The Sounds of America: Letting Freedom Ring

We enjoy the right to raise our children according to our own values. (Biba Kayewich)

As a child, my family would sometimes be out walking when suddenly Mom would say, “Stop! Close your eyes and then listen to see who can hear five separate sounds first.”

We would all pause, even holding our breath, straining to catch the faintest sounds of a bird, a car in the distance, or even an airplane far above in the sky. It was a fun activity, and it made us exercise one of our five senses that we weren’t relying on as much as we looked around.

I did a similar activity the other night as I walked through my neighborhood. Only this time, I wasn’t just listening for basic sounds. Instead, I began listening for the sounds of America—and I heard far more than I anticipated.

The Sound of Singing

One of the first sounds greeting my ear was the strains of “Happy Birthday” wafting out of a backyard. The number of voices clearly indicated a crowd that was surprisingly on key.

Suddenly, it hit me that this sound demonstrated the freedom of assembly guaranteed to us by the First Amendment to the Constitution. The voices were carefree and happy, with little fear that they would be interrupted by swarms of secret police demanding they disperse under threat of arrest—a scenario that sounds laughable in the land of the free, but one that has been a very real reality for citizens in other nations who don’t hold the same rights.

With our busy lives and full plates, it’s easy to grumble now and then when yet another invitation comes or an event demands our attention. But that shouldn’t be our response. Instead, we should rejoice in the fact that we have the opportunity to gather with others—freely and without fear—to play, protest, and even party, celebrating those we love.

The Sound of Laughter

We enjoy the right to raise our children according to our own values. (Biba Kayewich)

Down the block from the backyard party, I heard the happy screams, the mock roars, and the bubbling giggles of a child being chased by her father. This indicated another freedom: the right to raise our families and teach our children in accordance with our own values, rather than turning them over to the government to be raised by the state.

In recent years, many have treated children as a burden, something to be ignored or shuffled off to nannies, daycares, or government schools. Children do require a lot of work. But as Benjamin Franklin noted, that work is secretly something to be treasured and valued:

“And as to the Cares, they are chiefly what attend the bringing up of Children; and I would ask any Man who has experienced it, if they are not the most delightful Cares in the World. ... In short this Bondage and these Cares are like the Bondage of having a beautiful and fertile Garden, which a Man takes great Delight in; and the Cares are the Pleasure he finds in cultivating it, and raising as many beautiful and useful Plants from it as he can.”

The Sound of Birds

Although bird songs were one of the sounds I often heard while playing the listening game as a child, I pondered them differently this time, feeling grateful to live in a land with abundant “elbow room,” as Daniel Boone allegedly described it, where wildlife could roam around. Just a few days before, I had talked with someone who traveled from a foreign country to visit one of my neighbors. His reaction was one of shock as he compared my neighborhood to his own home, saying, “I forgot how many squirrels there are around here!”

I can’t pretend to be an expert on environmental intricacies, but I have heard enough to realize that, as Drew Bond and Anthony Kim wrote in The Washington Times a few years ago, “it is the freer economies ... that do a far better job of achieving more dynamic growth while creating a healthier, cleaner natural environment.”

The Sound of Church Bells

While walking, the six o’clock bells rang out at the nearby church. Admittedly, I haven’t been a fan of these bells. They’re a bit on the harsh side, and I’ve often wished this local church had the gentler bells that occasionally waft on the breeze from a church several miles away, or maybe even the really fancy ones that chime out old hymn tunes.

But on this night, I couldn’t help but smile at those bells, for, harsh as they may seem, they rang out freedom of religion, beckoning anyone who would choose to exercise this precious right.

Furthermore, this sound signals enlightened and thoughtful minds. As American founder Benjamin Rush wrote: “The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in Religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.”

The Sound of Honking Horns

Farther on, I heard horns honking and the chaos of traffic murmuring in the distance. Now, normally, I do not consider such sounds a positive thing. But this time, I realized that traffic, too, is a positive sound in America, for it indicates free enterprise, prosperity, and economic growth.

It’s certainly true that such materialism isn’t always good for our country—in fact, we may even say that it’s one of the sources of our nation’s decline. To quote author Hannah Arendt, “Economic growth may one day turn out to be a curse rather than a good, and under no conditions can it either lead into freedom or constitute a proof for its existence,” she writes in “On Revolution.”

However, economic growth is something that should point us back to our first, most important freedoms. “Free enterprise,” Arendt writes, “has been an unmixed blessing only in America, and it is a minor blessing compared with the truly political freedoms, such as freedom of speech and thought, of assembly and association, even under the best conditions.”

My little listening game came to an end. A simple thing, really—perhaps even silly. But sometimes it’s the simple things that make you appreciate the most profound, and in this case, I learned that the sounds of America sing out freedom.