Man-oh-man I’ve been telling you all what a wonderful year this has been, weather-wise. Once again, we’re in one of those cooler temperature runs, no 100s, where we get rain here and there and the mornings are nice. The high today is supposed to be in the low 90s, and then 80s for the next few days.

I remember summer days like this, running down to the creek and catching bait minnows with a tiny goldfish net so we could fish at a local pond that used to be part of a golf course that had since been abandoned. With the minnows and a few earthworms dug fresh from the creekside, and maybe an old hot dog or two, we’d throw a line in at the pond but usually the best we could do would be to catch an undersized catfish or two.

The weather has a way of triggering nostalgia in those of us with a penchant for memory, reverie, and time travel.

But this column is about freedom…

We rode bikes everywhere back then, and there was a sense of freedom that most of us have not experienced since then. I’ve heard the word “freedom” described as “freedom from restraint,” or “movement without onerous or overbearing restrictions,” but I think freedom for us back then was primarily a freedom from fear. There were few restrictions, other than the morality and the “rules” imposed upon us by our family, culture, and upbringing, but within those strictures, we felt like we weren’t hemmed in by fear and danger. Not everyone grew up that way, I know, and that freedom certainly didn’t last forever, but it is the closest I’ve ever come to feeling free.

It is a mistake to believe that freedom is the agency to act irresponsibly or without any moral code. That isn’t freedom, it is an erroneous sense of license that inevitably brings the worsening chains of conscience, law, violence, and fear. If everyone acts without regard to morality, then lawlessness reigns and that means everyone has to operate with a high level of fear. Inevitably, when enough people are driven primarily by fear, everyone in society becomes bound by the ruling principle of violence.

And that’s really where we are today. Fear seems to be the primary operating principle, even for people who claim to be motivated by freedom. Just think, for a moment, of what kind of alternate reality we would live in if an assassin’s bullet had claimed its victim not too long ago. Thousands of scumbags ran to social media to use their “freedom” to voice their disappointment that violence had not claimed their political boogeyman. These people live among us, and when that temperament becomes predominant, then all of us abide on a razor’s edge between order and chaos.

Riding our bikes down a country road, feeling the wind in our hair, screaming with joy and laughing, we had a sense that (maybe unconsciously) the law and order of society kept us mostly safe. I remember later, when I was nearing my teens, one of our teachers was arrested for selling drugs to kids. Another teen (not someone I knew,) was arrested for murdering the husband of an older woman with whom he was having an affair. We became aware that we were living in turbulent times, and that no one was safe so long as the lawless prevailed. The more people embraced immorality and lawless license, the less we all experienced freedom.

Herein we learned that our freedom required law. Human nature requires benevolent restrictions. Our Republic was not designed for the lawless but for moral people. There are forces today who are at war with our freedom, and in perpetrating that war they campaign constantly for immorality and chaos. Lawlessness is their platform. The unspoken purpose of government is the mitigation of fear and panic. The agents of chaos, then, need fear and panic to benefit.

Apply this to your life as you see fit, but I recommend thought, contemplation, prayer, and preparedness.

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Michael Bunker is a local columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose columns appear on Wednesdays and Sundays on the website.