The Love of Liberty Versus the Hatred of Oppression, Part 3: Personal Freedom

This is part 3 of a 5-part article.

Read Part 1 Here
Read Part 2 Here
Read Part 4 Here
Read Part 5 Here

Haters of oppression seek power to achieve political freedom.

Lovers of freedom don’t seek power — they seek internal freedom and become men and women of virtue and integrity, and power flows to them naturally.

Those animated by contempt for tyranny perceive power negatively, as the power to enslave, the power to cause suffering, or the power to exploit the labors of another, and they hate and fear their oppressors just as much as their oppressors hate and fear them.

Those whose motivation is love for liberty believe that power is to love in the face of hatred, to forgive cruelty without hesitation or reservation.

Freedom lovers seek to rise above the beaten path of immediate impulse and the customary routine of stimulus/response and their acts flow from idealistic vision, whereas haters of oppression act out of pure animal instinct.

The leadership style of the oppression hater is to use pride, strategy, strength, and self-aggrandizing heroism.

Freedom lovers humbly lead through virtue, wisdom, diplomacy and courage (Niccolo Machiavelli versus George Washington).

For the hater of oppression, the battle for freedom ends with the removal of the ball and chain, whether it be real or metaphorical, while the lover of freedom understands that that is just the beginning of the quest for true freedom; for him the war for liberty is perpetual.

Love & Hate In Law

The concept of justice to an oppression hater is justification of vengeance.

An oppression hater would choose a criminal court system where the purpose is to punish the wrongdoer, while a freedom lover would choose a civil system with the dual purpose of recompensing the victim and reforming the criminal.

The oppression hater wants to destroy evildoers while the freedom lover wants to change transgressors for the better.

The hater of oppression does not hate tyranny because it is tyranny; he hates it because he is being tyrannized.

The lover of freedom fights against tyranny just because it is tyranny, and he loves freedom and desires it for as many people as he can possibly impact.

In other words, the oppression hater seeks justice for himself, and the freedom lover seeks justice for the sake of justice.

As Martin Luther King, Jr. wisely stated, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Political vs. Holistic Freedom

Ironically, oppression haters usually compartmentalize tyranny and limit their conception of freedom to the political arena, while freedom lovers utilize a holistic view of liberty and reject all forms of dependence.

The haters rail against a despotic government while on their way to work for a corporation that they depend on to survive, while the lovers seek freedom in all aspects of their lives whether it be internal, personal freedom or political or economic freedom.

The haters usually seek security from oppression, but the lovers understand that oftentimes freedom and security are mutually exclusive.

The object of hatred for those who despise control is ephemeral and changes with the fickle seasons of history, since that object of hatred is almost always the people who are oppressing (not the actual oppression itself).

For example, their hatred centers on one political party for a time until another party rises to power, or it centers on fascism in one decade and communism in the next.

Not only does the object of their anger change with shifting political guards, it also changes as their social status changes.

In other words, if they are simple laborers, their antagonism is directed at the “greedy, selfish capitalist pigs.” If the same people happen to then become the capitalists, their enmity is now aimed at the “meddlesome government” or the “lazy workers.”

For those who are grounded in the solid principles of freedom, the object of their righteous indignation does not change, for it is never the people that they reject, but rather it is the false principles that they denounce.

Whether they are blue-collar workers, white-collar professionals, public servants, or private citizens, they will fight any form of enslavement at any level using any righteous methods that lead toward the ideal forms.

Essentially, haters of oppression fight people while freedom lovers fight incorrect principles.

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Stephen Palmer is a book writer for mission-driven leaders, a small business lead generation website design architect and persuasive website copywriter, a co-founder of The Center for Social Leadership, and the author of Uncommon Sense: A Common Citizen’s Guide to Rebuilding America.

He co-authored the New York Times bestseller Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths that are Destroying Your Prosperity, as well as Hub Mentality: Shifting from Business Transactions to Community Interaction.

He is a liberal-arts graduate of George Wythe University and a graduate and faculty member of the “non-traditional business school” Wizard Academy.

Stephen resides in Round Rock, Texas with his gorgeous wife Karina, awesome son Alex, and princess daughters Libby, Avery, and Laela.

Subscribe to Stephen’s blog and contact him at stephen [at] leadershipwriter [dot] com.