June 8, 2011Dear Sir,Hands up everyone who thinks racism has disappeared in the United States in the 235 years since America declared its independence (or “decolonialised”, if you want) from Britain in 1776. Now hands up everyone who thinks the spectres of public debt, rising criminality, employment insecurity, racial tensions and the other social problems people in Bermuda face today will disappear by unharnessing the supposed yoke of British colonial attachment to Britain for an independent Bermuda.And who among you thinks they will have freer and more secure access to the outside world as independent Bermudians than they have now as Bermudians guaranteed the right of British citizenship and all the protections and privileges of that anywhere in the world?Now everyone raise their hands who just feels so tyrannised and anguished by being a British Dependent Territory citizen that their conscience is blighted by the fact to such an extent that they cannot function as free human beings, with free will, guaranteed freedoms of all human rights, and the freedom to choose how they want to live their everyday lives in a freely self-governing community. How many of you think you will be “freer” or more autonomous human beings in an independent Bermuda? (OK, Messrs Bean, Lister & Co., you can stop waving your hands around now.)So, finally, the kicker question: is it really true, Bobby McGee, that “freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose”? Or is it, in fact, that freedom — real freedom, not the semantic freedom of emotive diatribe and rhetoric — is a personal state of mind and conscience, and if you don’t have that now, you really do have “nothin’ left to lose”.THE TURBOTLondon, UK