Independence, Liberty, Freedom

Today is Independence Day in Uganda. Fifty-three years ago the British government gave up its colonial hold on this “Pearl of Africa”. This got me thinking about what independence means, how it relates to freedom and liberty. So being curious I looked it up!

Independence: the time when a country or region gains political freedom from outside control

Freedom:   enjoying civil and political liberty, not subject to the control or domination of another;  made, done, or given voluntarily or spontaneously, not bound, confined, or detained by force.

Liberty:  the quality or state of being free:  the power to do as one pleases;  freedom from physical restraint;  freedom from arbitrary or despotic control;  the positive enjoyment of various social, political, or economic rights and privileges;  the power of choice

So while independence is a good thing to celebrate, political freedom from outside control; more important is liberty. Because being independent does not guarantee liberty. Social, political, and economic rights being absent, does it matter if a country is independent if its people are without liberty? The ability to travel outside its borders, the ability to receive an education and healthcare, the ability to use their voice without fear of arrest, the ability to disagree and demand change, are all necessary  for the people who make up the very fabric of a country to enjoy independence. One step at a time.  Enjoy the thoughts of others on the subject of Liberty! (remember all quotes should always be read in their full context).

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
― Benjamin Franklin, Memoirs of the life & writings of Benjamin Franklin

“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves” --  Abraham Lincoln

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?”
― Mahatma Gandhi

 “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
― George Orwell

“For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”
― Nelson Mandela

 “Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be”
― James Baldwin

“I am an American; free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take.”
― Emma Goldman

“The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.”
― Leon Trotsky, Their Morals and Ours

“Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.”
― Napoléon Bonaparte

“A primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? And what duty more pressing than communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country?”
― George Washington

“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.”
― Thomas Paine

 “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
― Patrick Henry

“I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves ; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.”
― Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson

“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.”
― Audre Lorde

“Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
[Inaugural Address, January 20 1961]”
― John F. Kennedy

“The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.”
― James Madison

“A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. ... A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.”
― John Adams, Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife

“A right delayed is a right denied.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.”
― Thomas Jefferson