simplerich

It all started with a twitter post (I don’t like saying “tweet”) by Rosa Say over on @MwAloha:

Sweet liberty The 12 Days of Christmas hula w/the 12 Aloha Virtues of MWA ~ Day 10 and the Virtue of FREEDOM: http://ow.ly/SkEM

There they are… those two words together in one sentence and I couldn’t figure out what the difference between them was. I know there IS a difference between them. I just don’t know what it is really. Freedom and Liberty.

There is a lot of talk about Freedom lately. That word’s on the rise while Liberty is on the wan. Nobody talks about Liberty any more but they used to use it more. “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happyness.” (sic) must be the most recognizable use of Liberty that every US Citizen knows. (I intentionally didn’t use “American” because well… Brazilians are American as are Peruvians and those dastardly Canadians! (KIDDING Canadia!) and they may not be as familiar with our Declaration of Independence as we are. There’s more to America than just the USA.)

I can’t imagine the founding fathers saying “Life, Freedom, and the pursuit of Happiness.” It’s not because I don’t have a good imagination. I do. I use it constantly when doing daily affirmations.

What does one do when there’s a question about word meanings? One hits the dictionary.

LIBERTY: (from dictionary.com)

1. freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control.
2. freedom from external or foreign rule; independence.
3. freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice.
4. freedom from captivity, confinement, or physical restraint:The prisoner soon regained his liberty.

FREEDOM: (from dictionary.com)

1. the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint: He won his freedom after a retrial.
2. exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.
3. the power to determine action without restraint.
4. political or national independence.

You see the problem. Both words use each other to define each other. But liberty is most often defined as a freedom FROM something. It’s almost as if it can’t exist in a vacuum. One can’t simply BE liberty (obviously, it’s not a verb). But one enjoys Liberty when one is liberated and one is most often thought of as liberated FROM something, be it oppressors, insanely high tax burdens, or despotic governments.

I think the most telling thing about us not using liberty as much as we use freedom nowadays in the US is that we’re pretty much liberated already. We’re one of the most free countries in the world, (please leave Homeland Security and the Patriot Act out of any comments as exhibits to the contrary not because they infringe on our basic liberties, but because this isn’t a political blog. I know. I know.) When we in the US talk about Liberty we talk about it happening in other places. We say that we “liberated Baghdad” and that sort of thing. We’ve been known to “Liberate Hostages.” We appear to have, in our national psyche come to a point where we see ourselves as liberated (Remember the Women’s LIB movement? that was our last big use of Liberty) more than before and now we’re ready to go out there, enjoy and protect our freedoms while we liberate those around us so that they can enjoy THEIR freedoms.

One can’t be free until they have been liberated however, and our liberties, our freedoms, are to be both enjoyed and protected. There were loads of inspirational quotes about both words but I think the most telling thing about them is that we, as a country, don’t seem to feel, collectively, that we need liberating right now. I hope that it remains true that we remain liberated and free.

Thank you Rosa for prompting me to write this, and formalize it. I’ve said before I get a lot of thinking done while I run, but I’m most organized in my thinking when I write things down. If I can nail an squirming, wriggling idea down by writing it down and clarifying it I’m better off in keeping it straight in my head.