On the Language of Power and Freedom

27 February 2026, Saint Photini

Freedom is a word we use a lot as Americans. We Americans have a bunch of freedoms. We Americans are free people. We Americans honor those that have died for our freedoms. We Americans fear losing our freedoms. We hold our freedoms dear. But what do we mean? Are these just platitudes? Are these unofficial religious creeds that we've been taught to repeat, but don't really understand?

It is helpful to conceptualize freedom as the same thing as power. If I am not free to do something, it is because I do not have power to do it. Conversely, if I have power to do it, I am free to do so. You might say, "Well, I have the power to steal this stop sign, but I'm not really free to do it," but I'm proposing that in this case, the fact that you have considered stealing the sign and been prevented is evidence that although you have the physical ability to throw a stop sign in the back of your truck, you don't have the power to do so. I'm proposing that this is a useful way to think about what power is, and that power and freedom, in this way of thinking, upon first glance, are identical.

But even more helpful yet, is to make the following distinction between power and freedom: Freedom is a particular kind of power. Consider a power as an ability to do something. Powers may be limited or unlimited. I may have the power to use my neighbor's rake (he lent it to me), but this is a limited power in the sense that he may ask for his rake back at any point. I am using the rake at his pleasure. His power to use the rake is superior to my power to use the rake. Now ultimately, someone has the ultimate power to use the rake, meaning no one can stop him from using the rake. This person is free to use the rake. Thus, powers are arranged hierarchically, with each limited power yielding to the power above it. At the top of the hierarchy is an unlimited power. Unlimited powers are freedoms: nothing can impede the possessor of a freedom from exercising it, otherwise he wouldn't be free.

Powers are hierarchical, limited powers can be impeded by higher powers, unlimited powers cannot be impeded. Freedoms, definitionally cannot be impeded, and are equivalent to unlimited powers.

This is useful, because being able to recognize the difference between a limited power and a freedom puts a lot of things in contemporary American life into a refreshingly clear perspective. I have often been distressed, thinking about the events of A.D. 2020, specifically how many of my freedoms were taken away. If you were alive in this time, hopefully you remember how quickly we lost our freedom to move, to assemble, to go to church, to work, to buy, and even to breath freely. We lost bodily autonomy, yielding our own bodies to the powers above us who enforced vaccine mandates.

As an American who has been told his entire life he is free, I haven't been able to make sense of any of this. When the language around "power" and "freedom" are clarified in this way, however, everything makes sense.

I may have many powers (for which I am thankful), but I have no freedoms.

After 2020, it is clear that I worship, work, buy, move, assemble, and even breath at the pleasure of the State. These powers I have, sure, but they yield to a superior power, and are not exercised freely. Ultimately, the State is the only free agent in all of these activities.

If we don't think clearly about the meaning of the word "freedom", we are at risk of fooling ourselves into saying "I have the freedom to go to the church I choose," which is not strictly true in America. It's more accurate to say "I have the power to go to the church I choose," and more precise to say " I have the limited power to go to the church I choose." It's important to say these things accurately and precisely, without obscuring the truth with wishful thinking or emotional reactionism. If these true statements make us uncomfortable as Americans, the "sugar-coating" them or denying them in some way won't provide any lasting ease. If these things are true, and they shouldn't be, word games won't reverse them.

An objection might come in the form of, "I'm an American. The Bill of Rights guarantees I have the freedom of religion and all of these other freedoms," or the especially tiresome objection, "The Government doesn't have any powers not explicitely outlined in this Constitution," as if we've collectively forgotten that the piece of paper we put so much faith in did nothing to actually protect us from the "emergency actions" of the government in 2020. What is a piece of paper going to do?

Can the antique scrawlings on an 18th century dea man grow legs, get off its dusty shelf, and run to save me when the police remove me from a public place because I refused to wear a breath-restricting mast? It didn't happen. The objection here is right about one thing though: the government didn't get any of its powers (or, really freedoms) from that inanimate, vellum relic. And the people of this country, many of whom have placed their faith in an unspeaking idol they call "the Constitution," also don't get any freedoms from the object of their faith.

Where then, do these freedoms come from?

He who pithily said "Freedom comes out of the end of a gun," is a brother to the fascists of Starship Troopers who say that say violence is the ultimate authority from which all others are derived. A certain school of thinkers defines the state as the corporate body maintaining a monopoly on violence.

These thoughts are tempting. The American Revolution, which had its aim to institute the reverend Constitution as the law of the land, was a massive act of violence. Freedoms were obtained (that is, the hierarchy of powers was restructured, removing the British Empire from the top) by the brave use of violence to effect a new world order. The only alternative view I am aware of is the old-fashioned Christian view that all Power comes from God, who alone is ultimately free. Whether or not this ultimately implies that kings rule by divine right is beyond the scope of this essay. I'm not going to attempt to argue for or against either of these ideas. I'm only interested in clearing up confusion around the language of power and freedom, which hopefully will aid to establish a stronger framework that we can begin to ask these questions with.