by Isaac M. Morehouse | Posted on 10/3/2008

As the presidential election nears, I hear more people voicing their fear over the prospect of the other candidate winning. People from both major parties express genuine trepidation at the thought of a world without their candidate as commander in chief. Both sides believe we will lose our freedom if the wrong party wins.

Perhaps surprisingly, I think there's a lesson to be learned in all this from Hollywood.

The 1994 movie Shawshank Redemption is the fictional story of Andy Dufresne, a prisoner at the infamous Shawshank Penitentiary. One of Dufresne's fellow inmates, Brooks Hatlen, has spent nearly his entire life in Shawshank, and has settled in to the routine and become the prison's bookkeeper. After a lifetime in prison, Hatlen is finally freed as an old man. Once on the outside, Hatlen finds life beyond bars too complicated and confusing, too new, too risky. He cannot cope with this newfound freedom after a life of bondage and, tragically, he commits suicide.

Brooks Hatlen forgot how to be free. He became accustomed to bondage and let the yearning for freedom die within him over his long stay in the penitentiary.

Andy Dufresne, on the other hand, never let his freedom die. While locked in Shawshank, despite oppressive and often gruesome circumstances, Dufresne's spirit was unshakable. He constantly cultivated the seeds of freedom in the least free setting imaginable. When Dufresne escaped, unlike Hatlen, he embraced life in the free air and pursued his dreams.

The difference between these two men had nothing to do with their physical circumstances; both were in prison. Yet Andy Dufresne, even while imprisoned, was still free. No bars or guards or hardships could take away his freedom. Hatlen had lost his freedom, and even in the absence of physical oppression, he was still a prisoner. An individual who wants to be free can be, no matter what the world brings. An individual who has let the spirit of freedom die will never be free, no matter what the world brings.

The idea that freedom is simply a state of mind may sound trifling, especially when considering some of the unimaginable horrors faced by unfree peoples across the globe. But even political freedom cannot be had without a people who keep the spirit of freedom alive within themselves; and if they do, political freedom is often not far behind.

Lawrence Reed, president of the Foundation for Economic Education, tells an inspiring story of an underground band of freedom fighters in formerly communist Poland. Their spirit of freedom was kept alive despite a tyrannical Communist regime. Indeed, they not only held onto their belief in freedom, but they spread it, often at great risk to their lives. When the Communist authorities finally announced that they were relinquishing their power the reason they gave was that the Polish people had become "ungovernable." No regulations, no prisons, no secret police, no propaganda, no physical or political suppression could take away the people's freedom. They were free, whether the government liked it or not.

Keep this in mind as America's government changes with each election. Remember this when you see government expanding its reach into your life. Rather than looking to political leaders to protect or expand our freedom we should cultivate the seeds of freedom in our own spirits, and inspire others to do the same. Nothing government can do can take away our freedom; and if we are a people who are truly free, the government will have to follow.

niiiiice

Didn't John McCain go through something like that?

That was uplifting.

I thought it was inspirational as well.

We Americans are not ready yet to exemplify this paradigm.

The present bailout and the "imminent threat" of Obama as CIC is sure to bring many distinctions to bear about freedom and liberty under the banner of the US Constitution.

I doubt that sufficient lessons will be learned for any real consensus to exist in our generation by gleaning anything credible from the exercise before us as a nation.

The American experience is headed into an abyss of complacency and ready excuses for being ambivalent about tyrannical suppression of our inheritance.

We are spending our inheritance and not investing it in posterity.

That inheritance is freedom and liberty itself.

The American people are proving, more and more every day, that Americans have no collective will to preserve liberties and freedoms, but do willfully show a desire to be coddled and lulled into a false sense of security by our institutionalized "self-governance".

CAse in point : the compounding spiral of the National Debt. Everyone knows that if you are bleeding profusely from a wound to an artery, that loss of blood leads directly and irrefutably to a terminal condition due that symptom, yet.......


That defines and describes by rote what will come.

It isn't a romantic notion, for sure.

Wouldee,You don't know all Americans and now that Bush has f@#$ked up the country,you want to spread the blame.I for one was not for the Patriot Act or the bomb them into submission policies of the last 8 years.
Very nice warmachine.

good for you, dear.

now get off your partisan horse and realize that the National Debt is what is destroying this nation.

That destruction is characterized by your Obama. It isn't Obama himself that concerns me, but it is this fascination with his platform that exemplifies just how stupid this country is.

Even McCain cannot express anything different.


You and others are blind to the fact that the National Debt is impossible to reign in without drastically cutting government spending.

