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Friday, June 20, 2008
Freedom Under Siege
Fran here. It's time to write in my own voice for the nonce. The message I need to hammer home isn't suited to the Curmudgeon Emeritus's quasi-scholastic sarcasm.
About thirty years ago, Professor John Hospers told an audience of young libertarians that though the forces of liberty are on the march, so are the forces of tyranny. Their comparative rates of advance, not the ardency of their allegiants, would determine the future of human freedom.
Professor Hospers meant that statement as a call to engagement and action. Some persons received it as such, but not enough to stem the tide of totalitarian encroachment upon Americans' freedom. Nowhere near enough. The results are before us.
Freedom has been under siege since the Wilson Administration, but these past three decades have seen an intensification of the assault -- an accelerating totalitarianization of American society -- to which nothing in our history can compare. We who understand and love freedom are being sorely pressed...and there appear to be fewer of us than ever.
Note that phrase: "we who understand and love freedom." Few enough persons understand it. Still fewer love it -- at least, they don't love it as much as their income tax breaks, their corporate subsidies, their kids' government-run schools and government-subsidized colleges, and the dirty thrill of bossing their neighbors around about things that are none of their BLEEP!ing business.
Liberals would have you believe that freedom means the "right" to vote, and nothing else. They contend that all matters great and small should be subject to governmental prescription and proscription. After all, why would we elect legislators if we didn't allow that they're smarter than we are? Surely our lives will be safer and more comfortable in their hands than in our own, far clumsier and more ignorant ones!
Authoritarian conservatives hold to a similar thesis, but without the voting part. Some of them, such as Ernest van den Haag and Russell Kirk, made it sound attractive by dressing it up with religious references and appeals to tradition. But religion is a matter of individual conscience, not coercive social control -- Muslims in the audience can wrap that in garnet paper, roll it into a cone, and shove it up their asses, with my compliments -- and tradition, while it encapsulates much wisdom, only tells us how our forebears coped with the challenges of their day. Neither of these sources is infallible, and neither will accept responsibility for any failings it might incur when put to a practical test.
Yet both these camps claim to be defenders of freedom. If freedom means only "the right to vote," or "the right to do what you're told and nothing else," then I, for one, want a refund.
The original concept expressed by the word freedom has been under heavy theoretical and practical attack for decades. Let's have a quick restatement of that concept:
Freedom is the absence of coercion or constraint in all choice or action that does not inflict force or fraud on another. ["John Galt," Dreams Come Due: Government and Economics as if Freedom Mattered]
Alternately:
A man is not free because he’s permitted to vote for his political masters. The subjects of the late, unlamented Soviet Union enjoyed that “right.” So did the subjects of Saddam Hussein.A man is not free because some portion of his earnings is still his to spend on a variety of attractive goods. Not if the government can punish him for choosing goods it has not approved.
A man is not free because the long arm of the law has not yet descended on his neck. That’s more properly called a stay of execution.
A man is free if, and only if, he has the unchallenged right to do as he damned well pleases with his life, his property, and with any other responsible, consenting adult, provided only that he respects the equal freedom of all other men. [Francis W. Porretto, "No Law Abridging!"]
Where does freedom stand today? Where are the truly free of our time? Let's have a look around.
Richard Ely, a commentator of note early in the Twentieth Century, said that "Freedom today means more than being let alone." John Dewey, he who gave birth to the government-run school system from which we suffer today, defined freedom as "effective power to do specific things." Franklin D. Roosevelt attempted to redefine freedom for his own purposes, by equating it to "freedom from want" and "freedom from fear," neither of which are within any government's power to create or maintain. Their inheritors have derided classically understood freedom with phrases like "freedom to hate" and "freedom to starve." By relentlessly pursuing the implications of those infamies, their political admirers have saddled the nations of the West with a set of Leviathans whose power and scope would make Thomas Hobbes's skull explode.
It would seem that, by the classical understanding, the West is no longer free. Even we Americans, with all our wealth, are not free, for today we must get permission from the State for just about everything we might take it into our heads to do -- and the State may grant or withhold that permission at its whim.
Yet we continue to call those countries where freedom, classically understood, is at most a memory the "free world." The nations of Scandinavia, for example:
As a final note on this whole sorry state of affairs — the Swedish parliament passed a law yesterday which orders comprehensive electronic surveillance of all citizens:Swedish lawmakers voted late on Wednesday in favour of a controversial bill allowing all emails and phone calls to be monitored in the name of national security.This law will make Sweden more totalitarian than even the former Communist dictatorship of East Germany.
