distant fireworks

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

Murthy Yenamandra wrote:

> calbert at pop.tiac.net writes:
> > And to Kosovars returning from their diaspora - Live long, prosper,
> > and leave your serbian neighbours in peace.
>
> And the gypsies too, if you can.
>
> Murthy
>

Ultimately, the advance of humankind in Freedom must reflect the growth
of the Spirit and Freedom has nothing to do with being left alone, nor
with one's own privilege to act, nor with the abstention from action of
others, but on the positive and co-operative action on the part of the
communities of humans. Instruments of government, which make provision
for political freedom in the exercise of more widely extended rights of
self-government, have been framed by statesmen, usually in the language
of one of the schools of philosophy. Bills of rights have been drawn up
to afford judicial protection of civil rights, usually in the form of
abstention from action or guaranties of noninterference. Within the
framework of extended and diversified political and civil rights, the
development of economic and civil rights, designed to provide freedom
from fear and from want, has required other devises of implementation,
for as we know, political rights consist in the freedom to exercise
proper functions in self-government, and civil rights consist in freedom
from restraint in thought, expression, worship, and assembly.  The
freedom from fear, and the freedom to participate in the benefits of the
progress of humanity depend, not on one's privilege to act as one would,
nor in the restraints placed on others that might violate or surprises
one's privileges. In America, Pynchon sees, and asks that his
sophisticated reader sees, that the ideals of democracy have been
degraded to a censorious and inquisitorial CONTROL of thought, expression
and action; its freedoms have been subordinated to self-interest and the
accumulation of wealth; and its individual determination has been leveled
to the purveying wholesale of articles of common taste. This great sleep
of freedom, this great American error, this transforming of Freedom to
its contrary, constitutes the "Perfect Plot" of the tragedy of American
History. This is Pynchon's Politics. Ultimately, the advance of Humankind
involves Freedom of the Spirit, for freedom in this sense is the
prerequisite, as well as the end, of democratic institutions.

Terrance