So many government programs and services will have to be cut out just to balance the debt, even if a 40 year repayment plan were implemented.


You, like SO MANY OTHERS, just don't get it.


A spiralling National Debt IS a loss of liberties and freedoms.

Why can't you see that?


and don;t give me how wrong mcCain is. He is no cure. He is just an insignificant and insufficient bandaid on a HUGE mortal wound.

It is not the person at the top but that party which holds that person.

Please face facts... Wall Street controls our government as surely as they hold the ability to cut off funding. (i.e. the credit markets).

Both parties actively seek financing.

Our nation as a whole (private individuals, corporations and government entities) are all linked in a malestrom of debt.

When it becomes necessary to get the permission of politicians to access your money you will wake up and realize that We the People will once again need to bleed to restore balance... and LIBERTY.

I don't like Obama.Just because I don't agree with you doesn't make me for Obama.get a clue.This is the worst choice of candidates I have ever seen.I am scared for this country.
Time to stock up on seeds and Hopefully the Amish will give survival classes.

LOL

so why are you yanking my chain?



This is about our liberties and freedoms, right?

There is no question, but that the National Debt is a ball and chain and the American people are attached to that ball and chain and we are being thrown overboard by our own government and every one of our leaders is lying to us.

Every damn one of them.

None of them would get elected if they told the truth and fought for a reduction of principal of the National Debt.

Instead, the American people vote with their stomachs, en mass.

There is no free lunch.

America needs to fast.

Either way, fast or more free lunches, our nation is bankrupt, and our freedoms and liberties have been given to the Central Banking Cartel and our military will soon prove to defend their interests, not ours.

Time to wake up and not get too irritated with my cynicism which is humor not understood.

I have better hopes for you.

Your wit and humor suggests that you may just get it.

Keep saving those seeds. That is smart.

peace.

Realistically?

This ain't about OUR freedoms and liberty any longer.

We kinda forfeited the greater part of that when we slept through the great fleecing...

This is about the Freedoms and Liberty of FUTURE generations of Americans.

What do you want their history lessons to be?

Will they read about a Paul Revere from our generation. Or is our nation merely a collection of Benedict Arnolds?

You Decide.

I agree with you in principle, but I don't think that McCain's spending policies would be much better than Obama's. McCain has continually associated himself with the recent wave of fiscally reckless conservatism (a bastardization of the theory, to be sure). His militaristic policies ensure that the defense budget will soar. His health care policy calls for nearly as much spending as Obama's. This country needs a libertarian. Or at least a reformed electoral system which promotes a multi party election.

(And yes, I know you said you're not trumpeting McCain as the solution...but I just don't think that he's even any better than Obama in terms of fixing the debt.)

he is no better.

they are all waxing us.

But obama is an accelerant, to be sure.

no obomba.


but in a couple of months, America will forget about this election and the philosophical, ethical and moral challenges before us, once again, and go on burying heads in the sand, pointing fingers, ignoring personal responsibilities, and generally running amuck in recreational pursuits, ad naseum.

While the National Debt unhinges the credibility of this nation's currency and "good faith and credit".


There is not one mention of this from Obama.

At the least, McCain acknowledges that the federal government is inept at doing anything efficiently and with sound economic principles, and he acknowledges that government spending MUST be reigned in.

That is paramount to political suicide, judging by the current trends in the polls.

That does more than suggest that OBAMA is a very real and present imminent danger.

By virtue of that distinction, OBAMA is incpmpetent and delusional in his willful ignorance of present realities which are rendering this nation bankrupt.

His handlers do not care either.

All I hear from Obama is a free lunch program being offered the voters with the most numbers, demographically speaking, that can buy him in for reward.


BULL$H!T. pure and simple

Great post War!

Thanks again for the props.

I think I have to agree with AB on this one:
"Realistically?

This ain't about OUR freedoms and liberty any longer.

We kinda forfeited the greater part of that when we slept through the great fleecing...

This is about the Freedoms and Liberty of FUTURE generations of Americans.

What do you want their history lessons to be?

Will they read about a Paul Revere from our generation. Or is our nation merely a collection of Benedict Arnolds?

You Decide. "


We let them destroy our rights, by letting them circumvent the Constitution with the Pat.Acts I & II, the John Warner defense authorization act, the Homegrown terrorist prevention act, Bush's unconstitutional SPP/NAU accords, Bush's CoG which he refuses to let members of the Committee of Homeland defense look at.

We've been had by both sides of the aisle, both sides of the aisle passed alot of these things. I'm just glad I live in a state that has passed Anti-Patriot act legislation. That might not buy alot of time, but at least I won't have to worry about my local sheriff.