Hendersonville Standard
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Real independence is financial independence




Lois Jordan

Lois Jordan

Many Americans celebrate independence twice a year. Obviously, there’s July Fourth. Juneteenth is not as well-known.

 

Just as we are Christians year-round, we should exercise and celebrate our freedoms every day because real independence is financial independence.

 

That is: you are your sole provider; and you’re not depending on others. A lot of folks depend on government handouts. Exceptions include the physically and mentally handicapped. Really, there are no handouts. He who does not work, does not receive.

 

Technically, the government doesn’t’t owe us anything. There’s a cost to everything. Freedom isn’t free. The ultimate price has been soldiers’ lives.

 

Soldiers led by U.S. Army Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, on or days before June 19, 1865, two months after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered in Virginia. Granger then controlled Texas and enforced Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

 

Juneteenth is so-named because independence was realized by different folks on different days during June 13-19, 1865. Enslaved people were free to live with previously unknown freedoms.

 

Now, we’re in unknown territory because of a pandemic. We don’t know when it will end. Freedom from quarantine comes with responsibility for ourselves and others.

 

Why couldn’t it have been detected sooner? Was it for political reasons? I think it’s political. Who will gain from it? Was it a result of ideology in China where the lack of freedom of speech apparently delayed warnings? Did that continue in our country? This virus was known before it got here. Why wasn’t it stopped?

 

Americans received the Salk vaccine against polio at no charge, but somebody was paid to make the medicine. Now, people will be paid to make and administer shots to ward off the coronavirus. The more inoculations, the more money people will get.

 

One might say free enterprise is an oxymoron, but financial independence is freedom. People want freedom to work. Now, you can’t go in places without a mask, but you should wear one. It’s responsible independence.

 

You don’t find this many people so confused without something negative coming from it. People are afraid. During the Great Depression, some Americans — some in Nashville — jumped from windows to their deaths after losing their money and homes. Don’t let it happen again. Be responsible with freedom.

 

Jordan, the first woman elected to the Nashville-Davidson County Metropolitan Council, welcomes comments at dr.loisjordan@comcast.net. She lives here and calls Hendersonville “Gods country.”

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