At the root of the Germanic word "freedom" is the foundational concept of "love."  That being the case, then "freedom" is not some abstract right with which some autonomous and alienated individual is outfitted, but has its essence in a real relationship with others: spouse, friend, relative, comrade in battle.

In this context, freedom, as I cherish and understand it, is being free from the primeval lusts, whims, desires and compulsions of the ego-centered and narcissistic individual so that I am FREE to fulfill my responsibility to God, to my family, to my kith, to my church and to my local community.  Being free of primeval barbarism is being a civilized person who has acquired, internalized and who lives out the great virtues: the cardinal virtues, the capital virtues and ultimately the theological virtues, the highest of these latter according to St. Paul is love, which, ironically brings us right back to the root meaning of the Germanic word "freedom."  Becoming a free man is the work of a lifetime.  We are born barbarians.  Some of us, though we would live a hundred years, remain barbarians.  Yet, there are those who quest for this freedom and in the quest with its hard knocks and failures actually begin to achieve it, though in this life, it be a mere foretaste or a look through the glass dimly.

I am on this quest.  Some days, I am more like a barbarian than a free man.  On other days, however, I remember and live out my duties, responsibilities and obligations to my wife, to my children, to my grandchild, to my yet living ninety-three-year-old mother, to my church, to my kith and to my community.  At the end of such a day, I sense a free man emerging.

My enemy is any entity, including the state, which would interfere with this process of becoming a free man!

Freedom to me has taken on many different meanings and adapted over the years. But to sum up in a nutshell, freedom to me means less and less responsibility or obligations to those outside of Family and close friends.

Billy