The Declaration of Independence is revered as one of the most important documents in American history. But a majority of the Declaration of Independence is spent on listing the complaints of the colonies against the King of England. Were it not for a few select phrases, the Declaration of Independence would be nothing but a legal brief full of grievances against the British. Fortunately for us, Jefferson and the Colonial congress decided to include into this seminal document one of the most famous phrases in US history, proclaiming that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Liberty is the right for an individual to act according to his or her own free will. The Merriam-Webster dictionary also defines liberty as “the quality or state of being free, the power to do as one pleases, freedom from physical restraint, freedom from arbitrary or despotic control, the positive enjoyment of various social, political, or economic rights and privileges, and the power of choice.” Liberty is an important concept in a pluralistic liberal democracy because it asserts that people are free, people are allowed to live their life according to their beliefs and wishes, and the people are allowed to make their own decisions.

When the Bush administration made its case for war in 2002, the media largely went along with their claims. Iraq was presented to the American people as a sponsor of terrorism, a collaborator with Al-Qaeda, an imminent threat to the safety of Americans, and as a country in possession of weapons of mass destruction. All of these claims turned out to be false after the war started. President Bush was able to go to war in large part because the American people, constantly bombarded by these false claims through the media, supported overthrowing what they perceived to be the most threatening dictatorship in the world.

While the citizens do not get a vote on granting the president authority to go to war, their representatives do. When there is large public support for a war, the people’s representatives are unlikely to vote against such a measure. Thus, the lack of any real information on the claims of the administration negatively impacts the public’s ability to make a choice. Our liberty—our right to live life according to our own free will—depends heavily on the freedom of speech and the free access to information that we can use to make our own decision. When the media engages in group-think, and opposing views are largely ignored or censored, we do not have the ability to make these decisions.

North Korea provides an example of what can happen when freedom of speech is lacking and there is no media providing its citizens with information. The people of North Korea are impoverished and many die of starvation due to the despotic leadership of Kim Jong-Il. Yet they still support the “dear leader” because of constant government propaganda that has completely brain washed them to worship the one person who is most responsible for their suffering.

When American news outlets are pressured to report one version of the story, and lack the intestinal fortitude to stand up for the principles of freedom of speech and freedom of the press, they are engaging in the same kinds of government propaganda that has brain washed the North Koreans into believing that their leader is anything less than a third-rate Bond villain. As was pointed out in “Buying The War”, a majority of Americans still believe that Iraq had links to Al-Qaeda and the 9/11 terrorist attack. Kim Jong-Il would be proud.

The media is responsible for more than keeping us up to date on the underwear wearing habits of our favorite celebrities. When political and economic pressures are allowed to dictate the information provided to the American people, the media is threatening the concept of liberty. Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter that “our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” Since Jefferson is the chief author of the Declaration of Independence and the phrase “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness,” we should take heed of his warning and never again allow the media to be influenced by anything else but their fundamental reason for existence: to provide us with the information we need to be able to make our own decisions. Oh, and also to take pictures of scantily clad celebrities.