American Freedom

The problem I’m going to examine is the American freedom. It’s usually the first word that crosses everyone’s mind when talking about the United States. And to experience meaning of the word ”freedom” was the first thing I expected from the US when I was going there for the first time last summer. I’ve spent there one month in September last year visiting my friend’s sister in Chicago for ten days and travelling on the western cost with my friends, work and travel program attendants, next three weeks. Concerning the US, freedom is very controversial topic. When you hear the voices of people coming back from their first visit, they definetely won’t describe their feeling from their stay as freedom. They usually wonder why they couldn’t drink or bath wherever they wanted or just couldn’t suspiciously watch something, but they saw people keeping a loaded gun or shotgun at home allowed to use it freely without being suspected of anything.

First days in Chicago I was surprised by many things. By all the big cars, wide streets, huge shopping malls and the whole city which looked like much different from those European ones, exactly like in all the movies I’ve seen. Everything was more American than I expected, but I couldn’t find out where the famous freedom is. I’ve seen only all the warnings and regulations on every corner and everyone was telling me permanently what to do and what better not to do, not to have any problems with police or other people. And after a while I trembled only when I saw a police car driving around.

The main point is, that the basic meaning of freedom there does mean something else than here in Europe. During the second half of 20^th century we were used that someone was still watching our life, telling us what to do, we had to be afraid of being fired, arrested or even killed in the 50s just for saying something against the government or wanting to leave the country. And that’s why our only idea of freedom lies in lowering the number of acts, rules and administration which control us and limit our lives. In the US, this process started from the other side, securing the freedom by looking for new and new acts, which could protect individual’s rights in daily life more and more. That’s why the freedom there is connected with much of limitation. There are many strange things you’re not allowed or you have secured on the other side. You’re not allowed to drive a car with alcohol inside even if you don’t drink it or take photographs wherever you want. Or you can be sure you won’t feel any pain during any of operations or surgeries in the hospital. Because when you do, you can quite easily earn money for the rest of your life on compensations. And all these regulations are used surprisingly to ensure more freedom and people are reconciliated with it. In this legal system, everything that could have just a small influence on anyone else’s life is prohibited and punished by the law. That’s the main difference, because in Europe we expect abolishing as much of restrictions as possible to give people their freedom.

The next meaning of freedom which I knew from all the indie movies I’ve learned in the west because of all the distances we had to pass there. We were driving on never-ending roads meeting not more than five cars every day (in a country with 790 cars / 1000 inhabitants). We could have been doing everything we wanted to because no one had seen us whole day. We built a tent and cooked the lunch on places we liked, slept and made trips wherever we wanted and felt like everything around belonged to us just because there were only us many miles around.

Last but not least things not to be forgotten are the prices that make people free. As a student with a bad job you can live very comfortable, buy whatever you want and don’t need to think about every lunch, shoes or electronics you’re going to buy. There is an old true saying that money makes you free and it applies to everyone there because you can really survive easily a long time with money earned after a few months of work. And with regards to the fact that most of the prices are on the same or often lower level than in Europe, we could easily have bought a full tank in the car, plenty of food, a tent and could disappear from all the people into the mountains and all different parks for two weeks and have a great carefree time without going bankrupt.

In conclusion, I find the US great place to gain new experience, earn some money and meet a new lifestyle, culture and way of thinking, but from my point of view not much frankly friendly for living, with a strange legal system, where freedom developed into a complicated system of many different acts and which is very difficult for other people, used to the european lifestyle, to get accustomed to.

© td 04.06.2006