Genius for tool making gave humans the power of giants.  But when ethical development lags behind technological prowess, power is dangerous — never more so than when disguised as “protection”  delegated to agencies of Force.

Force has no respect for peace and freedom; those ideals become bloodied by perpetual war, on all by all.  Force alone gets respect in a world of war.  The US Empire, granddaddy of all bullies, swaggers about the globe collecting body bags, oil/drug booty, tribute, and honorifics to impress other bullies in a Lord of the Flies international playground.

And within national borders, homeland tyranny is a quack cure-all for every terror except the iron fist of Power itself. Crowded prisons and criminalized dissent are symptoms of viral war against free minds.

After a brief flirt with the concept of individual liberty in the eighteenth century, factions immediately began hacking off chunks of hard-won freedoms promising quick fixes: not only for injustices, but for mythical “defense,” “security,” and the satisfaction of limitless desires.

The fledgling understanding of liberated humanity as a creative engine was abandoned.  In the vacuum, a small arrogant elite — prideful in promises, puny in delivery — imposed simplistic one-size-fits-all dictates on submissive, fearful peoples of the world.

But only free people have unbounded potential to innovate and deliver the highest achievements in all endeavors — from digital tech to life, liberty, and the peaceful pursuit of happiness.

The classic peace sign mirrored by a new freedom symbol was first posted last month at ChooseWings and elsewhere.  While the liberty symbol was well received, lots of people pointed out that the peace symbol, said to combine semaphore signals for N & D, Nuclear Disarmament, is righteous but limited; an inadequate symbol now trivialized, often used in causes advocating force.

War starts with the choice to use force: by naked fist,  stones, arrows, muskets, or all of the cruel paraphernalia of war.  Nukes are one tool, not the most common.  Peace must start at the core, respect for the freedom of each individual to initiate  and pursue peaceful activity.

In my research for symbols of peace and freedom I was rocked to find no universal freedom symbol (and in most cultures no symbol at all for freedom.)  So I reworked my original liberty symbol  into a single image representing the best in humanity, the peaceful and free individual –  in a sphere of peace open by free action of that individual reaching upward for ever greater fulfillment.

Please let me know your ideas, post your own versions, or use any of mine with full responsibility and knowledge that peace and freedom are indivisible, sacred.  When one is breached, so is the other.  For either to be respected, both must be honored.

Udate: 2 more symbols! On the left, the logo from a Ghandian-libertarian website; its origin can be seen here

And shown on the right, the logo from FreedomForce International; the explanation on that website shows its creator was also inspired to invert and update the Nuclear Disarmament peace symbol.  The fact that several people are working in a similar directions shows the need fo a universal peace-freedom symbol, and the design convergence suggests a natural visual concept of liberty.