Doing Sh!t with Doug: Freedom

I went on a search for your definition of Freedom…this is what I found:

Here is a transcript of the video, if you are interested:

I just want to say that you’re all going to die. Every last one of you is going to die. What concerns me is that probably 75% of you who just watched what I said, took it as a threat of some type of impending terror attack. But it wasn’t. It is just a plain and simple fact of life. You are all going to die. But you have been convinced that you can cheat death. The truth is, It doesn’t matter how the healthcare issue turns out in the United States, it doesn’t matter how things pan out in the Middle East or with Al Qaeda, it doesn’t matter if the United States government still exists in 100 years, or if humanity itself even exists for another 20 or 20,000 years… with technology as we know it today, you are all going to die.

What strikes me as odd is that many don’t seem to value the life they are given until it appears to be threatened. You overeat, you over-medicate, many abuse drugs they aren’t even prescribed, and you over consume products and services to the point that you give up an abundance of the free time in your life towards laboring to pay for things that you don’t actually need in order to enjoy your life. Many of you come home and drink your evenings away, most likely watching reality television instead of going out and creating a reality of your own. People sit in front of action adventure video games, sucking down Coca Cola, Krispy Kremes and Marlboros, fantasizing that they had the physique, the training or the guts to do the things which those video games are based on. You sit around watching pornography, with other people having sex, instead of trying to create more intimacy with your significant other, or even trying to go out and find a significant other of your own. You date online. One of the biggest IPOs in history will be an ‘online’ social networking website, which dictates how you may, and may not, interact with your peers on the site. You judge everything you have, and your own happiness, by whether you have more and better things than your neighbor. And strangely, many of you call this Freedom.

Frankly, I don’t think you understand what the word means. If you are reliant on McDonalds to shove Big Macs down your throat because you can’t otherwise feed yourself, are you free? If you have to get drunk or high just to tolerate your life from day to day, is that a sign of Freedom? If you work 60 to 70 hours a week to pay for your iPhone, iPad, iPod, your daily Starbucks, the Range Rover, plasma TVs, private school and health insurance…knowing that the more income you make for the sake of these luxuries, the more taxes you have to pay out of your labor income to have them, are you really free? If the value of your life is based on having more assets than your neighbor, do you ave a free mind of your own? If one terrorist attack has you giving up the basic liberties that this nation was founded on, doing so under the guise of protecting your freedoms, do you really have any freedoms left to protect?

The point is, none of you seem to value your life until the moment that someone or something makes you feel the loss of it is absolutely imminent…as if you would have otherwise lived forever. You find you can’t get healthcare without insurance, and suddenly you value your life. Terrorists from thousands of miles away have success with one attack on the United States, and suddenly you are in fear for your lives. You are up in arms for the government to save you from your fear of death…freedoms be damned. You know, half of you believe in some type of God, so why should you fear death at all? And some of you believe we are all some form of energy, and we are pretty confident in the law of conservation of energy, so why do you people fear death? And the rest of you who don’t believe in anything won’t even be aware that your dead. So what is it that you people are really so afraid of? Yet every day you give up your freedoms as if the sacrifice will provide you some fallacious freedom of eternal life, instead of living the life that you have right in front of you. A people who live in fear are already conquered, and will never be free.

For today’s video, I kept searching for a place that reflects the current interpretation of Freedom. You know, I looked at all the qualities that the current population tends to demand that a free people should have. Guarantees of shelter, employment, food, security, healthcare…and this is where I finally found your definition of freedom. It’s here with this lion. He has what many of you desire. He is provided shelter. He is guaranteed a job entertaining zoo visitors. He is provided sufficient food for survival. He is provided security from both foreign threats and domestic. He has free healthcare. However, he eats what they tell him he is allowed to eat. They dictate who he can and cannot mate with. Though he has an abundance of leisure time, he is restricted in where he may lie and travel freely, and when he may do so. He is no longer a lion. He has lost all hope of ever one day controlling his own destiny, and this is what many of you seem to strive for. Now, I ask you, is this really your idea of freedom?

Somewhere along the line, the definition of Freedom must have been lost. If you require your government to feed you, clothe you, employ you, house you, heal you and protect you individually during the course of your day, and tell you who you may or may not marry, you are not free…you are confined. The government has taken your freedoms and convinced you that you should feel grateful and secure. Religion has taken your freedoms in exchange for a better after-life. Terrorists have taken your freedoms and laugh at you when you arrogantly suggest you’ve won that war. Corporations have taken your freedoms in convincing you that you cannot possibly live without their product for fear of being ostracized by your peers. Foreigners have taken your freedoms by coming here illegally and consuming this country’s resources at the expense of your labor’s tax dollars, and then having your own government convince you that you are wrong for feeling the illegals have no right to be here.

Demanding dependence upon another entity is not the definition of Freedom, though it is a certain way to be removed from it. With Freedom comes the responsibility for one’s own survival, and that is a responsibility many don’t seems to want to accept anymore.