Liberty Essay Example

Liberty has a different meaning to different people. Some people may not even know liberty even exists because of the society they live in which is very oppressive towards certain ideas. Liberty to some people is the freedom from controlling government, the ability to decide one’s destiny, to be able to speak or write their thoughts, to not be confined based on one’s appearance, and to be free from foreign rule. While there is no real official rule about what liberty truly is, I had the opportunity to interview people from various backgrounds about what liberty is to them. Each person came up with a different answer based on their life experiences and their country of origin. Their responses allowed me to come up with some idea of what liberty means to me based on my personal experiences, life, and the country in which I live. I realize that many of the people I interviewed believed in the very basic which is freedom. Similarly, I think liberty is freedom as well. Part of that freedom comes from knowing that my government does not control every aspect of my life. People in other countries are not so fortunate and live under a controlling government.
Many people will agree that it is better for society if the government does not have absolute control over the lives of its citizens. Interviewing someone who has left North Korea, have made me aware that controlling government can ruin people’s lives. The interviewee, who wishes to remain anonymous, described how life was during his time in North Korea. In cities like Pyongyang, many people were able to pursue careers and life a somewhat decent life. However, in other cities, people lived without running water in their homes. Honoring the government and being loyal is vigorously enforced. Those who live according to government rules are rewarded. Those who do not, are punished. Sometimes the punishment can be so severe that one person’s action could mean punishment for his or her entire family. The idea of liberty never truly crossed my friend’s mind because of the environment he grew up in prevented such notions from being formed. After leaving, my friend was able to witness and experience a different way of living. When asked about the meaning of liberty to him, he considered the question for several hours before replying that freedom from a controlling government was a crucial aspect of liberty. Without the limiting of government in people’s lives, freedom such as to live how one chooses becomes difficult for people. A controlling government prevents people from thinking as individuals. A government that controls the media, how people live, what they should believe in, and how one is educated among many other things, can control how a person sees the world around them. For people who cannot be controlled as such, they are either punished or killed so that the rest of society does not become tainted by free thinkers. Another very different view of the meaning of liberty comes from someone who is from Yemen.
Liberty to some people is the freedom to choose their destiny. I had the chance to interview a friend of mine from Yemen about what liberty met to her. She grew up in a society where women were not highly respected. Unlike in the Western countries, in Yemen, men and women did not mix or socialized unless they were closely related. Women were hijabs or veiled their faces. Young girls, even those under the age of 18 years old, could be secretly married off to older men to settle debts or because the family cannot provide for the girl due to having many children. Often, girls and women are not asked how they want to live their lives. In many instances, they have no choice but to follow what their family wants them to do, and if they do not they can be “honorably” killed. While in more recent times, the Yemen government has attempted to change the mindset of society by passing laws forbidding certain acts such as underage marriages, society still holds firm to these practices. In some aspects, women remain the property of men in Yemen. Education, jobs, and even healthcare can be very hard for women to gain access to because there are places that still requires women to be with a male relative while traveling. My Yemen friend went on to define liberty as the freedom to decide her destiny. She stated that she was very lucky to have had a father who saw the importance of educating both his sons and daughters. Many of her other relatives were not so fortunate as her. Some of her female cousins were forced to marry at sixteen years of age and had several babies before they were twenty. They were given an education but prevented from going to university by their husbands. Though they have made the most of their lives, they do wish they had more control over how they live, what they do, and where they can go without a male relative around. Many people take a particular aspect of liberty for granted such as freedom of speech. There is some society that simply do not like people to speak their minds freely.
Freedom of speech may seem to be a natural birthright of any human, but there are some governments that look to quite those who speak out. I’ve had the opportunity to interview someone from Turkey named Canberk. In his country, people who say rude or negative things about their president, Tayyip Erdogan are known to have been thrown into jail. Anyone who opposes the current Turkish government can be thrown into prison. While freedom of the press is something that is different from freedom of speech, it does fall under the “speech” portion. Thus, many journalists, writers, and professors have been thrown into jail for speaking out against President Erdogan. To put it differently, if anyone in the United States was ever displeased with President Obama’s administration and voiced such opinions either in print or on the internet, they do not fear the police coming to their house and putting them in jail for their opinions. In Turkey, if someone is upset over how President Erdogan or the current political party in power is running the Turkish government, they cannot voice their opinions without being afraid of being arrested. Turkey has one of the highest rates of journalist and writers being arrested today, and it just might be increased in the future if nothing is done to stop the government from taking away people’s right to free speech. Canberk stated that liberty is the freedom to be able to voice one’s opinion without the fear of being jailed or killed. Without freedom of expression, people will end up living a life of fear and lies. No government official should be highly considered that they consider themselves above criticism. A government that prevents a person from speaking out can end up being a dangerous one to its citizen. Such a government has no place in today’s society. Even in countries like the United States where liberty is considered a person’s unalienable right, people define liberty in different ways.
The United States government has a history of infringing on people’s right to liberty and society continues to infringe on those rights today. One person I interviewed was an African American from Detroit, Michigan named David. As he stated, while slavery has been over many years ago, African Americans, particularly males, have a hard time in the United States. Some laws protect people from illegal confinement and physical restraint. However, enforcing such laws have proven to be difficult because African American men tend to be imprisoned at a higher rate than other races in the United States. There are times when the African American is confined based on false evidence. Even first-time offenders are often given severe sentences despite the fact other races would have been given light sentences. For David, liberty means having the freedom of living in a society where African American are not illegally confined in jails because of their race rather than their actions. Europe is another area where people live in a pretty much free society. However, some people think that they are being ruled by foreigners in their country.
The freedom from foreign rule is another aspect of liberty, and there are some societies that have willingly given up the freedom of self-rule. In Europe, many countries have come together to form the European Union. However, as a Janelle, a British citizen I interviewed, stated, the European Union have taken away some of the rights in many European countries. In recent times, many European countries were forced under the European Union agreement to take in refugees and migrants. Some of these countries are having financial issues, and the extra burden of taking care of refugees and migrants have made their problems worse. Many of the governments are refusing to take in refugees and migrants or are sending people back to other countries. The European Union tells these countries that they are violating the agreement they had signed. In other words, the European Union is telling countries they have no other option but to take in a certain amount of refugees and migrants or risk being punished. However, the increase in migrants and refugees led to a rise of rape and sexual assaults in various European countries. Many people are beginning to see the European Union as a foreign entity that has a stronger hold on them and their government. Janelle sees liberty as being free of the rules of the European Union. She wants the ability to elect government officials who put the concern and well-being of its citizens at the forefront. After interviewing several people about their idea of what liberty is, I formed my opinions and beliefs based on my life’s experience.
Liberty has so many definitions to different people, and I believe each definition defines some aspect of liberty. Personally, I think liberty is the ability to live a life that is suitable to my needs and wants without the government interfering too much in it. There is a need for some government control in people’s lives. If the government is moved out completely from people’s lives, some people will abuse others in society with no regards to the consequences that may follow. An example of how people abuse others when the government is not around would be how many companies would destroy the environment if they were no government control over how, when, and where they dump waste products. Many people in the past have either been hurt or killed by companies that were run by people who only cared for turning a profit. As a result, the government passed laws to protect people and the environment from ruthless company owners. Liberty comes in many different forms and is defined in many different ways by people all over the world.
There is not one definition that can truly define what liberty is because people have different needs and wants that influences what freedom means to them. Some may say freedom from controlling government is more important than freedom of speech. However, one thing is true. Liberty means freedom.