Virtue Magazine

FREEDOM, n. A state of exemption from the power or control or another; liberty; exemption from slavery, servitude or confinement. Freedom is personal, civil, political, and religious. See Liberty.]

So much for freedom. Now, for equality:

EQUALITY, n. [L. æqualitas.] An agreement of things in dimensions, quantity or quality; likeness; similarity in regard to two things compared… The same degree of dignity or claims; as the equality of men in the scale of being; the equality of nobles in the same rank; an equality of rights.

Thus Webster. These are of course not the full definitions for these two terms, but what is given is what the author deems sufficient for cognizance of the same. Now then: with our great and vast understanding of the meanings behind these two words, we can proceed. Would you rather have freedom for this country, or equality? Though both are, in theory, attainable simultaneously, it may be best to assume for the time being and the sake of argument (if any) that they are not. So perhaps we should ask, For which of these two was our nation destined by our founding fathers? That is of course an easy question for any who have studied in even the slightest degree, our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. Freedom is the word which we associate with those men of old, and with their actions, and with the War which they fought to “dissolve the political bands which… connected them with another”; not equality. Whoever heard of equality in such context?

Now, let me set one thing quite, quite straight at this point: I of course do not intend to vilify equality of the sexes, or equality of the races, or the equality of rights to all citizens of the United States, or equality of rather anything much more than the notion that all people in this land of ours should be equal in terms of wealth and position and others of that nebulous sort— and that if some are less equal than others, it is not their own fault, or anybody else’s so far as can be discerned; by cause of which the government takes it upon itself to more or less equalize everyone, citizen or otherwise.

A variant of the word “equality” is actually twice used in the Declaration of Independence: once in the context of our “[assuming] among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them”; and once in the stating of the ageless fact “that all men are created equal”; the second to last word in which quote giving us the hitherto unconsidered idea that evolution is unconstitutional, or at least un-Declaration-of-Independence-ational, which is the same thing.

So equality, when foisted upon us by our government that seems to find the greatest possible pleasure in discovering new means of overextending its bounds, is wrong. Why? Well, because our country was founded upon the principal that all men are created equal, among others; and if men are created equal, it is obviously of no use for the government to try to make us more equal, for such a thing is impossible. I think that the way the word “equal” is used here, is to mean that all men are created with the same capacity to better themselves and their positions, to rise in the world and to make a name for themselves, to enjoy the fruits of their labor and the rewards of their industry. And that if there is no labor or industry on the part of a person, said person’s fall in the world will be entirely their own fault, and not that of society, or civilization, or the bourgeoisie, or anything else under the sun. Also, created equal to following whatever political ideals and whatever faith they may choose.

But what is freedom? From Coolidge’s American Dictionary of the English Language:

FREEDOM, n. The liberty to engage in the pursuit of happiness without hindrance from the government sticking its nose into it.

Thus Coolidge.