Only a little reflection is necessary to see that in the American colonies circa 1776, "freedom" referred to a happier and specifically wealthier existence without the irritating control of a monarch on the other side of the ocean. Under the guise of taxation and trade restrictions, King George exacted heavy tribute from the colonies. The authors of the Declaration of Independence realized that British military forces might be incapable of enforcing their king's edicts. In effect, they called George's bluff, and created a new country whose connections with Great Britain no longer constituted a burden.
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After America's Revolutionary victory, the word "freedom" began to be cross-applied in support of various causes, not least of which was opposition to slavery. In chorus with the French Revolution of 1789, the cry for abolition was raised. And what could more quintessentially represent the idea of freedom than the liberation of a person unjustly "bound to service," and counted as only three fifths of a human?
Slavery was banned in the cold North, where forced labor generally brought more trouble than economic benefit anyway. Soon the southern states began to agitate for freedom from Yankee economic domination. The Southern war to secede from the Union was waged for the same general reasons the American Revolution had been fought: to throw off an outside power which was limiting wealth and profit. The Southern struggle for economic independence failed, leaving behind the bitter taste of freedom once found, then lost.
Speaking now as a sort of time traveler from the mid twentieth century, I can relate that the idea of freedom in that era was most poignantly evoked in Jack Kerouac's poetic novel, On the Road, and most materialistically in the General Motors jingle, "See the USA in your Chevrolet." It is no coincidence that both contexts refer to the quite literal freedom of movement granted by ownership of a motor car along with access to cheap fuel and adequate roads.
Today in the U.S. the much-abused word "freedom" arguably retains legitimate meaning mainly for two groups: throngs of effectively indentured illegal immigrants, and millions of legally enslaved inmates of a thriving prison industry.
Soon most of us -- reluctant citizens of a too-close future, for whom the word "freedom" has sunk to a vague political incantation -- may experience rage and disappointment rising far beyond our minuscule experience of hardship.
Since Ponzi's recent demise (following a long illness), we feel confused and angry. Searching for mental relief, reaching for the usual scapegoats, we find them oddly out of reach. Worse, the usual TV incitements to buy new goods neither soothe nor excite us as they once did.
Our future will not be pleasant, but time will have its way. Even in America nothing can halt its forward movement. Though our descendants may someday revel in the freedom of living simpler lives among smaller human populations, we ourselves can draw little personal satisfaction from watching the approaching end of the world's greatest excesses, by which I mean, us.