The Perils and Promises of Freedom and Democracy
A Patriotic Service by the Reverend James Dace

July 23, 2006

But, for America as a whole, this 21st century, so far, has not been good—primarily because, so far, America has not been very good for this 21st century. Once a brilliant beacon of freedom and justice, today’s image of the U.S. in much of the world is as a dangerously arrogant power that, like any schoolyard bully, is due for a comeuppance. But there is more than an image problem, here: the very idea of what it means to be American is at stake for, as Ghandi put it, “We must become the change we want the world to see."

READING I:  
(paraphrased from an unlikely source for UUs: the magazine of the “John Birch Society”)

When the Constitution was framed, no respectable person called him-or- herself a democrat (in the sense that they wanted a democracy), there being an essential difference between the republic that was created and the democracy our nation’s Founders abhorred: John Adams said, “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”

Democracy is a dangerous form of government because history repeatedly shows that the majority’s attitude can be bought, pressured, or deceived into approving the designs of sinister leaders. Ruthlessly ambitious men have regularly promoted themselves as “champions of the people” while all the while leading them into slavery through ever more intrusive government and, now, forcing the ravages of democracy on other lands.

The preponderant opinion of Americans today is that the words “democracy” and “freedom” are interchangeable. In promoting that distortion, democracy has been awarded a place almost as high as the Ten Commandments and, all the while, our freedoms are diminished. Every nation has the government it deserves; in time, a society of sheep must beget a government of wolves.

READING II:   
(from an article by Tony Bunyan of Europe’s Statewatch News online)

The "war on terrorism" has turned into an ongoing "war on freedom and democracy,” where accountability, scrutiny and human rights are seen as luxuries to be curtailed or discarded in defense of "democracy." We vigorously affirm “democracy” and proclaim that it, together with “freedom,” is what the “war on terrorism” is all about. But our actions speak differently and have done so for some time.

During the Cold War, democracy had to have some substance, a tangible reality in opposition to Soviet-style communism. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, it was not just the USSR that disappeared but with it, too, the content of democracy's political culture. With the end of the Cold War, there was no guarantee that democracy as we had known it would survive and, sure enough, as principles gave way to pragmatism, it was the retention of power that became the primary aim of western political parties.

A democracy—or, rather, a democratic political culture—is not simply about elections every few years. Rather, a healthy democratic political culture is one that is diverse, informed, discursive, pluralistic, multicultural, and tolerant of peoples and their ideas. It is also a culture that has a sense of history which informs the present and guides the future.

MEDITATION:   
(from David Rankin's UUA Meditation Manual, Dancing in the Empty Spaces…followed by silence)

Freedom is the ground of all vital activity. Faith without freedom is dogma. Love without freedom is an illusion. Justice without freedom is oppression. In every instance, freedom is the factor that sustains and completes the other goal. It is the oxygen of the human spirit, the indispensable element for growth and wholeness.

MESSAGE:
Just a few weeks ago, Nancy and I were in Europe: her son in the Navy came due for elective eye surgery at a military hospital in Germany and he wanted his “mommy” to be with him—and, since Nancy wanted me along, as well, I eventually succumbed to her arm twisting (after about 2 seconds!).

That part of western Germany—between the Rhine and the Moselle River bordering Belgium and Luxembourg—was gloriously verdant, surprisingly pastoral and a pleasure to travel through (even as many autobahn drivers passed me easily when I would “occasionally” be cruising at 100mph).

But on a weekend trip through Belgium, the great calming effect of the many green forests and pastures could not keep another reality from my mind. Some of the most vicious, bloody battles of both World Wars were fought near there: first, Verdun and the Western Front; then, just 30 years later, Bastogne and the 80,000 American casualties in the Battle of the Bulge. Today, there are road signs pointing to American military cemeteries, terrible, sobering reminders that the serenity of those pastures, forests and streams exist now because of so much blood shed—by soldiers and civilians—not that long ago in world history.

But Americans seem not to care about history…or, at least, we learn too little from it. While conventional wisdom proclaims those to have been “good wars,” it is not so easy to justify the blood shed in our recent foreign conflicts (and the civil war in Iraq will only continue the carnage—of soldiers and civilians).

History has shown, repeatedly, how politicians don’t hesitate to sacrifice soldiers’ lives as a means of promoting their own personal agendas; they speak of “ennobling the past” and try to justify their actions as a “defense of our freedom.” But, if we listened to what those fallen heroes might be thinking as they lie six feet under, they’d say it’s time to dispel the myth that they’d all died fighting to “defend our freedom.”

