Freedom and idealism

I don't know why.

I guess it's because I'm at a point in my life where I am becoming more self-disciplined, where I'm accepting my limits more readily, and where I realize that what makes me unhappy in my life, always, is the extent to which my freedom is limited. Not the freedom to murder, obviously, or freedom to do ugliness. Just the places where my choices and an honest and open expression of my thoughts, feelings, self, and choices are limited.

I realized, today, that the reason why that period of my life, of most peoples' lives, where I felt the most idealistic - my years in college and grad school, especially - was because it was the period of my life when I was experiencing the most freedom and expansion of my freedom and exploring a world that I had, up till that point, not had much contact with.

The most idealistic times in my life were when I first entered college and was living a life on my own, for the first time. And when I was in grad school and dating my best friend and exploring a world freely with someone else, for the first time, that I had not known very well, up until that point, and sharing it with someone who also appreciated learning about that world with me and that kind of freedom. It was an innocent exploration, for the most part. Neither of us were using drugs or wildly partying. We were just exploring the world - a world of sexuality, of politics, of people we were not familiar with and had not experienced, before, of talking frankly with someone else we cared about, and making tons of mistakes in both of our first really serious relationship - and learning about everything it had to offer with someone who could appreciate both the experience and the freedom to have it that most other people, up until that point in my life, could not have appreciated as well.

I guess it's because I'm growing up and I'm letting go of much of the folly and immaturity of my youth. But much of that immaturity and folly is also associated, in my mind, with that freedom that so made my life worth living and such a deeply refreshing and rewarding experience.

Maybe that's why I'm so sensitive to efforts to limit my freedom. Because it is, for me, the best opportunity for learning and growth and associated with the time in my life when I learned and grew the most and the most profoundly and experienced a world I was largely unfamiliar with, up until that point.

Freedom matters to me because it is what makes all of the most profound and deeply enriching times in my life possible.

And today, for some reason, maybe because I'm getting to a point in my life where I am accepting limitations in my life more readily or maybe it is because I get tired of all kinds of limitations and impositions that I don't think I should have to put up with, I've been feeling a little down about not having it in my life.

What I need is some vegi phad thai, some obscure, cheap beer, and, ideally, I would need someone I could spill my heart with. I'd love that to be a girl. But I don't really have one, in my life, right now, that I could just spill with, like that, and get to listen to all of the exciting things she is learning and ready to share with me. That's the one I'm waiting for.

I suppose phad thai and beer will have to do, in the meantime. But I'm sure its the side of freedom and idealism that I crave the most.

Why this period is regressive

Press freedom declines worldwide, North Korea listed as worst

"Worldwide, the environment for journalists grew more hostile last year, extending a six-year downturn, researchers reported Tuesday.

Setbacks for press freedom outnumbered advances 2-to-1 across the globe, although the Internet and blogs helped slow the decline, particularly in Iran, reported Freedom House, a nonprofit organization that released the report in advance of World Press Freedom Day on Saturday...

...'For every step forward in press freedom last year there were two steps back,' said Jennifer Windsor, executive director of Freedom House, in a statement accompanying the report. 'When press freedom is in retreat it is an ominous sign that restrictions on other freedoms may soon follow.'

And yet, journalists were credited with pushing the boundaries set by authorities. In Egypt, for instance, their increased willingness to cross 'red lines' was cited as boosting the country into the partly free category from the not-free group."

Liberal values are really not all that complicated, once you get out of the business of rationalizing power and limits on freedom.

Progress occurs with expansion of freedom, not greater limitations. We just get so full of the bullshit, sometimes, that we lose track.

When I think about it, my unhappiness is not with my job. My unhappiness is with a world where people cannot and refuse to engage important questions more honestly, substantively, and freely and are constantly using intimidation and repression as some kind of substitute.

This story reflects that reality all over the world, including in America.

Surely the free world, and the unfree world, can do better than this.

Changing our ways

I'm still supporting McCain. But I have to say that I agree, generally, with Andrew Sullivan's concerns about Obama and what his candidacy represents.

"We're seeing many of the worst aspects of America's culture war come back to target the one politician who had the chance to get us beyond it. It is no accident to me that Wright is of the Vietnam generation that bequeathed us these divides; and it is no accident that the Clintons will eagerly pivot off it; or that the far right will exploit it; or that Obama's tolerance for a man like this for so many years will hurt him. And yet I refuse to believe that we have to remain captive to this syndrome; I refuse to believe that racial discourse has to be framed by Pat Buchanan and Jeremiah Wright; I refuse to abandon the hope I felt only a few months ago.

This moment is far too important to surrender to the forces that want to return us to the divisions and obsessions of the past. The only way past this, perhaps, is through it. Obama needs to repudiate Wright's grandstanding and reiterate in clear terms the rationale of his candidacy: that the past is over, and we have to move forward in ending this war in Iraq, restoring America's standing in the world, repairing the massive and mounting debt, bringing America back to the forefront of human rights, and bringing the best aspects of America to the foreground again.

The world is watching. And we still can."

It is true that the Obama campaign is the most genuine commitment to leaving this kind of politics, and the political and cultural warfare of the Vietnam generation, behind us.

I've supported John McCain and Barack Obama in their respective campaigns because I thought they offered us the best opportunity for a more honest discussion and debate that seeks to leave such emnities behind us.

Leaders do not pander to our basest impulses. Leaders lead us past them. These two candidates were our best shot at that, in the political process, proper, I think.

And Sullivan is right that the campaign against Barack Obama is a campaign of smear and bitterness about those political battles that only is useful insofar as it raises relevant questions about the challenges we face, today.

Jeremiah Wright, John Hagee, William Ayers and all such similar figures are responsible for their own behavior and are only relevant insofar as they address how candidates would handle contemporary challenges.

But more, they say much about how we face those same challenges.

Are we wise enough to turn this discussion into something more constructive to address our common problems.

Or are we foolish enough to think that one group will win and others will lose in these ideological, cultural, and political wars.

If it is the latter, we are responsible for that problem, no matter how we spin it otherwise.

Taking responsibility for our role in these debates and discussions is our only way forward.

Everything else is foolhardy. And a challenge that our children will have to take up if we do not have the wisdom and the courage to do it ourselves.

Peace or tragedy

Talking to 'terrorists'

I have to say that though I certainly take exception to Jimmy Carter's equivocation of terrorism - if Hamas is not a terrorist group, what group would qualify? - the terms he hammered out with Hamas and details in this piece do look promising.

And though I'm not a fan of Carter's sympathy for Palestinian terrorists, he is right on the bigger issue. Only a peace deal gets Israel and Palestine out of this loop of ongoing tragedy. There is no military solution to this standoff.

Perhaps we should pause to consider what Hamas is offering.