Freedom vs. Happiness?

Lorne Gunter: Freedom isn't failing us — we're unhappy because we're no longer free. A great read that puts the smaller battles into perspective.

Both groups (and Prof. Gorton, too) make a common mistake, though: They equate choice with freedom. The two are not one and the same.

It's entirely likely that as the range of our choices has expanded in the past five decades, along with our ability to afford those choices, we have become less politically happy because our core freedoms have been undermined by a growing, rapacious state...

... Some of these may be good ideas on their own, but it is the added element of state compulsion that makes doing the sensible thing a freedom-robbing affront.

The way I see it, we have to take yet another step back. Gunter quotes Benjamin Disraeli as having said that "an Englishman did not need a lot of laws because he was prepared to do the proper thing of his own accord." I think this is instructive in another sense than Gunter takes from it.

Freedom is not itself an end; it is a means to an end. If we don't understand what freedom is for, why should we be concerned about giving it up? I wonder whether people are so quick to allow themselves to be put under the dominion of the state because they are incapable of handling freedom. Could it be that the citizen's apathetic shirking of responsibility is the most to blame for the state's gathering of more and more power?

The Apostle Paul wrote:

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. (Galatians 5:1)

But that is not the end of the story.

You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. (vs. 13)

So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law. (vs. 16-18)

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.(vs. 22-23)

Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars...

... And "gender equality" is a black hole. I was about to link to a great column by Lorne Gunter, when I came across this nail-on-the-head offering from Karen Selick about Stephane Dion's promise, if elected, to create a "Commissioner of Gender Equality."

But, as Selick points out, no matter how hard the social engineers try, they just can't convince women to act or think like men, something for which most of us are quite thankful.

The authors acknowledge that Canada already provides what they call "formal equality," or equality of opportunity. In other words, our laws treat men and women equally. But equal treatment, they claim, has not turned out to yield "the expected results."

That depends, I venture to suggest, on what results you expected. If you expected women en masse to behave exactly like men en masse merely because there were no legal obstacles to their doing so, then of course you would be disappointed. The biological differences between men and women make such an expectation ridiculous. There is ample scientific evidence of differences between male and female brains that accounts for the tendency of men to excel in — and therefore cluster in — certain occupations, while women excel in and cluster in others.

I wonder with Selick whether there would be "equal opportunity" for the position of "Commissioner of Gender Equality."

Both "gender" and "equality" are very loaded words in our culture. Whenever I hear them together, I'm reminded of a book by Elizabeth Elliot called The Mark of a Man. In her discussion of biblical masculinity and femininity, she begins by describing the ways in which men and women are equal. For instance, they are equal in being created in the image of God; in being called to serve Him faithfully; they are equal in being given the grace of salvation. But it's a pretty short list.

Then Elliot describes the many ways in which men and women are different, especially from a biblical perspective. We are so different that she speaks of a "glorious inequality," one in which we serve God and each other best. Selick aptly describes the practical and logical fallacies of the feminist ideology; Elliot shows that we are best off when we follow the Maker's instructions.