The last menu item on my original Penn State home page led to a web page about one of my most cherished values, freedom. In my ideal world, everyone would be free to do anything they wanted to do, as long as it did not harm other people. I liked this page so much that I used it as my home page for some time before changing it to a linked page.
My original freedom web page had a complex (for its time) design, an image map with both text- and image-based links to organizations that support different kinds of freedom. That design proved to be too complex for me to translate into a WordPress page, so I simply placed a screenshot of it at the top of the current page. The links to the organizations are as follows:
- The Libertarian Party (freedom from conscription, excessive taxation, and punishment for victimless crimes)
- Planned Parenthood (freedom of reproductive choice)
- Freedom from Religion Foundation (freedom from religious indoctrination and imposition)
- Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity (freedom from discrimination for sexual orientation)
- Death with Dignity National Center (freedom to die with dignity)
The original page also had a links to a page called The Truth About War, a page on the economic costs of war and a page on war causalities. These linked pages concerned the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I think they are still relevant today, because there are always wars somewhere and more wars around the corner. Some claim that wars are necessary to preserve freedom. Perhaps, but wars also impinge upon the freedoms of innocents.
To live and let live, as long as people are not harmed, seems a simple enough general principle. But the concept of appropriate freedom gets complicated when we get into the details. I had posted a companion page on Freedom and Nonviolence that gets into some of the details and complexities of appropriate freedom. In that page I express my disapproval of initiating or threatening physical harm to control other people. I also express dislike of causing even emotional distress in others, but I am unwilling to sacrifice another important value for me–saying what I think is true–just to avoid offending people. At the same time, I have not carefully considered how offensive I might be willing to be in order to speak the truth as I see it.
I have come to realize that there are additional complexities about freedom that I did not cover in my Freedom and Nonviolence statement. In that statement, I wrote only about physical violence against human beings. But what about other sentient creatures? Vegans make some good arguments about not committing violence against animals. Although I lean toward a plant-based diet and strive to eat only meat and animal products from animals that have been “humanely treated,” I sometimes question this practice.
For each of the five freedoms I listed above, none of these issues are black-and-white for me.
I certainly favor the concept of limited government as described in the U.S. constitution (from which I think modern government has strayed terribly), but I could not tell you exactly how much taxation is reasonable or exactly which laws are necessary or unnecessary.
I favor the the right of women to prevent pregnancies with contraception and to terminate an unwanted pregnancy before fetal viability, but I also think that unwanted pregnancies should be terminated well before 24 weeks, unless the pregnancy puts the woman’s life in danger. Hopefully, some day we will be able to prevent nearly all unwanted pregnancies, and we will no longer have to make difficult decisions about aborting fetuses.
My endorsement of the Freedom from Religion Foundation does not mean I am anti-religion. I have written about my complex views on religion and spirituality elsewhere. My major objections about religion involve the mindless repetition of superstitious and irrational ideas from centuries ago, the indoctrination of helpless children into these irrational ideas, using religion as a pretext for emotional abuse, violence, and war, and attempts to impose religious ideas into our systems of government and education.
I support freedom for consenting persons to engage in any sexual activities, identities and relationships that they desire, as long as people are not harmed. But sometimes consent and harm are difficult to define. Institutional review boards typically require parental consent for students under the age of 18 to participate in research studies. I question whether young adolescents who feel transgender are capable of giving informed consent for life-changing surgeries and drug treatments. I have always supported LGBT rights, but today I am overwhelmed by the explosion of terms for gender identities.
Life is short and precious, but that does not mean it should always be preserved at any cost. The difficulty is knowing when someone is capable of making a reasonable decision to no longer prolong their life.