At that military hospital in Germany, I talked with a civilian engineer who’d come from Iraq where he was helping rebuild local power plants before being shot (he suspected by one of the local police). Showing just how far removed from “fighting to defend our freedom” some of our efforts, there, are, Dave recounted several anecdotes indicating how forgotten history is perpetuating the image of “ugly Americans:” besides the seemingly-obligatory corruption he says he witnessed (amongst both Iraqi and American military and civilians), he told of young American women jogging daily through the well-fortified Baghdad “green zone” in their short-shorts and abbreviated T-shirts without any concern as to how insulting that is to their Muslim hosts.

Of course, freedom is a noble and desirable cause: like politicians, we, ourselves, speak eloquently and forcefully of our hopes for freedom, at home and abroad. But there are discrepancies between what we speak and what we do, one reason for that being how we understand what “freedom” really means.

Two versions of freedom emerged in America during the last century: first, a traditional version emphasizing civil liberties, political participation and social justice. It is this version which is publicly extolled by government officials and is taught in our schools; it is this version that inspires the dreams of foreigners wanting to come here. This is the classic version of freedom that philosophers have taught but that society has never quite been able to make happen.

But, today, most Americans view freedom very differently. In our minds, freedom is a private matter: civic duty, political involvement and taking responsibility for maintaining our rights—all seem to be missing these days; life in America has become a spectator sport. Freedom has become the goal for personal relationships and the measure of one’s success; freedom has come to mean “doing whatever one wants and getting one’s way.”

The classic version of freedom-with-civic-obligations tries to co-exist with this newer, private version, but too few Americans really work to pull it off. It’s not that we have rejected the classic mode; rather, it’s that such an understanding of freedom, today, has become too abstract, too far removed from our individual daily lives…just like our understanding of democracy.

A century ago, John Dewey wrote that “democracy depends on institutional arrangements that enable citizens to freely form their own judgments and act on their own values.” But, he emphasized, such arrangements had to be grounded in civility for democracy to work: without civility, the kind of free exchange that allows citizens to test their ideas becomes impossible. The peril of that is: “keeping things civil,” makes it too easy for repressive powers to conceal ugly truths about their activities; it might be “bad manners” to challenge them, but that is the only way to change their morally questionable activities.

This is the plight of our nation. In our privatized concept of freedom, we think we are free from much that connects us to our fellow citizens and to our government: we focus on the pursuit of personal prosperity and succumb to the belief that individual comfort and happiness are the principal goals of life. This is not only destroying our souls; it is the primary peril of freedom in our society.

Nobel Prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a 15-year victim of Stalin's gulag, knows something about “freedom.” He wrote: “The West is a society raised in the cult of material well-being. We’ve turned our backs upon the Spirit, and this way of thinking sees the highest goal in life to be happiness and, thus, places us on the dangerous road toward worshiping man.”

As we strive, individually, to attain what we’ve defined as “the good life” and blithely go along our own way, we’ve paid too little attention to America as it goes along its way. New York Times columnist Tom Freidman wrote: “America, today, reminds me of our last Olympic basketball team, that lackadaisical group that brought home the bronze medal. We think that all we need to do is show up—because, after all, we're America.”

After my father was killed at the start of World War II, my mother went back to work, eventually becoming the second-ever female air traffic controller in America. Then the men returned from war to take back their former positions and, not long after, my mother suffered a “nervous breakdown.” A large part of her healing came from a book she found titled Five Acres and Independence: this became her mantra, her new mission, and it wasn’t long before we moved (when I was 12) from a busy, already-sprawling Los Angeles suburb to an isolated, empty field on the California coast 300 miles north of San Francisco.

Though the field was, indeed, five acres, we did not attain our independence simply because we “showed up” one day. There were plans to make, details to attend to, and work to be done—beginning with the clearing, by hand, of brush and rocks to lay out a road to where our house was built. We developed much of the five acres into what we called a “flower farm,” with glasshouses and gardens, the sale of our plants almost supporting us.

Today, too many like to think that independence is a given; that we just have to “show up” and the American dream will continue. We mouth knee-jerk arguments supporting “freedom” but aren’t interested in the consequences. Consider freedom of speech and expression: as fundamental to the American way as we like to say they are—as privileged as I am to have freedom of speech in your pulpit—permitting people to do or say whatever they feel like doing or saying—no matter how abusive—this, by itself, is not the promise of freedom, any more than just voting is the promise of democracy.

When we’re abused by the speech or expression of strangers, politicians, businesses or big lobbies (guns, tobacco, banks)—refusing to challenge them is the primary peril of democracy: we have an obligation to confront them in ways that maintain our integrity but, when we don’t, we diminish our integrity and lessen our freedom. True, it seems that civil discourse these days often turns into a screaming match—a la cable news or talk radio—but we have that responsibility. As Elie Wiesel wrote: “There may be times when we are unable to prevent an injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”

We’ve become used to a way of living that cannot sustain itself. In his classic, Moby Dick, Herman Melville names those who insist on complete freedom Isolatos, describing them as “not acknowledging the common continent of men, each Isolato wanting to live on his own separate continent.”

