"Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!". These magnificent and historic words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. constantly remind us that freedom is hard won and can carry a very significant cost.

Freedom beats in the heart of every human on the face of this earth. We have seen first hand evidence of freedom bursting out after decades of abject oppression in nation after nation. It is a God given blessing of creation that all should live and breathe free.

In the United States of the 21st Century we have no idea what it means to not have freedom. It is written in our historic landmark foundation documents that all of us have a declared right to the pursuit of freedom and justice.

Our fore-parents came to this country seeking freedom. The gave up the safety of home to journey out on an uncertain voyage to an unknown land with the hope of freedom beating steadily in their soul and heart.

We have sent our best men and women off to be put in harm's way to defend our way of life - - to protect our hard won freedoms. Many were left on the battlefields of the world as they gave their all in the name of freedom. For those who have defended it, freedom has a flavor that others can never know.

Every time our government creates laws that chip at our freedom we loose a part of what we were meant to be.

If some of us are not free - - then none of us are really free. I know from first hand experience that there are those among us who would attack our freedoms and take them away from us.

I always come down on the side of personal freedom and personal choice. That is what our ancestors hoped and longed for and hewed out a nation in pursuit of.

Often times in our humanity and in our freedom we make wrong choices and usually have to pay the consequences. That is one of the prices of being truly free.

I do not want to spill the blood of our ancestors and of our men and women in uniform onto the battlefields of the world only to win a "hollow" or "sometimes" freedom.

Freedom has to be for everyone and everyone's freedom has to be the same. There are no levels of freedom depending on status or fortune.

Freedom gives you and me the right to speak our mind and even carry signs expressing our deep felt passions about the world around us. Sometimes your sign and my sign are worlds apart. You make me angry and I make you angry. That is freedom at its finest and that is what we hold so dear. We should never attack each other - - as free Americans, we should deeply respect and defend each others right of free expression.

Every time a law is passed that denies us another freedom of choice without fear of retribution or arrest - - then we are a lesser nation. We become a nation of neighbor against neighbor, ideology against ideology, class against class, citizen against citizen.

"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal". It took us over 200 years to finally figure that those words indeed meant ALL men and women. Not just those of European origin, but indeed all!

President Lincoln's great emancipation dreamed of a government "of the people, by the people and for the people" - - not of the government, by the government and for the government!

Our landmark welcome to this country is the Lady of Freedom that stands in New York Harbor. Emma Lazarus wrote these memorable words, which are engraved there today:

"Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand a mighty woman with a torch,
whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.
From her beacon-hand glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she with silent lips.
"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

And that is what I believe about freedom!



A Jim Lane Commentary
May 17, 2003