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To: eastsider
Freedom is the right to do what is known to be right; it presumes virtue and is ordered toward the common good.

I recently came across the following description of freedom in the book Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder. In the story, Laura is about 14 or 15 years old and is at the town's Fourth of July celebration.

...Laura stood stock still. Suddenly she had a completely new thought. The Declaration and the song [My Country Tis of Thee] came together in her mind and she thought: God is America's king.

She thought: Americans won't obey any king on earth. Americans are free. That means they have to obey their own consciences... Her whole mind seemed to be lighted up by that thought. This is what it means to be free. It means, you have to be good. "Our father's God, author of liberty-" The laws of Nature and of Nature's God endow you with a right to life and liberty. Then you have to keep the laws of God, for Gods law is the only thing that gives you a right to be free.

This is the best discussion of what freedom is that I've come across.

163 posted on 02/25/2005 4:08:06 PM PST by KfromMich
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To: KfromMich

Nice. Let's not lose it, like Canada.


164 posted on 02/25/2005 4:16:32 PM PST by polymuser
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