Guest Column: Happy Memorial Day Weekend!
by Thomas E. Simmons
On this Memorial Day, let us remember that freedom is not free.
That’s not an original quote. It was President Ronald Reagan who quipped “freedom is not free” at a Memorial Day address in 1982 forty-four years ago. But the origin of the idiom is credited to Colonel Walter Hitchcock, who popularized it, and – reaching further back – to Australian John Henry Austral, although he was a fictional character and so couldn’t have come up with it on his own.
The quote’s deepest origins are obscured. But it is famously inscribed at the Korean War Veterans Memorial – my favorite, but often overlooked, Washington, D.C. memorial. It’s just south of the Lincoln Memorial and includes nineteen larger-than-life soldier-statues – a platoon on patrol. If you are in Washington, D.C., I highly recommend it. And like all the Washington, D.C. memorials, there is no admission charge. Visiting it is free.
On this Memorial Day, let us also understand that free is not free
As to the aforesaid quote, I claim sole credit.
Before unpacking my point, let us first acknowledge that some things – perhaps the most valuable things – are, indeed freely given, exchanged, and enjoyed. Friendship is one of them. Love is another. Sexual intimacy yet another. If a price is placed on such things, they are degraded. Attaching a monetary value to them cheapens them. They are not only free as a general rule, and in fact deteriorate if they become fee-based. They deteriorate into things like bribes and human trafficking.
Many things, however, have a cost, and justly so. They are acquired at a cost, improved and modified at a cost, produced at a cost, and preserved at a cost. And we seem to often lose sight of this.
Perhaps Madison Avenue advertising wizards are to blame. Few things are as alluring as those which are free. A free haircut! Free healthcare! A free car!
But obviously goods and services produced by human beings are not free. Nor are crops or song lyrics or minerals extracted from the earth. They come at a cost – a cost in labor, materials, design, transportation, and yes – marketing, too.
Often, what a vendor really means when it boasts, “Free!” is “The cost to you is shifted to others and it is they – not you – who must pay. Enjoy this free thing and know that the cost has been borne by strangers so that you may avoid paying for it.”
In certain contexts, “free” might also mean that the cost is shifted away from a present you and upon a future you. Remember those Columbia Record House Deals? Ten records for free? The cost came to the consumer herself in the form of a dozen future obligations of overpriced record purchases. Buy now, pay later.
And what of radio station broadcasts? They are free to listen to, but the listener still pays in an indirect way when she absorbs the commercial announcements accompanying her favorite radio program.
Then there is the free ice water at Wall Drug. We understand this to be a sort of loss leader. Wall Drug will make up its lost profit margins on ice water with the sale of jackalope mounts.
Finally, there are presents and gifts. They might be given in appreciation of past commercial exchanges. Or they might be given to family and friends.
But all of the foregoing are not free in the same sense that free healthcare is supposedly free. Or public libraries and fire departments.
I guess what I’m really thinking about is the illusion of something which is free when the cost is widely dispersed among a large population like taxpayers. We don’t naturally feel gratitude toward them when we receive a “free” government service.
The fact that we lack gratitude for “free” government services indicates that there’s a certain greediness involved. Our natural inclination when offered a free sandwich ought not to be “yippee!” but rather “I wonder to whom I owe the gratitude of bearing the cost of this ham on rye since I ought to thank them and perhaps offer them a sandwich in return.” The same could be said of state parks or public schools.
I also don’t claim credit for the phrase, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” But the same principle is at work.
Pretty sure there is a lot of free stuff coming from the federal administration, and not in the context you are referencing, this is actually free money. I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out how I can get some of this victim money, but sadly, I didn’t attack our capital on January 6th, so not sure if I can qualify. I’ll get my free plane or court settlement someday, though.