MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
For this Independence Day, we asked our listeners to think about freedom. Here is some of what you told us.
MICHAEL MORTON: My name is Michael Morton (ph). I live in west Michigan, and I'm a general manager of an automotive plant.
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MORTON: And freedom to me is, you know, the freedom to make your own way as best you can. I just wish people would slow down for a minute and think about what freedoms they have. I have the freedom, you know, to choose where I work. That's a freedom that doesn't exist everywhere in the world. I have the freedom to pick who I'm marrying, how many children I'm allowed to have. And we can disagree, and we can criticize the government. And we have a lot of leeway here in this country.
TYLER ROTH: My name is Tyler Roth (ph), and I live in Hood River, Oregon.
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ROTH: Freedom to me is that everyone should be able to have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Nobody should be inflicting on everyone else's thoughts, ideas, religions. Everyone should be free to express themselves. Every time I drive to work, there's a guy on the corner with a giant sign that says God is great and looking for honks. And then there's a awesome trans lady that works at my local grocery store. There shouldn't be any reason why these can't exist together.
DIANE EVIA-LANEVI: My name is Diane Evia-Lanevi (ph), and I live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
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EVIA-LANEVI: Freedom to me means the ability to live in a country without fear of persecution for something that you might say, who you are, who you love, what you believe in. I grew up hearing about freedom through my parents' stories from Cuba and their decision to bring my brother and me out of the country, fleeing communism. A country like ours could and should allow refugees to come in, to seek asylum. And it makes me really sad. We arrived in this country 59 years ago, and we would not be admitted into this country today.
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TAWNIE THOMPSON: My name is Tawnie Thompson (ph), and I live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
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THOMPSON: So I am a member of a group called the Janesville Fife and Drum Corps. We reenact the Virginia regiment who would have fought in the Revolutionary War under the command of General George Washington. On the 3rd and the 4th, we get together and we do seven parades in two days. And we have a color guard with flags and muskets. We have a group of fifers. And a fife is a colonial wooden flute that's very, very high-pitched so that it could be heard over battlefields.
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THOMPSON: I think it's important to reflect on what our Founding Fathers were really fighting for when they decided to rebel against King George III and England at the time, which is really just the freedom for people in this country to be able to live their lives and make choices for themselves and their families without fear of persecution.
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MARTIN: The Janesville Fife and Drum Corps on MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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