachs will be filled with the food of the fat and free for we did not forsake nor forget freedom’s forthright face.

-Mikey D. B.-

            Utopia.  Often when we hear this word, definitions like perfection, peace, or an ideal society come to mind.  Despite what you may have heard about what Utopia means or even the origins of this word, it was in fact invented by Sir Thomas More in 1515 when he wrote the book Utopia.  The direct translation comes from Greek roots.  The ‘U’ in Utopia, is a root for ‘not’ or ‘no’, and the ‘topia’ means ‘place’.  So Utopia literally means “No Place”.  It doesn’t mean ‘perfect’ or ‘ideal’, but rather ‘not in existence’.  Funny how a word associated with the perfect society actually means that is doesn’t exist, and is a fictional idea.  Now don’t get me wrong, there are reasons why these false definitions are around and frankly they can be argued and probably upheld.

            In Sir Thomas More’s book Utopia, his character Raphael Hythloday describes of his journey to a perfect society; it’s a place of ideal perfection in law, government, and social conditions.  In this land, the people experience peace everyday through social compliance and strict control of desires and pleasure.  Slavery exists in Utopia, but this is like their version of prison, but murder, theft, adultery, and hunger are virtually unknown to the citizens of Utopia and Raphael describes how a people are even capable of creating such a place.  In a nutshell, all of this is made possible not by the people of this land, but by a government eliminating not only private property but privacy in general.  Everyone dresses the same, classes do not exist, their passions and pleasures are constantly monitored.  These citizens are encouraged to pursue education, but not too much; they master limited professions (The Norton Anthology, Volume 1 pp: 518-590).  Utopia is not just a place not in existence, but as Thomas More describes it through his book, it is a place without human desire and drive.

Freedom is a sensitive word and there are many different view points on what people think true freedom entails.  It is a perspective.  There are at least two extreme ends of the spectrum and possibly more (Capitalism and Socialism being some of them), but the obvious ones in my mind are: one, the anarchists who rule by chaos and not order and two, the Utopian nuts creating robots out of everyone, eliminating the opportunity to act on their own thoughts.  In a sense, I agree with both view points because I believe there is a moderation in all things.  When we find a balance between extremes, that is when we are truly free.

Utopia has no antagonism, but at what price?  What is the price to live in a land without murder, rape, and robbery on a world as corrupt as ours?  Jack Rackove, a political science professor at Stanford University, describes what absolute peace costs when he said how when we want to avoid political drama and conflict, all we have to do is make everyone do whatever the ruler does (Jack Rackove, Stanford Colonial and Revolutionary Podcast #11).  We all know how well that works out.  History, along with dozens of stories like The Hunger Games and V for Vendetta tell how miserable it is to blindly comply with a tyrant and that there will always be someone who will fight against that way of thinking, and honestly, I agree with those rebels.  There is a difference between forcing a people to comply by rules because you find them incompetent of judging righteously, and having a righteous people think, judge, and determine what is best by what rules they are given and do so uniformly. 
Freedom is not peaceful.  We deserve the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness but we must fight for it.  Freedom must be earned.  There is a sense of responsibility that comes with being free.  When I bought my first car I felt a morsel of that real freedom.  I thought, “I could drive to California right here and right now if I wanted to”, but at the same time I knew if I did, there were certain conditions I would need to follow.  I would have to drive responsibly.  I would have to at least plan some things out like food and gas stops.  I had to work to actually buy the car and would have to continue to do so to provide the funds needed to drive the distance.  I was at the liberty to go where I wanted, but it would come at a price.  Nothing is free.  Freedom is not free.  I won’t go into to much detail here, but Capitalism is based on risk taking.  You spend money to make money.  You invest in ideas and processes that may or may not yield a return, but in the end, you reap what you sew.  So it is with freedom.  Free to think and to feel how you want, but paying with consequential currency, good or bad.

            All in all, when the Founding Fathers drafted and signed the Declaration of Independence, they did so under the belief that “all men are created equal” and all have the unalienable rights, incapable of being surrendered, these being “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  Now, let’s not get into the debate of what “all men” meant then in 1776, because we all know that Thomas Jefferson had dozens, if not hundreds of slaves when he wrote those words, making this one of the great ironies of history.  We cannot judge these imperfect men with our egalitarian understanding.  However, we know now that the freedom they felt was a pure one and one that has unfortunately been tainted, twisted, and then rationalized as unattainable by logical fallacies and intellects of every kind.  But in the end, so does anything that is good and pure.  The werd ‘independence’ in that declaration was declaring to King George III that this nation would be an independent one; it would be a nation free, not needing to be dependent on anyone else.  I believe that that is the true freedom they were seeking and it is what I seek now, being able to provide and protect me and my household, not being dependent on tangible or government assistance and a socialized agenda.  Freedom cannot be given, it must be earned.