“Liberty will not descend to a people; a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.”—Charles Caleb Colton
Liberty and Responsibility. I believe in both of these. I believe that we cannot enjoy one without the other.
Liberty has been on my mind quite a bit lately as watch, what I perceive to be, a nation become increasingly less free. This is not a political post, per se. Indeed, it is more a post of Spiritual well-centeredness. Freedom, after all, is a Spiritual concept. Liberty and responsibility go hand-in-hand with other-centeredness. Perhaps, we have lost sight of this. We are choosing to allow ourselves to be increasingly governed (political, as well as socially), gradually and unwittingly yielding our personal freedoms.
I often come back to the concept of the Commons (per Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons”). Liberty and Responsibility fit with the idea of a Commons. Unfortunately, fewer and fewer individuals are directing how the Commons should be managed and who should be managers. The Commons, however, is not to be managed by an elite few. Rather it is to be shared fairly and equitably by the masses. Liberty and Responsibility.
We cannot be free and still be self-centered. That is not freedom. Politically, that is oligarchy. Socially, that is oppression. Liberty and Responsibility go together because freedom is a Universal. One cannot call oneself “free” and deny another the same rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.
Be your best today; be better tomorrow.
Carpe momento!!