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Freedom means you can, but should you?

Freedom today apparently has a different meaning than when I was a child or young person. It seems that freedom means anything is accepted and allowable, anything. When youíre on the other side of a half-century old, you start to compare ideas and thoughts from one generation to another. Over the years, things change. Change is not always for the good and not always bad. Change is change.
But accepting less and less from our fellow beings and of ourselves, and throwing away the rule book is a frightening thing.
When I was young there was good and bad, right and wrong and it was not simply a matter of how you looked at things. For instance, it was understood that if the road sign said 50 mph, thatís what you drove. The number on the sign was not just an average the state hoped you would aim for. It was the law. The young people, three cars full, that wildly passed me on my way to work the other day apparently think differently. Is that freedom?
To live in a functioning community it meant some things could not be tolerated. I hope it still does. It is not acceptable to trespass on private property and leave messages of hate. It is not acceptable to steal anything from any one including their identity. It is not acceptable to cheat on exams or tax forms. It is not acceptable to abuse your wife or husband, your children or your parents. Itís painful to see people desecrate the flag and put down our government. It is mean to call people names, to criticize different beliefs, or shame people for how they look, act or think. Yet, you can do all these things in our country. Sometimes the law will find you, but even then youíll say itís because we have freedom. Donít get me wrong, kids in my day drove wildly, robberies, abuse and injustice are not new. It just seems the attitude about the law and what people perceive as freedoms, are different.
Yes, you can do a lot of things, but should you just because you can. Is that true freedom, doing and saying things, things that are dangerous, harmful and mean, because you can?
On this, the 127th anniversary of Independence Day, please take a moment to think about what freedom means to you. And about the responsibilities that go along with living in the only country where freedom rings loud and clear.

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