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| Critical thinkers purposed on defending freedom and liberty must operate on different levels. |
A basic education is one focused on the study of traditional academics, though largely bereft of the weightier, yet abstract matters of toning hearts and minds towards being outspoken, practical, courageous citizens in the constant defense of our freedom and liberties.
Has the age of increasingly smart, intrusive technology made itself readily apparent as the greatest threat to individual liberty? Who goes before us to stand calmly, gently, but with enduring resolve to bring into awareness the very prescient threats Americans face as individuals? We should not have a select few stalwarts, but a vast cornucopia of willing Americans bringing salient thought and respectful discourse forward. Is it heresy to call for the raising of a non-violent citizenry of altruistic, critical thinkers?
Such a citizenry can impact and effect the hierarchical order of informational broadcast, introducing thought and conversation from the local level to the national. Such a non-tribal, altruistic citizenry in number sensibly sharing ideas past the ability of the established hierarchical top-down social media to squelch and censor is essential. What we have now in the United States is a control of information through a very limited number of social media channels; in turn controlling the 'narrative' in a largely politically binary system. What we need... is new generations of Americans who are not simply professionals in a trade or industry, but participating voices that dilute the current monopoly on information distribution. Voting is a powerful tool to bring about change, but the rise of a citizenry to write and speak sensibly, rather than leave critical thinking to a select few is democracy in action. We should not be spectators, when we have the right to be on the field.
A great education is the key to such a robust vision of America...
In the year 2018, the America citizen is yet again faced with a growing number of challenges that harbor the need for the intellect to be exercised in direction of safeguarding our personal freedom and liberty. Individuals who seek to protect the individual liberties afforded to us from God and declared in our U.S. Constitution have to be defended intellectually at the first. The notion of empowering people to be non-tribal, independent-minded citizens of our American republic is a cause worth giving attention to.Educating new generations of Americans in thinking critically and understanding the manner in which political parties and organizations of individuals work to affect the thinking of the citizenry is important also. Having a vision that goes beyond that of politics and addresses the important issues that beset the United States of America is a unifying practice worth having.
In attaining the purchasing power for a printing press, Frederick Douglass, born two hundred years ago in 1818, achieved the means of exercising political power in a way no one had ever before been able to perform, and he did so by self-educating himself; from being treated as of less importance than cattle, to marshaling great social pressure on the conscious of Americans and the holder of the highest seat in office, the President of the United States.
He brought clarity on how to solve the slave issue, but most importantly, he brought a sense of gravity, shouldered up through the constancy that he could write critically and articulately to sway public opinion towards or away the President. His presence was a potential energy of critical thinking, made tough and agile due to the true life hardships endured in his own personal journey from being a human slave to struggling through intellectual darkness with long-suffering, patience, and a Christian faith that kept him ever so kind, and yet, completely resolute like a pillar stronger than iron on the need to bring freedom and liberty to African-Americans, support women’s right to vote, and claim a new era patriotism unfeigned, raw, and independent from the established order of the patriotism that had long been regarded since the days of the American revolution.
Through the struggle to attain liberty that is lit at a soul level, Douglass understood that he needed to find answers and means to expand his individual freedom. Always thinking and reflecting, the man who would one day face, cajole, and pressure a future President of the United States, never let conformity render his soul to surrender that he would one day be free at last. This basic idea of not surrendering, that he could be a free man one day sustained him through the early years of his intellectual darkness, through whippings, through squalor… through social and familial depravity.
The trajectory of Frederick Douglass from living barefoot on a dirt floor in corn sacks Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, to directly pressuring Abraham Lincoln to re-think his strategy for African-American slaves, and later, in various U.S. Governmental appointments, was a victory in itself. He was a forerunner not just for the black man, but for anyone who has ever been pushed down and away from enjoying the opportunities that come from being an American, and he was a brave example of what it means to be a Christian. At their best, critical thinkers serve the greater good, refuse to devolve into partisan politics and can be lighthouses in a sea of noise.
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