Driving up the Carolina coast for Fourth of July at the beach, we passed miles and miles of Camp Lejeune, home of the U.S. Marines.
This stretch of road is truly Marineland--marquees on churches, grocery stores, dry cleaners, and hamburger stands repeated the same reminder: "Freedom is not free."
This notion first entered my consciousness in the rowdy junior high school I attended in my hometown in Kansas, where our beleaguered principal's motto, warning, and repeated incantation warding off the spirits of disorder was "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."
In junior high, I could see the usefulness of this idea, just as I can see how people born without any bones in their body would need to wear a straitjacket to be able to stand up. If you have no self-discipline, I can understand how something like the Marine Corps could provide the exoskeleton you'd need to survive while you were getting your act together.
And six decades of life in America has taught me the light and dark sides of how freedom plays out in this country.
The price of Thomas Jefferson is Sally Hemings.
The price of Abraham Lincoln is the Civil War.
The price of Mark Twain is Ernest Hemingway.
The price of John Ford movies is Wounded Knee.
The price of Fred Astaire is the Great Depression.
The price of the Marx Brothers is the Three Stooges.
The price of Jon Stewart is Dick Cheney.
The price of the Sixties is having to listen to Lee Greenwood sing "God Bless the U.S.A." for the 40 years thereafter.
All in all I believe it's been worth it. But even now, after all these years, I still object to the notion of a trade off for freedom. When Greenwood whines that he's "proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free," it's like the old fart in Hard Day's Night stuck in the train car with the Beatles, grousing about having to have fought the war for punks like them. Says John Lennon, "I bet you're sorry you won."
There is no price to pay for real freedom. It is inherently priceless. In a slave society it's possible to buy your freedom; in a free society you get it by waking up each morning.
If you listen to Bob Dylan and think "Like a Rolling Stone" is about how hard it is to lose everything, rather than how absolutely liberating it is, you haven't got a handle on what freedom is about. He's not just asking a snide question. He's having an orgasm:
How does it feel
How does it feel
Oh, how does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone
Have a happy Fourth.
This stretch of road is truly Marineland--marquees on churches, grocery stores, dry cleaners, and hamburger stands repeated the same reminder: "Freedom is not free."
This notion first entered my consciousness in the rowdy junior high school I attended in my hometown in Kansas, where our beleaguered principal's motto, warning, and repeated incantation warding off the spirits of disorder was "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."
In junior high, I could see the usefulness of this idea, just as I can see how people born without any bones in their body would need to wear a straitjacket to be able to stand up. If you have no self-discipline, I can understand how something like the Marine Corps could provide the exoskeleton you'd need to survive while you were getting your act together.
And six decades of life in America has taught me the light and dark sides of how freedom plays out in this country.
The price of Thomas Jefferson is Sally Hemings.
The price of Abraham Lincoln is the Civil War.
The price of Mark Twain is Ernest Hemingway.
The price of John Ford movies is Wounded Knee.
The price of Fred Astaire is the Great Depression.
The price of the Marx Brothers is the Three Stooges.
The price of Jon Stewart is Dick Cheney.
The price of the Sixties is having to listen to Lee Greenwood sing "God Bless the U.S.A." for the 40 years thereafter.
All in all I believe it's been worth it. But even now, after all these years, I still object to the notion of a trade off for freedom. When Greenwood whines that he's "proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free," it's like the old fart in Hard Day's Night stuck in the train car with the Beatles, grousing about having to have fought the war for punks like them. Says John Lennon, "I bet you're sorry you won."
There is no price to pay for real freedom. It is inherently priceless. In a slave society it's possible to buy your freedom; in a free society you get it by waking up each morning.
If you listen to Bob Dylan and think "Like a Rolling Stone" is about how hard it is to lose everything, rather than how absolutely liberating it is, you haven't got a handle on what freedom is about. He's not just asking a snide question. He's having an orgasm:
How does it feel
How does it feel
Oh, how does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone
Have a happy Fourth.
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