Fuck Freedom
By: Joe Bonner
Today was a banner day for freedom in my world. At Rite-Aid I spent the $50 in my wallet on a carton of cigarettes instead of Rogaine shampoo, and when I got home I watched Blue Velvet on the IFC and smoked. No jackbooted man goose-stepping behind me forcibly infringed on my lazy choice to be unhealthy and bald over having slightly more hair but nothing to suck on while Dennis Hopper respectfully articulates his own preference for Pabst Blue Ribbon over Heineken. “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” does not appear on every channel on my television 24 hours a day. That would admittedly suck, because there are only so many stories about grandmothers and retards being raped that I can stand.
Still, I think it is wrong to mindlessly praise this so-called “freedom” as if it is the best thing since birthday parties and that we as Americans actually have it. We don’t. Not the kind that doesn’t totally suck, anyway. Jean Paul Sartre spent much of his career as a really smart guy describing how much real freedom, along with all of its attendant responsibilities, completely blows. And he was right.
In this “land of the free” of ours’, you’re only actually as free as you have the money to pay for stuff - otherwise your freedom of choice quickly narrows to choosing between which shitty job you want to grovel for to pay your bills, and the illusion that you ‘chose’ the life of a spineless turd implies that you’re responsible for the fact that you’re so pathetic you can’t fight male-pattern baldness and smoke like a chimney at the same time. Well, fuck that. I’m, sick of assuming responsibility for all my failures. It sucks.
Is it right that society is designed to cater to the relatively rare few lucky enough to be born with trust funds, brains, or some sort of desirable talent? I say no. If the substantiality of my freedom doesn’t amount to much more than choosing between which dead animal I want the Chipotle dude to shove into my burrito after a day of work I decided not to not do in order to avoid the prospect of someday soon starving to death, then I don’t want it. If this is how it’s going to be, give me plausible deniability instead. When I see my haggard face in the mirror I don’t want to think, “Where did I go wrong?” At a minimum I want to be able to say, “Hey, what are you going to do? The government, and all that…”
Yes, the government. Some people don’t like it. Says it limits their freedom. These people are both right and stupid at the same time. When it comes to government, I say the bigger the better. If the president Stalinized the country tomorrow, I’d be all for it. Appoint me a job, then tell me where to go and when to be there. Pick a race of people to blame for all of our problems, and do it. If blaming the Jews is too passé, try the Asians (or “Chinamen”). Sure, they seem pretty qualified for all those high tech jobs they have, but I bet they still cheat.
Also, it would be cool to see Obama put Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh into a forced labor camp for treason. If there was a reality show about them pounding North Dakota quarry stone in the wintertime on a bowl of fish head soup a day that was on every channel 24-7, I’d never stop watching it.
