Freedom is such a troubling concept to me—in part due to it's amorphus nature. As soon as one starts to touch it, it starts to change, when one examines it at closer eye, it seems to disappear to another domain. Below, I explore a few questions and notions of freedom as we know it.

But it always seems to exist—somewhere somehow. I can feel it, I can sense it—some people are just more free then others. The ability to be free, is to be without state and social constraints on one, and when such constrants must exist, they are as limited as possible.

To me, it appears that as social distance increases between people, freedom also increases. The individual has more freedom of action, when there are fewer people to interfere with his choice of lifestyle.

Thomas Jefferson one dreamed of America as a nation of Yeomen farmers and small and personal relations. He probably realized what a big bureaucratic state was likely to form in America, but he probably avoided thinking about it, with the fear that promoting such an idea would be the living death of freedom (which is).

To Max Weber, the growth of bureaucracy, knowledge, and technology are centered around one central item in American history—the growth of rationalism. Weber saw responsible freedom narrowing, possibly turning our nation into a totalitarian state. Freedom to him is the intersection of the 'irrational' (the opposite of the 'rational'), and privacy (the inability of others to see that your acting irrational and therefore force you to act in another way).

Where Freedom Hides

Freedom belongs to rural America. While rural America may not have a monopoly on freedom, it certainly reduces the restrictions of state and corporate on the individual.

Nature is the 'irrational' (see the Dialetic of Irrationality Revisted)—it is the beautiful, the athestic, what the world is really like. We are ultimately all creatures of mother earth, and we must love and respect her. She is the most beautiful thing out there, she controls us to a higher degree then any authority—nature is the ultimate soverign.

There is something truly special about the 'irrational', something that I find increadibly hard to describe. In this case, I'm referring to the natural world, rural America, and anything that's not totally dominated by mankind's forces.

We can build the greatest cities possible, we can make buildings that shine and look impressive, have all the gagets in the world (including a shinny 2004 truck for every season), and not have anything. We need the natural.

Mother Earth is not a single entity, in some ways it is a league or a grouping of the 'irrational'. Systems work so well in it. But it also means that in nature all human beings are sovereign insofar as they live with nature, and take the risks that nature demands of them.

How can it not be freedom, when you are alone, watching the sunset on Irish Hill? The rolling landscape is so beautiful as the sun's last beams set over the hill. The sun certainly is soverign, it would never obey any of the rules that the state sets on it.

Nature gives us the feeling of freedom. I reflect back to my experience of walking along Bush Drive in Berne, at sunset, watching the wind blow through the mowed down cornfields. I'm alone, and I'm free, whatever that means. At any rate, I feel good, and somehow I feel I have some au*tonomy over what I'm doing—if anything, the 'forces' would prefer me not to be there—I don't think anybody coecorced me to go for a hike this afternoon, I did something under my total control.

Governments can ultimately only control people, they can not control nature. While maybe some farmers would prefer favoritable climates for growing year round, government certainly can't do anything about that demand.

The Living Death of Freedom

Alas, we can put up new buildings, turn farm fields in parking lots, and turn country into suburb, with increasing need. It seems that society has a demand for such suburbs with it's growing population, and demands for a more predicable way of life (instead of the wild risks and costs that small farms bring to society).

Everybody wants to create new rules and regulations to suit their causes, they want to change the world to be more friendly to their own interests. Heck, there are even rules out there in almost every locality to prevent further rationalization—nee... sprawl.

Sprawl if it is anything, it is a furthering of the goal of rationalization—it is the conquering of what Marx once called the idiocy of rural life (I love calling it that). But the 'irrational' isnÕt bad, and the rational isnÕt good. Neither route is true all of the time. If this suggests anything, it would be that government is not good nor evil, planning can have good and bad effects.

We as human beings need flexibility in our environment, we want some surprises, we donÕt want everything planned out ahead of time by some committee that supposedly has greater wisdom then we. The rural is one way to ensure that we can get such a life.

Freedom from Terror

Most of the time when I discuss terror around here, I am talking about the force of the state, to use punishment as a form of terror to obtain dominance over a people. People understand the force so clearly, that there rarely is any question of authority—even when there should be a question asked about the legitimacy of the said force.

But there is another kind of terror, that Republicans sometimes talk about, that is another threat to our livelihoods. It is the terror associated with crime. ItÕs really nice to live somewhere you donÕt have to lock your doors, and you know all your neighbors. But you canÕt do that if you spend your whole life in fear, of somebody coming in and robbing you.

Crime is terror, like it or not. It expresses a form of power over us all, and coerces us to do things that we would not normally do. Criminals have no legitimacy, we certainly didnÕt vote for them to come in and rob our house (thatÕs what we have the state for). Crime is not just against an individual, itÕs a form of terror, against society.

Results of Crime

Crime is terrible. Not only does it rob us of our property and our rights, it gives the state a right to take away our freedom. People demand that government protect us, and then legislatures create laws that further limit our freedom, if only because some morons decided to go above and beyond what was right, what was moral.

More rules enviably lead to less freedom. Government is the anti-thesis of freedom, but it must also exist to protect freedom. If people did whatever they wanted, it would be a rough life, weÕd have no property,

Freedom as Automony

Automony literally means self goverance. It's more then just freedom to do whatever one pleases, it's a form of governing, of thoughtful application of power over oneself to maxmize one's long term interest through enlightened self-interest.

The question of automony should not be one of the state, but rather of the individual, who is soveriegn and able to make his own decisions, with his conscience being his judge. When applied not to a state, but to oneself, it quite drastically changes their meaning, it changes how we look at such terms.

Conclusions

Our natural world has a lot to offer us as a society. We must not blindly support the growth of technology and bureaucracy, without questioning their effects on the freedom and dignity of mankind. A society that learns to respect our natural environment, and the domain of the 'idiocy of rural life' will be one that is sustainable, and one that is more compatible and peaceful.