Freedom in America emanates from the state of political freedom held by the citizens. Both Hannah Arendt and Alexis de Tocqueville provide criticism of the apparent shape freedom maintains in America as well as insight regarding how they perceive true political freedom. By using the observations and criticisms of de Tocqueville and the vision of Arendt, the position of modern America and its relation to the ideals of political freedom can be understood.

It is necessary to understand de Tocqueville's observation of equality in order to make the distinction of democracy and how freedom relates to it. According to de Tocqueville, democracy requires an initial ingredient of civil equality. Civil equality is the absence of social divisions and barriers. The necessity of equality then leads to individuals and the deconstruction of community bonds. This occurs because the presence of community requires separate social classes and dependencies based on the class relations. De Tocqueville says, "...equality places men side by side, unconnected by any common tie..." (de Tocqueville 194). Individuals' needs and desires in society evolve into individualism and the further pursuit of one's

For Arendt, the circumstances that inhibit political freedom and those that establish it are of equal importance. This helps in developing the necessary means involved in obtaining political freedom. There "...should be no reason for us to mistake civil rights for political freedom, or to equate these preliminaries of civilized government with the very substance of a free republic" (Arendt 220). Arendt has established civil rights as an entity separate from political freedom. Civil rights apply to liberation and not political freedom, because civil rights do not necessarily assume the presence of freedom. Civil rights can be granted to a population under the rule of a tyrant in the form of a law, but when the population is not part of the formation of such a law then political freedom does not exist.

Reinstatement of the power of the majority of the citizens requires more than a mere reduction of structured government power; it requires a desire of the citizens themselves. I propose that the representatives should hold solely the responsibility of putting the laws, regulations, and rights into effect, not actually proposing and writing such legislature. The proposition and writing of legislature needs to rise from the majority of citizens if it is ever to be followed and endorsed by those same citizens. The associations are where such legislature needs to be devised and proposed to other citizens. It is already recognizable that political power and influence exists outside of the government; one needs only look at the NRA and the NAACP to understand this potential. If permitted, such associations, as well as numerous others, could provide a means of citizen representation far more efficiently than a centralized government. This improvement in efficiency is due to the fact that all laws are not always the right laws for all people in all parts of the country.

Political freedom, as discussed in "The Revolutionary Tradition and Its Lost Treasure," obliges the presence of a population who thinks in terms of "we" rather than "I." When all members of a society strive for a better community, thinking in terms of the populace, they will be able to exist politically free. Shifting the focus of the individual from the private interests created under capitalism to a public concern necessary for political freedom, more will be done to benefit society as a whole. Learning to escape the private realm and understand the public is to understand the possibility of a greater good found in working together rather than many separate smaller goods held by only certain individuals. Individuals with separate personal goods allow for the existence of individuals with their own separate failure and lack of essential good.

De Tocquevi

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Approximate Word count = 1859
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)