FREE

It is an interesting word in the English language.  Aside from being a stand-alone word, it had, over time, doggedly percolated itself into other stand-alone words,  either as a prefix or suffix, in such words as freestyle and bornfree, for example.   More so these days in the American landscape of politics and issues affecting socio-economics.  It is an adjective, an adverb, and as verbs go it can be quite forceful, unequivocally noble, though not always easily dispensed, but admirably one moral thing to bestow on something or someone.  It can be spiritually selfless, until it gets embroiled in social debates when paired with other innocuous words to become "freeloader", "free stuff", "free college tuition", or "freebies".

free:

adjective

1.   not under the control or in the power of another; able to act or be done as one wishes.

"I have no ambitions other than to have a happy life and be free"

2.   not or no longer confined or imprisoned.

"the researchers set the birds free"

adverb

without cost or payment.

"ladies were admitted free"

verb

release from captivity, confinement, or slavery.

"I will free you from this debt burden."

Biblically, we may find it scripturally soothing  from the New Testament's Book of John, chapter 8, verse 32, "and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 

For a long, long time throughout recorded history the word "free" stood for what it was as it related to, more precisely, the better side of humanity.  There are numerous words that contain "free" - over four dozens actually that are categorized as valid Scrabble "reference words" - as positive attributes, or at best neutral, except maybe for the word freeloader.  It had also become a prefix to a suffix, as an entirely modern word - "freebie".

Today, it may not be so clearly defined amidst the fuzziness of politics and the new social constructs going on in today's environment.  We'll get to that in a bit.

Meanwhile, "free" is something the universe disagrees with, as it does with abhorring a vacuum. Processes even between or among inanimate particles always come at a price.  When hydrogen and oxygen combine to form water, energy is lost between them. Likewise, in reverse, it takes the introduction of energy to split them apart back into oxygen and hydrogen. Another example to explain it is that in nature nothing is dispensed by any living thing as totally free, without cost, to another living thing, unless the former gets something in return from the latter. It does not necessarily have to be of equal value - it seldom is - but that it must be meaningful enough to either one so that the whole exchange of favors is sustained to the point that both living entities depend on it for survival.

It is a cliche now, but it still holds true, "there is no such thing as a free lunch".  When a flower dispenses nectar at great expense of its resources and energy, it does not just freely offer it to the bee without the bee performing the chore of pollination.  This symbiotic dance had gone on for millions of years.  The sea anemone and the clownfish have the same relationship that is hard to explain at first glance but now we know why.  There are thousands upon thousands of such examples.

But today we are confronted with more than just the hijacking of the word "free".  But first, it is not free from confusion either (pun intended).  Free radicals is not a verb-phrase to advocate liberating subversives or unruly college students.  However, for the sake of a healthy disposition, physiologically or biologically speaking, it must be understood that free radicals (a noun phrase) are toxic free-wheeling chemicals that can damage our cells. 

Meanwhile, the free press - now a relic connotation for a newspaper -  is now called the media - and from the looks of it "free" has actually sold out to advocating for a political agenda or social transformation.  Free speech is only free as a monochromatic description of a one-sided opinion, where one opposing side may not be allowed to express, often violently muzzled by rabid demonstration from a mob on the streets or college campuses.  Now, many college students, addled by ideas absorbed via lectured osmosis from overpaid professors, have themselves become the free radicals of academia. 

"Free" has now also become a substrate, a hidden layer beneath a false facade, for social or economic justice, again attaching the word free to another as a political foil - as in free tuition, free healthcare, and eradicating the phrase "free stuff" because it is now "public goods", as proposed by a junior congresswoman.  

"Free" has now become a pernicious word to the hardworking taxpayers on one hand,  and sweet nectar offered by politicians wanting to advance their version of social justice.  "Free" has become like sugar, or sugared water, high-calorie enticement with very little nutritional value as a social and economic remedy to the needy.

Giving away "freebies" is not a social solution.  It is a poor substitute for an economic incentive.  More precisely, it often disincentivizes work or desire to contribute a fair share of the labor. The country was founded by those who expected that only from labor and hard work  will anyone get rewarded with the fruit of their toil. Free meant only that the power to acquire anything can only be had from the personal investment of one's labor. Below is a direct quote from the same congresswoman: 

“These are public goods. They’re public goods. So I never want to hear the word or the term ‘free stuff’ ever again ... because I’m tired of already hearing some of these neoliberal folks who are trying to like flip the script on us”. 

Merely changing the label does not make it a sound policy.

The so called "public goods" do not just magically appear so she or the kind of government she envisions can distribute them like pixie dust.  Taxpayers put it there but not so they can be given freely as an entitlement to just about anyone who will lay claim to it.  Though the average taxpayer may begrudgingly pay excessive taxation, he or she in the end freely pays what is due, but clearly the revenue must not be just given freely without scrutiny.  By labeling it "public goods" the congresswoman and her squad believe it is free to anyone who wants them. And it is human nature to "want" once anything free is out there for the taking.

There is now this clamor for income equality.  It often leads to the false belief that equal sharing of wealth is now a justified objective.  These days wealth, though often mistakenly defined as having more than enough, whatever "more than enough" means, has become a questionable attribute rather than as a measure of success. Thus, it should be shared.  Why? It is never logically explained to those who have it but for those who don't, they firmly believe that they are  entitled to have some of it as a social equalizer of some dubious justification.

Here is the bottom line.  In the equation of giving and getting, there is obviously a natural limit to what the giver can give but once allowed to get, the getter almost always gravitates to a bottomless appetite to get.  That is human nature.  The welfare program is one fine example. No one can deny that there are abuses in food stamps but that is not all.

A little over five years ago a published article entitled, 

"When Welfare Pays Better than Work"

(Quote) :The federal government funds 126 separate programs targeted towards low-income people, 72 of which provide either cash or in-kind benefits to individuals. (The rest fund community-wide programs for low-income neighborhoods, with no direct benefits to individuals.) State and local governments operate more welfare programs.

During the first 150 to 175 years of this country's history none of those programs existed.  Yet the nation went on to become the modern example to all other nations in terms of product development and labor to wealth expansion never seen before. The ability to acquire was an attribute predominantly ascribed to working individuals.  The successes of industrial and agricultural corporations rested on their ability to produce goods which in turn solely depended on the people's ability to purchase them.  There had to be that or else the free-market system is doomed to fail.

And that is the crux of the debate that is raging today.  The free market system is under a growing barrage from those advocating that much should be given free to those in need.  But as mentioned above, need could easily become that bottomless abyss to which the givers of "free stuff" or what is now suddenly called "public goods" may one day find that there is no more to give.  And all because of this once noble word used to be known simply as FREE.

But there is time to address and perchance to make a course correction, and timing is of the essence.  Speaking of "Timing", the previous musing just before this one is worth a look.


Timing: a particular point or period of time when something happens.

https://abreloth.blogspot.com/2019/12/timing.html