I was born free

That's the video from M.I.A.'s song born free. . . I love that video and song (if you haven't seen it yet and just skipped over it to read what I'm writing, take this chance to go back and watch the entire thing. . . it's worth it. . . I'll wait)

I have been thinking about the concept of freedom lately, mostly because of what's going on in my life, specifically the fact that I'm leaving my current position as a management consultant with a big organization and putting my full efforts towards servicing the marketing and communications needs of nonprofits under my own banner (Seam). The freedom of being my own boss and being in total control of how I spend my time is great, but also scary. Scary because it comes with risk. What if no one hires me? What if I look back and I regret this decision? The price I pay for gaining this freedom is the loss of safety. That's a price I am willing to pay and a price I believe all those who cherish freedom should pay.

It is for that reason that I believe that the below ad is so disturbing

This is the ad that's been making its way around NYC as a protest to the Muslim community center that is going to go up near ground zero. People all over the country are complaining about this center and thankfully some of our politicians have grown enough of a back bone to stand up and say that this center needs to go up. I'm not taking a stand either way about whether it's good or bad for the center to go up so near ground zero, what I am taking a stand for is the rights of Muslims all over the world to practice their religion wherever they choose (I also don't mind in taking a stand in saying that this is just an ugly ad: hard to read, hard to tell what I'm supposed to look at, if I didn't know that this was the anti-muslim center ad already I would have never been able to tell - sometimes I thank the heavens that so many ads for these quack orgs are done by shitty marketers).

This ad is disturbing because by asking a seemingly innocuous question like "why there" as a means of obfuscating the fact that it is essentially asking you to add your voice to the voices of tons of people all over the country that automatically say that Islam is bad and needs to be contained. By saying that it shouldn't be there, people are essentially saying that the Muslims of NYC don't have the right congregate and worship wherever they want. That's not a sentiment I can get behind. To me the answer to "why there?" is simple. "Why there? Because I, you, they, and we were all born free"

"Those who give up essential liberty to gain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety" - B. Franklin