The Real Price of Freedom
Over twenty one hundred soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq.
Upwards of one hundred thousand innocent Iraqis have perished.
Untold numbers of American and Iraqi veterans and Iraqi civilians have lost their limbs, are suffering mental trauma, or have become homeless.
And billions of dollars in corporate profits have been wrung from the misery of these souls.
When I meditate on the true price of freedom, I do not think in traditional terms of the noble soldier defending my liberty with his life.
Instead, I think of the ignoble costs of war. I think of the needless sacrifice of soldiers whose precious lives are squandered on the basis of imperialist hubris; I think of the decimated dreams of hapless men, women, and children, who suffer grievously for lack of water, electricity, limbs, hope; I think of the egregiously reckless war profiteering by contractors and oil tycoons; I think of the horrifically hypocritical sanctioning of torture by an administration who once seemed so bent on deposing a similarly murderous regime.
Indeed, as we can see, the price of freedom is freedom itself. We lose all our investments in liberty when we blind our moral conscience to grave scenes of torture and greed. We bankrupt our own integrity when we fail to extend our charitable humanity to others.
In fact, humans become the very tombs of liberty when we bury our own ethical sense about a staggeringly brutal reality underneath mountains of denial.
Freedom, as the saying goes, is not free. This much is true. Freedom is quite costly.
But freedom cannot be purchased with bullets or bombs.
Freedom can only be purchased with love.
For freedom is integrity and morality.
Freedom is compassion and justice.
Freedom is priceless, and war impoverishes us all.
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Alison Ross is a passionate but peeved advocate for the poor and homeless. She deplores American fascism but adores American liberalism. She has had her sociopolitical rants showcased in Democracy Means You, Exquisite Corpse, Democratic Underground, Muse Apprentice Guild, When Falls the Coliseum, and Creative Loafing. She also venerates verse, and has had her poetry published in Cerebral Catalyst, A Little Poetry, Muse Apprentice Guild, Mad Swirl, and Nova Express, and forthcoming in Underground Window. When not writing, she enjoys reading, drinking wine, snoring, and bonding with her feline friend, Quetzal.
