...none of us are free.

Author's Note: I wrote this article immediately after the Majorie Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida on Valentine's Day, 2018 for my column in the Courier-Tribune. Distraught and feeling helpless, I tried to use my platform for good. Both my boss and the then editor of that paper felt my tone was too grim and political for a library column, so it never got published. I've updated it where necessary. Incidentally, nothing much has changed.

Americans have an unusual circumstance in that we’re a famously pluralistic democratic and representative republic. We didn’t just get this freedom. We fought for it and won it from the grasping hands of the mad Hanoverian king of England. Over the almost three centuries since we won that first and greatest revolution, we have had to continuously fight against the worst impulses that would render us thralls to a similar power in our own lands. We, for example, had to deal with the internal social illnesses brought about by the failure of the founders and revolutionaries to deal with the problem of slavery.

In that time, we have faced some serious existential threats to our unity, liberty and equality. We have dealt with them, sometimes too slowly, sometimes congratulating ourselves too prematurely on a job only  partially done but things have gotten better, generally, and subsequent generations enjoyed more freedom than our ancestors. It hasn’t always been perfect or easy, but the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice, as Dr. King once wrote. Or it did.

Freedom is a funny thing. It rebels against fear and inaction. Each of us bears the responsibility for the upkeep and preservation of our own freedom.  If we are too scared or angry to fight for our freedom, we cannot keep it and we, I’m sad to say, don’t deserve it in that case. Freedom comes with sacrifice, too. We seem to understand that, in order for me to be free, you have to be free too, which means that our work to preserve our rights comes with making sure others have the same rights. This is the cost of freedom. It isn’t a hard concept when looked at objectively, but it can become difficult in the muddy waters of social ills and tribal thinking.

In the last few decades, our society has faced one of its most deadly social issues. Rather than describe it, since we all know what it is, I’ll merely reference it at a distance. This problem is a severe and life-altering (and ending) one. It isn’t a disease or a political problem, though it has been exacerbated by both. It is a simple decision making process that is failing due to political corruption, greed and a failure of empathy. This problem kills and injures people regularly. It is fairly indiscriminate; it takes children’s lives and adults and all ages in between. It doesn’t matter where one works, what faith one adheres to or how much is in the bank account. This problem is merely a monster that devours and devours until nothing and no one is left.

Under normal circumstances, such a monster would be fairly easily subverted. That’s what Americans do, after all. We take power from monsters. We come together decidedly and we fight for what’s right. This is not always perfect, any more than any monster hunter is perfect, but it is nevertheless our m.o. Until now, that was how we dealt with things.

Today’s problem is a simple one. We have the power to stop the monster, but we choose not to. It’s that simple. There’s nothing more complicated than that. I use the term “we”, because, as I said, we're all responsible for each other’s freedom. This monster problem is a freedom remover. So long as it is our problem, not one of us is free. Not the people who want to keep it our problem, not the ones who want to solve it. None of us are free until this problem is solved.

What I’d like to know—what we’d all like to know—is what’s at stake to solve this problem? What sacrifices must we make to reinstate our freedom? Each day’s news brings us another nightmare scenario. Any moment it could be my place of work or yours. My home, or yours. My vacation or yours. My children's school or your's. None of us are safe. That’s not an exaggeration. Any moment, any of us could be a victim. It’s a matter of when, not if.  Our entire society has become a gruesome, absurdly morbid variant of Schröedinger's cat.

If we’re not safe, then we’re not free. It’s that simple.

The next question seems to be, who wants us to not be free? Someone has to be keeping us here, right? We don’t need to think about what the backstory is to this problem. We don’t need to try to diagnose the problem beyond its obvious source. We need to solve it, but this doesn’t seem likely, at least now. The people who can save us have refused. They claim that freedom is at stake if they solve it. But whose freedom? The other side of the argument merely writhes in impotent anguish. They cannot solve it either, or so they claim. More than seventy percent of Americans want their freedom back, but our leaders, especially those in the minority, keep us in place.

Today, while I write this, families across our nation are in anguish. The most unimaginable, unending pain has become a staple of our lives, now. At any given moment, a father, a daughter, a granddaughter, a mother, a sister, a son, a brother, a friend, a spouse or life partner will be taken from us in the most gruesome way possible, leaving a gaping wound where once there was love and hope and happiness. The people in charge have made it clear that this is now a necessary condition of our citizenship. It is a ghoulish lottery in which we all are guaranteed to lose everything one way or the other. The people in charge have tried to dehumanize the problem by saying that its source is something to do with mental illness or video games or whatever scapegoat they can muster, while they claim prayer will save us. This dissembling is part of the problem, but focusing on it, alone, is not a solution.

This problem will not end until we end it. Until then lives will simply stop and in honor of those lives, my essay will just stop. I hope it accurately and clearly symbolizes the promise cut short, but also that this problem isn’t just one person’s, or politician’s problem to solve. It belongs to all of us. 

Until we’re free of fear...