A special for the fourth of July, from America's perspective
I have always thought I was free. I have always thought that freedom was the choice you made when you choose to go either to the amusement park or to the movies. That was freedom to me, but I know realize that it has a much deeper meaning. A meaning that I couldn't grasp when I was younger so I let myself be lied to and manipulated. I let my freedom be taken away without my consent because how would I know I was losing anything in the first place? As a child, everything is an illusion of perfection, new experiences bring the ultimate excitement to your world. You feel the happiness but you don't sense that the adults have implemented their power over you, and neither does it matter because you don't care. As a child, I was happy in my concealed world, a bubble of pure joy, that was my home. As a child I had someone to take care of me and that love I felt for him was just me giving thanks that he raised me. I'm indebted to him for all he did to create the carefully spun web over my eyes so I could only see the happiness in the world. But I am also intelligent enough now to know I don't need that anymore. So I shed the web as I grew and I destroyed my connection to him. I am Alfred Freedom Jones.
But of course, no one stays a child forever, not even I. I slowly grew more powerful like a child transitioning to a young teen. Of course, with more power I started to see things as he saw them. I saw the true world, the cruel world, I saw people just like me being enslaved and used like filthy animals. I opened my eyes for the first time, without the protection of that carefully spun web he created. Strangely, I was not disappointed, I was intrigued. Why were other humans so cruel to their kind? What kind of world was this that humans killed others for event and show? I wanted them to stop, so badly, couldn't they see what they were doing? How could someone take pride in oppressing the innocent? It wasn't bravery, that was cowardice! I wanted to repel such thinking from the Earth! I wanted to show them that they were destroying the human race! I wanted to give those poor people the justice they surely deserved and somewhere to call home, just like in my childhood. It was then that I finally found it. I am Alfred Freedom Jones and I have a voice.
He resented my word and despised my thoughts. He disrespected my opinion and everything I stood for. He thought it was a joke and I thought he was joking. By that time I realized I could not love someone who threw out my wishes, dismissed them like worthless specks of dirt blowing in the wind. But I knew he loved me, so much, I knew his weakness and his fears. Everything was so simple, he was truly so fragile on the inside. I knew that, the mighty British Empire that conquered more than a third of the world had one weakness and it was me. All my unspoken thoughts collected in one part of my mind, all my restrictions I wanted the break, all my desire to defeat oppression, it was all there. I then decided that was the part of my mind I was to fight with. I am Alfred Freedom Jones and I will not hesitate to fight for my opinions.
It was not long before that time came. I had no fear, just pure hope. I declared it to him, our official separation. I declared it to him because I did not want to be part of a world where you had no opinion, no voice, no trust, and no freedom. I declared it straight to him, no time for sweetening it because of a substance in the soul called "love". He didn't take it lightly, of course he didn't, I expected that. No one gives up a part of their heart so easily. Maybe I was in his, but I decided that if we were to continue with this, he should not be in mine. So I did, I really tried to remove him from my heart, I soon discovered it was impossible. I could not forget him and all he did for me as a child, it was impossible for me to throw it all away. I knew this would be an obstacle in my flawless plan. Oh how troublesome feelings are, the factor you cannot control even at war. I am Alfred Freedom Jones and I have sparked a revolution against a piece of my heart.
Rough days, troublesome nights, my life was no longer the sugar coated fantasy I lived in as a child. No, it was reality and I had a war to fight. To set my mind away from him, I wrote down all the things he took away from me, I wrote down the reasons why I caused this in the first place. The list ran longer than I had intended, and seeing it all in one place, that caused me to rebel ruthlessly. I am Alfred Freedom Jones and I am no longer a child nor his little brother, I consider myself, independent!
It was our last battle when it truly hit me. The moment he fell down to his knees and actually sobbed out his heart to me in the battlefield. My mind thought how weak it was but my heart thought how destructive it was. Taking away the only thing that kept him happy and relieved his loneliness, it would surely break him down. It was that time that I realized how fragile and lonely he truly was. When I was a child, I never saw that part of him, I always thought he was strong. However when he showed me what was on the inside, I nearly fell down in pity. Was I some kind of monster for doing this to him? Was this the wrong thing to do? Should I just come back to him? No. I had made up my decision and no matter what, if you are taking away my voice and using me as a filthy puppet for the benefit of your King, then don't think I won't fight because I am better than this! I am better than a mere colony, and I want to show you how happy I can truly be! If you love me, let me go, England! Not once did I think of myself as your property! Never was I a slave and neither are my people! I am Alfred Freedom Jones and I have become the United States of America!
It wasn't until several centuries that he started talking to me again. I knew that something was different in the way he talked and in the way he looked at me. His eyes filled with longing and sadness, it wasn't hard to figure out that everytime he looked at me, he was reminded of all the pain as well. I started to think that he would always look at me this way. That I was a slash through his body each time I passed by. For some time, I even started to hate myself and found it hard not to fall into a deep depression, to fall into the deep trench I had dug for myself. But I never truly regretted this decision of mine. I knew it was for the best. And I knew that never would I once say "sorry" or apologise. I had discovered what freedom truly was, and I couldn't have done it while being someone's colony. I discovered that freedom was much more than making your own decisions. Freedom was the beautiful thing that allowed you to speak out your thoughts to the world without anyone throwing you into prison. Freedom was the glorious thing that allowed you to have a voice in the world, a thought that matters. Freedom was the precious thing that gave you the right to be yourself and to express yourself and it gave you power to control your own life. That was freedom. I am Alfred Freedom Jones, the personification of the United States of America, and I devote myself to justice, liberty, and freedom for all.