We’ve forgotten what creates freedom: it doesn’t come from political power, military might or personal reputation; it doesn’t happen by controlling others or making them fear us; it doesn’t come from things we have or when we hide in isolationt. We’ve forgotten that freedom is already available to us, regardless of individual circumstance, a gift of grace. Essentially, freedom is about “letting go:” we feel free when we let go of our attachment to “things,” when we let go of needing the government or someone else to make us happy or tell us what we should do; freedom comes as we let go of pretending we are something we’re not, of needing to make sure things turn out “as they’re supposed to.”

Freedom comes when we think of others more than ourselves. We see it in compassion: not in feeling sorry or sad for someone, or even by stating our concern; true compassion comes in seeing that we are connected to each other, to the whole of life, and, because of that connection, we unquestioningly treat others as we would want to be treated, ourselves; that is true compassion.

But, because we are human, we will not always be compassionate and, so, there will never be a world free from war or injustice; free from those “ambitious men and sinister leaders” described in this morning’s first Reading, those who promote themselves as “champions of the people” while leading them into greater slavery. Likewise because we are human, there will never be a world free from materialism, racism, sexism, and all the other dehumanizing “isms.” But, even so, on our journey, we can have times of living in freedom.

What does that mean, “living in freedom”? How does it happen? Freedom, ultimately, is spiritual: recall David Rankin’s Meditation: “Freedom is the oxygen of the human spirit, its indispensable element.” Without freedom, the human spirit withers—and without the spirit nurturing it, there is no freedom. We “live in freedom whenever we do the right thing (no matter the cost), whenever we speak the truth (no matter how hard); when we ask for, and offer, forgiveness.

Such freedom extends far beyond the individual: when we squander our spirit and our freedom by focusing exclusively on our personal agendas, we deprive the human family of opportunities for greater abundance: freedom perpetuates freedom, as love perpetuates love, (as war perpetuates war). To the extent that I choose to “live in freedom,” I am encouraging freedom in others. To the extent that America truly “lives in freedom,” we best encourage freedom in the world.

Freedom is scary. It asks that we give up all that has defined and controlled our lives; to let go and begin, again…and again. It’s much easier to choose our familiar slavery than to choose freedom: in freedom, we are responsible for what we are and what we do; by staying enslaved, we always have someone else we can blame for our difficulties…But we’re all in this together.

Last year, an Army general gave the commencement address to a new generation of graduating military officers. Along with recounting the dangers and opportunities these cream-of-the-crop soldiers now faced, he made a plea for them to be kind to each other. It is advice sorely needed for the rest of us. As always, this is a time when we need to be asking some hard questions about our freedom and our democracy, questions like: What will it take for citizens to accept their civic obligations? What will it take for our government to be trusted, again, by much of the world? What kind of America do we want those new military officers to defend?

The strength, resilience, courage and compassion that have always been part of “We, the people” are still with us. Unfortunately, so is our greatest weakness: namely, our willingness to be taken in by flag-waving demagogues and high-priced hucksters.

Still, it is an enormous privilege to live inside America’s borders. Yet, it would be even better if we truly learned from our mistakes, were accountable for what has been done, and responsibly challenge what is still being done; if we took time for questioning, to start again with a life of more self-restraint and greater true compassion—especially toward those who return with the wounds of war.

In the meantime, to conclude, I leave you with these “one-liners” from a variety of sources, a good way to sum up today’s message:

• Freedom is when the people can speak; democracy is when the government will listen.

• Democracy evolves where freedom is able to determine its own policy.

• Freedom without obligation is anarchy. Freedom with obligation is democracy.

• Democracy is not something you have; it's something you do. You participate. If you stop doing it, democracy crumbles.

• The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.

• The most serious threat to democracy is the notion that it has already been achieved.

• As has been said of Christianity, democracy has never really been tried.

• No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government…except for all others.

• If freedom is about “letting go,” democracy is about “giving up;” What are you willing to give up for the good of the whole?

CLOSING: 
St. Paul talked about “fighting the good fight.” With that in mind (and recalling that this was an Independence Day-inspired service), may future Independence Days honor not only our warriors —past, present and, unfortunately, future—but, as well, those citizens who, also, “fought the good fight” by standing up against abuses of freedom because they understood that those rights worth fighting for are never fully won but are so very easily lost.

In this spirit, may we begin acting more kindly to each other; and may we do even more to bless America with other kinds of independences: independence from worry over money, food and shelter; independence from hate, racism and selfishness; independence from degrading people who look and act differently.

And finally—and most importantly—may we celebrate an independence from pointing fingers at others, pretending that we are not part of the problem; may we finally understand that the only way these blessings will happen is if we—each one of us—demand it…and act on it; because no one else will do it for us.