Essays from West of 98: Freedom in Community
As I write this on July 4th, I am thinking about the various dimensions that come with the idea of “freedom.” A few weeks ago, I wrote on Juneteenth that freedom in America has been a continuous journey. On July 4, 1776, Thomas Jefferson did not announce the successful completion of a new for of government. He charted a course for that government on that day, but the work was only beginning.
In fact, the work was only beginning for the Founding Fathers themselves! Even beyond five more years of war with the British, the newly independent United States were a dysfunctional mess. There was no seamless transition from the Declaration of Independence to victory in war to the Constitution that we know today. It was quite the opposite. The Continental Congress drafted the Articles of Confederation in 1777, but it took four years for the states to fully ratify this document in 1781. After that, the new United States were left with an impotent government that presided over everything from economic disaster to foreign policy failure to outright insurrection in Shays’ Rebellion.
Our Constitution was the result of an effort to clean up this mess. It continued the work that began on July 4, 1776. Even then, if you’ve ever spent any time reading the Federalist Papers (or even reading about them), you know that our Founding Fathers had some VERY sharp disagreements about the basic construction of our government.
What I’m saying is freedom is hard. Freedom has been under construction since July 4, 1776. We have gotten some things very right. We have gotten some things terribly wrong. We have fixed some terrible wrongs. We have created other wrongs in the process and fixed those, but we have struggled to fix other issues. And you know what? It will continue to be a work in progress, so long as flawed humans are at the steering wheel of this country.
Concepts like freedom are complex. Over the years, we’ve seen our society struggle to provide the same level of freedom to everyone in the society. “All men are created equal” has been easier said than done. Freedom has layers, like prosperity. A society can be generally more free and generally more prosperous while individual people or places are struggling.
Recently, I have been pondering the ideals of freedom within the context of our rural communities. America in 2022 has its flaws (again, humans are at the steering wheel) but on a general, nationwide level, America is exponentially more free and closer to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence than it was in 1776. But in many ways, rural America is struggling with these ideals on a granular level. Freedom is an all-encompassing thing. There’s a reason why Jefferson used the phrase “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Freedom includes the ability to build a life for you and your family, as you please. Economic freedom is freedom.
Now more than ever, rural America is subject to the whims of larger economic forces. Local prosperity is deeply influenced by national and international markets, government policymakers, and corporate decision-makers who couldn’t find rural America on a map. We’ve been told for a lot of years that this was inevitable, but did it have to be inevitable that our rural communities would decline? I’m not so sure.
At the very least, the decline does not have to be permanent and irreversible. We have talked about renewed interest in rural communities after the COVID—19 pandemic, but it takes more than just renewed interest to see rural America prosper. In the next couple of weeks, I will outline some specific ideas, but one thing is very clear to me: rural America will find its economic freedom with an emphasis on local place.
Freedom is found in community. Stay tuned.
James Decker is the Mayor of Stamford, Texas and the creator of the West of 98 website and podcast. Contact James and subscribe to these essays at westof98.substack.com and subscribe to West of 98 wherever podcasts are found.