Definition Essay: Are We Really Free?

The United States of America is a free nation. Each and every American citizen here has rights

As American essayist and social critic H.L. Mencken wrote, “The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe.” To be free is to have the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without restraint. This type of freedom can be offered in many places whether it be home, school, or work. Safety is the condition of being protected from or unlikely to because risk, danger, or injury. Safety should be seen as an advantage to have because it’s never truly guaranteed. Most people claim they are proud of the freedoms their nations offer, though many people manifest the willingness to give up these freedoms to secure personal safety.

To be free means you have freedom and certain rights without anyone interfering with you. You can also do things at your own will. However, during Reconstruction African Americans were not free because whites abused the fact that they had rights and would overpower them. One example is the Ku Klux Klan.

Throughout history freedom has had many different meanings and definitions; based on race, gender, and ethnicity. According to the dictionary freedom means the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint (“freedom” def. 1). Freedom may seem like something given to everyone however it was something workers had to fight for. Not everyone believed that workers’ rights needed to be changed, which led to a long battle between workers, employers and the government. To the working class people freedom meant making higher wages, having regulated hours, workable conditions and the right to free speech.

According to google, the definition of freedom is the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. The Freedom from imprisonment or enslavement from those who holds a person against their power or will. However, when freedom is expressed by an ex-slaved, their views are completely different. Ex-slaves found it difficult to adjust to the liberal freedom because they have to deal with relocating families, no political rights to vote, and the ability to establish land.

Freedom is defined as the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement. It is the power to determine action without restraint and the exemption from external control, interference, and regulation. Americans, these days, commonly regard their society as the freest and the best in the world. Their understanding of freedom has been shaped and based upon the founding fathers’ belief that all people are equal and that the role of the government is to protect each person’s basic “inalienable” rights. The United States Constitution’s Bill of Rights assures individual rights including freedom of speech, press, and religion. America has changed dramatically from the country our founding fathers discovered. Some could even argue that

In this context, the word, "free", is defined as being not enslaved. Also, it is broken into three parts, which are political freedom, economic freedom, and social freedom. In the North, free blacks had restricted political, economic, and social freedom. Free blacks in the North had limited political freedom-the right to vote or hold office.

Freedom in colonial America was defined to be independent from the control of another person or institution, both politically and economically. Politically, this meant that people should have the right to self-government, completely avoiding any form of tyrannical oppression. Economically, freedom translates to being supported by the labor of others, or to work for only oneself. By law, only men had the potential to be free since women and children were denied both political and property rights. In addition, the

The definition of freedom depends entirely on how the phrase “freedom from…” ends. Perhaps a most straightforward understanding of freedom is the laissez-faire emphasis on limiting the power of government to interfere in economic and social matters. In this state of absolute freedom, however, inequalities exist between people, so that freedom from a controlling government does not imply individuals’ freedom of contract, movement, legal protection, equal rights through citizenship, or political voice. In light of the persistence of slavery in the US through the 19th century, freedom as an individual’s legal status separated people who could be citizens from people who were lifelong slaves. Even among legally free people, economic

Freedom is an adjective describing how someone or something is no longer under another person’s command. However others may believe that it could be defined as having equal opportunity or abilities as others. During the Reconstruction period, “freedom” was now given to former slaves. This reconstruction period immediately followed the Civil War. The purpose behind this period was to help the South become a part of the United States again, after many of the Union soldiers had controlled large areas of the South. There were two plans however, Lincoln’s and then the Radical’s. Lincoln wanted a fast and lenient process that would hold the South under the Executive Branch as much as possible. Because he believed that the South never actually had

Blacks in the North were partially free.Document C contains a speech from a young African-American who was first in his class in a New York school.This document will show what it is like to be an African-American looking for a job.In document C it states.”To what will I turn my hand?Shall I be a merchant?No one will have me in his office; white clerks won’t associate with me.Drudgery and servitude,then,are my prospective portion.Can you be surprised at my discouragement?”What this quote means is that since he’s African-American nobody will want to work with him or buy from him, so his only jobs he can choose are drudgery and servitude.This document shows that African-Americans also had some freedom because they weren’t forced into the slave

America is the home the of free and brave, but how much freedom can someone have? If you ask someone what is freedom? The answer you’ll receive will probably be different from your own. The word freedom can be defined in many ways by different people. Just like any other opinion, no one thinks alike. Some people now in America feel that they’re free. On the contrary, there are individuals that can surely tell you that they don’t have rights that others have due to a technicality. In the past, there has been a history of brave people who stand up to the government to receive the rightful freedom that belongs to them and others. Some of those individuals shared similar qualities but also had their differences as well. The changes that some of those individuals left improved the daily lifestyles of the community in general. Their acts weren’t approved by most of the government. Although the actions brought improvement to society to receive rightful freedom for all it took some time to accept the balance of freedom and social & civic responsibilities.

There is humanly no possible way to merely or easily define what “freedom” truthfully is, as every distinct person and each social order has opposing restrictions for what this belief is. Bureaucrats and social researchers, for example, have vastly diverse philosophies of what institutes freedom. This primeval belief has been ingrained into mankind since the beginning of time. Century after century mankind has fought in numerous wars for this concept of “Freedom”.

Freedom does not mean free. The saying has been established in the past, present, and the future which happens to be the setting of where Brave New World by Aldoux Huxley takes place. In futuristic London, though people living there come off as happy with all their wants satisfied and fulfilled, by looking closer into what seems to be a perfectly utopian society, a dystopian society strongly seems visible due to total authority and corrupt government control as further developed by perspective. Huxley's choice of point of view as the rhetorical device contributes to the dystopian purpose for the novel.

     I think that there is no good definition for the word freedom for the simple fact nobody’s free