FREEDOM

Today is the 30th anniversary of the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. Built to retain its’ citizens from fleeing East Berlin it became instead a symbol of the repression of a people who paid dearly for being on the wrong side of Freedom.

This got me thinking of what the word ‘Freedom’ means.

· Freedom | Definition of Freedom by Merriam-Webster

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/freedom 

Definition of freedom. 1 : the quality or state of being free: such as. a : the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action. b : liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another : independence. c. : the quality or state of being exempt or released usually from something onerous. 

It is not the definition of the word I sought, but the actual state of Freedom. What is it, how does it feel, what does it do to one when he or she is free? Why do men prefer it?

I see we in the United States calling for the protection of our freedoms and there are many, all taken for granted and all accepted without forethought. But if you listen to some of the people who were denied their inalienable right to freedom, they think of it in another light. There was an interview of one of the people who left East Berlin and resettled in West Berlin who spoke of freedom. He said in essence that one who is denied freedom and has never experienced it knows of nothing better, but once he finds it guards it with his life and truly lives it.

Today with all the turmoil of the Trump Administration, the impeachment hearings and the revelations of the various witnesses to the crimes committed by the President it has become imperative that we reconsider all the facts that constitute individual freedom and the freedoms at large in this country. We cannot have POTUS utilizing his office to further his power, wealth, and designs that go beyond the scope of his office and more importantly, the Constitution of the United States. When that happens we have what Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Tse Tung did to consolidate their powers in defiance of the people. Erosion 0f accountability leads to corruption and the subversion of Freedom.

The Republican Party has lost its cache unless it reverses its position on the president and his defiance of Congress. They have a solemn oath to the U.S. Constitution to uphold, protect and defend it, not politicizing it for the sake of one man who we all know and understand is defying the rules of law and that very constitution. If they don’t, they will be written off as a force in American politics and shamed into the dust bin of history.