Freedom

Some of this stuff I am reading I really like.  At the moment I am reading a speech by Daniel Webster.  He was promoting that those in attendance should embrace the American Declaration of Independence.
One of the things I really like, is what is declared was done so before what was honest and honourable tended to be ridiculed.  It matters not to me if what was hoped for turned out to be a false hope.  It was said with conviction and with great words. It seems to me that in this day of false news, everything is taken with a grain of salt, and if it is disagreed with, a contrary opinion is often not expressed in a civil manner.
He did not expect to lose the war, but his thinking was, we can die as slaves to the British, or die as free men plotting our own destiny.
Much of this speech is his recollection of another speech he heard.  He is considered one of the first ghost writers of one of America’s founding fathers.  In a sense, it does not matter to me who said it.  If I think if it is good, I will make it mine.
 I love the way it was put in declaring that if what was expressed was a lie then, “may my right hand forget her cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.”
What really got me thinking and writing was when it was declared “If it be the pleasure of heaven that my country require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready at the appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may.  But while I do live let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a free country.”
I like to read this sort of stuff and see if it applies today.
My mind does not doubt that the desire for freedom is universal and has traversed time.  I have never known a person who did not want to determine their own destiny.  Sometimes to express freedom is to willingly submit to a person or cause.  One of my favourite songs has the words “you set me free with that ball and chain, and I threw away the key.”  Whatever is done, it is done willingly.
The way I read this, the longing for freedom was being expressed several hundred years ago.  Also, well before that, one of the greatest desires of a Roman slave was to be a free man.  Similarly, many uprisings have been to cast off the shackles of oppression.
Nations are made up of individuals.  Individuals who want to be free.  Not free to run amok, but free within chosen and accepted restraints, to be who they feel they are meant to be. 
Freedom to me embraces not just the physical, but all aspect of the human nature.  I know freedom is my desire - where what may bind brings freedom.  I want to submit because I choose to, and not because I have no choice.