Independence Day is just around the corner – barbeques, family, friends, and fireworks! I know I’m looking forward to ALL of it, and I’m sure you are too. But as we celebrate the birth of our nation and the freedom it stands for, I’d like to challenge you to take a moment and reflect on the responsibility that comes with it.
This notion of responsibility was really brought home to me this week with the uproar in the media over the supreme courts Hobby Lobby decision. To hear them spin it, you’d think that nobody will ever be able to use contraception again! But since when does the fact that I don’t want to buy you a hotdog mean you can’t have one? Freedom without personal responsibility is nothing more than a recipe for tyranny. And it doesn’t matter whether the tyrant is one or many.
Since its very beginning, our nation has struggled with the strain between personal and corporate freedom. Many of our forefathers fled to the New World in search of freedom only to turn right around and deny that same freedom to others. It seems to be one of the uglier sides of human nature to fail to see the value in granting others – other colors, other creeds, other classes – the same rights to freedom that we cherish for ourselves.
Particularly insidious though, is the tyranny of entitlement; the notion that others should bear the responsibility for an individual’s own personal choices. Certainly individual wealth and power carries with it the potential to abuse freedom. But the kneejerk reaction that “fair” means “sameness” in all things as well as immunity from consequences is perhaps the worst form of tyranny, for it is the most difficult to identify –hiding as it does in the guise of “compassion”.
Real compassion or love however, is only possible in an atmosphere of freedom, and quickly dies whenever and wherever coercion rears its ugly head. So if we want a more compassionate nation, we need to promote a more free nation.
Which brings me to my challenge for you: as you celebrate the 4th of July this year, take a few minutes to contemplate what you can do to promote freedom.
- Vote whenever possible for more freedom and less coercion
- Be informed about issues affecting the freedom of your community and nation
- Listen to understand opposing perspectives
- Speak up in defense of liberty, even when it’s not “politically correct”
- Exercise your freedom with true compassion for every person you meet
- Spend an hour each day in the Gospels with the most free and compassionate man ever to walk on this earth.
Untold thousands have died so that you and I may be free. What are you willing to do, what price are you willing to pay, to assure that their sacrifice was not in vain?
Dr. Lon Peckham provides comprehensive and wholistic dental care in Priest River, Idaho. He is a consultant certified in Lead Management and Choice Theory, Advanced Dental Implantology, as a Lifestyle Health Facilitator, and is currently pursuing certification by the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine. He helps Patients and Dentists successfully incorporate whole-health into their lives and practices.