The term ‘free world’ here should not be confused with the Cold War-era term that applies to non-Communist nations. This free world does not have any leader unlike the President of the United States being dubbed as the ‘leader of the free world,’ because of USA’s role in the Cold War. Although Obama and McCain can lambaste each other (and others can lambaste one another in their behalf) or someone wanting to see Sarah Palin naked may be also be construed as freedom, there is much more to the concept of free world than the Cold War’s definition of it.

Freedom is what I’ve known all my life. I was too young to fully comprehend the 21-year US-backed Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines. I was honed on liberal education from the state university. I backed out of a boring religion. I divested myself of unnecessary material possessions. I quit the corporate rat race at the height of a corporate career and went into development work. I married late and have chosen to be childless, thereby espousing the zero-population growth theory. Coming from a family full of many sisters, my husband grew up respecting women, thereby not making me boxed into a gender gulag. I don’t belong to the top 1% of my country’s population, but I’ve been educated enough to heckle at that tip of the pyramid. I didn’t (and progressively, still don’t) have shackles in my life.

But I’ve been acutely aware of what’s been happening outside an unshackled world. Thus, my ruminations can only come from the bottom of a free world. The bottom can very well be the exposed underbelly of freedom. Otherwise, like the bottom of a pan, it is where the soot is found or that which meets the scorching fire.

Freedom is that privilege when one can confront the truth. (Delusional, hallucinatory, and self-denial situations are also part of the truth.) By truth, I mean objective reality, not the philosophical or spiritual truth that spiritual hacks have been bandying around.

All democratic debates and debacles are just a fudging of the following freedoms:

Freedom to choose. The free world is bursting full of choices, as well as the capacity to consider, evaluate, and take options. The downside of this is when the sheer volume of choices makes one opt for the wrong pick. It is also here where enterprising conmen take advantage of the year-round grand sale and offer fakes and lemons. The free world teems with a myriad of ideas, concepts, principles, learning, values, etc. The free man may stumble upon the wrong thoughts out there, and take them for real.

Freedom to believe. The free world offers many declarations of faith and belief for the potential convert to be converted into. Not lacking in choices, the gullible may end up believing the truly unbelievable. There is really no difference between one who believes that a supermarket promo is truly to his advantage and someone who thinks that a Born Again Christian sect will save his soul. I can have the freedom to discuss this here and maybe question the validity of God, but an unfree counterpart will consider it blasphemous. The trick is in the proselytizing.

Freedom to debunk. The free world endows the opportunity to repel what seems incongruous, as well as that which is not verifiable on the ground. The scientific and logical mind characterized by inquisitiveness exists only in a free world. The opposite universe will forever remain mired in accepting scriptures and traditional mores as the be all and end all of existence. These are the ones that live in fear of going against the tide and swimming up current. The ones who are not free to debunk are those who are forever oppressed by their objective reality. Followers of fundamentalist religions belong to this sorry state.

Freedom to discuss. The free world is noisy and clamorous. It believes that many lies and half-truths remain such for the longest time when they are hidden in silence. A noisy world exposes the sham and dissects it like a surgeon wielding a scalpel. The downside of this is when it truly gets too noisy for comfort.

Organized religion does not play much in a free world. Religion essentially implies the perpetuation of the status quo of dogma. The free world will think and rethink religious dogma, as well as invoke the freedom to do so just for the heck of it.

The free world thinks that truth is the kindest thing we can give people in the end.

I commiserate with those who are not free and those who are forced against their will. Is your lack of freedom brought upon you, thereby making you unable to unshackle yourself from your objective reality? It is upon your hands to remain chained to your imprisonment.

Or is your unfree condition all in your mind – your mind having been conditioned to not rock the boat?

Or is it possible that you do not even know you’re not free? This makes you cloistered from the outside world. This is also the condition of the insane people.

Or maybe, just maybe, you choose not to free yourself. You have opted to remain chained as you are – to dogma, ignorance, subservience, and the status quo you’re in. If this is the case, then don’t fool yourself. Your capacity to have made you choose this automatically gave you the freedom to choose. You are free, and you don’t even know it!

The free world, therefore, is not a geographical boundary.

No one can oppress you without your consent. But, then again, even that statement comes from the free world.

Let’s break the chain. Let’s break the fence.

Cheers to our freedoms!