Whenever Bush is faced with the terrible unpleasantness of glimpsing the throngs of protesters out the window of his armor-plated limousine, he delivers his trademark response: "Isn't it great that we live in a free country, where people can express themselves?"
But is freedom really just about expression? After all, listen to what the people are saying: I can't afford my medicine. I don't have a job. My baby's water is filled with lead and mercury. I was banned from voting. My son died in Iraq, for no reason. Does our freedom to vocalize our pain and suffering compensate for that pain suffering?
During the cold war, my father attempted to film a movie in the Soviet Union. One night while dining with a friend in Moscow, he asked what age children truly became aware that they were unable to pursue their dreams. "About 16 or 17," replied his friend, and then erupted into tears.
That's the idea behind freedom, isn't it. We can do what we want to do. Live where we want to live. Say what we want to say. Be who we want to be. When we live under an oppressive government, we lose these things. We lose our freedom. But is political oppression the only obstruction to freedom? I believe there are others:
Economy
When you have to work three jobs to feed your family, how can you express your freedom? How can you pursue the career of your choosing when that career doesn't even exist?
Education
Our freedom to express ourselves can only go as far as our ability to think and understand. When the walls of our schools are crumbling, and the classrooms are beginning to resemble our overcrowded prisons, how can we exercise our freedom of expression? When we lack the training and skills to enter the marketplace, how can we exercise the freedom to pursue our dreams?
Health Care
When our lives are cut short because we can't even afford preventative screenings, how is our freedom served?
Environment
Does freedom include the freedom to breathe? The Freedom to drink clean water? Or are these things mere luxuries?
We could go on. Bush has made the idea of freedom a hallmark of his administration. The spectacle of the republicans holding up their purple fingers at the SOTU was a terrific irony, simultaneously trumpeting freedom and squashing dissent. We need to remind the people that the only freedom the republicans value is the freedom for them to make as much money as possible off the backs of the working poor. We need to remind the people that if they want to be free, they should vote Democrat.