A case is often made that in practice, the masters of such a regime permit individuals more latitude than the power they've arrogated would imply. But this argument confuses freedom as a right -- what I call freedom de jure -- with the de facto ability to "get away with it," whatever "it" might be. At any given moment, with regard to any particular issue, the State might lack the enforcement power to impose its will upon its subjects wholly or uniformly. Or its attentions might be elsewhere, resulting in an opportunity for some individuals to do as they please with their lives and property without penalty. This is not freedom; it's only the successful evasion of punishment.
At this time, every government on Earth claims the power to do as it pleases to anyone and anything within its sway, for any reason or none. Governments, including the 88,000 governments that operate within these United States, compel, forbid, and expropriate without regard for any assertion of rights; that's what "compelling government interest" means. Nowhere that a government claims jurisdiction are men truly free. But were you to ask a hundred recent high school graduates whether Americans are free, ninety-five or more would answer in the affirmative. Ask them why, and they would reply, "Because we get to vote!"
So much for the understanding of freedom.
Those who still understand freedom are not unanimous in loving it. Many authoritarians and aspiring tyrants understand freedom well enough; that's why they hate it. And many persons who claim to be in favor of freedom understand it equally well; they just want to chisel a little off its edges.
I need not detail how opposed American liberals are to freedom. It screams from every word they say and every deed they commit. They're hostile to every expression of freedom: privacy, property, and life itself. All things must be put under the supervision of the State: production, commerce, family, race and gender relations, religious institutions, and whether you're permitted to dry up that damp spot in your back yard. Their rationales are legion, but in every case reduce to either we can stop you, and we will or you must, and we'll make you. Most are fools; some are well-intentioned dupes; the rest are simply evil. Yes, I mean that exactly as it sounds.
Conservatives are in somewhat better standing with me; after all, I style myself a conservative, though with some reluctance. But even the best of them are all too willing to make exceptions to the principle of freedom, in favor of something they value more. For example, Jonah Goldberg, one of the most articulate of modern conservative commentators, has openly said that he's in favor of censorship -- censorship being properly understood as laws that forbid the expression of certain thoughts or the presentation of certain images, on pain of punishment. More, he claims that you and I are in favor of it, too; we simply differ on what should be censored, in what media, and under what conditions. Some conservatives advocate the return of military conscription -- involuntary servitude, with the added fillip of risk to life and limb. Other conservatives make exceptions to the principle of freedom to ban particular drugs, sex for hire, gambling unapproved by the State, the sale of professional services without a government license, the ownership of certain kinds of firearms, and so forth.
No one in either of these ideological camps is consistently in favor of freedom, as classically understood. Whatever their reasons, whether on some topics or in all things, they're against it.
Genuine libertarians, for whom freedom of the classical sort is the only legitimate end of a political system or political activity, are very few. Nor are all of us united on how best to maximize it and defend it.
Just recently, I wrote a series of essays on the unacceptability of the current Republican Party, to which an unfortunate number of Americans look for the protection of what de facto latitude we still possess:
- Mandatory Rebellion
- Mandatory Rebellion: Motivations and Inhibitors
- Mandatory Rebellion: A Necessary Price
- Mandatory Rebellion: A Vignette
- Mandatory Rebellion: The Judicial Question And Long-Term Thinking
Those essays were assailed far and wide as being "unrealistic." John McCain, my detractors said, is appreciably better than Barack Obama; there are enough reasons to vote for him even if he isn't a good conservative or in any other way a friend of freedom. Put McCain in the Oval Office and we'll be spared the immediate communization of the United States, at least. We'll have a few more years to try to rescue the GOP from its statist devolution.
To me, "unrealistic" is exactly what those arguments are: short-term thinking at its worst. Reinforcing a behavior evokes more of it. Reinforcing the statist descent of the GOP by awarding it victory in November would persuade its strategists and kingmakers that that orientation is the key to continued electoral success. Worse, it would allow the new regime to complete the hamstringing of our ability to resist it:
- John McCain is opposed to the private ownership of firearms.
- He co-sponsored a law that censors political expression within 60 days of an election.
- He's opposed to fencing the southern border.
- He's in favor of massive new regulations to combat "global warming."
- He's "reached across the aisle" to thwart the elevation of demonstrably qualified, freedom-friendly jurists to the federal bench.
So if you want to be stripped of all means of self-defense, if you want the country to be flooded by still more illegal immigrants, if you want to be forbidden to campaign for your preferred candidates as you please, if you want American enterprise tied down too firmly to create new jobs and new wealth, and if you want to see the liberals in the judiciary continue to eviscerate the Constitution and the rule of law, John McCain's your boy. And he'll do it all while mumbling every sonorous platitude you've ever heard, including how it's all in defense of "freedom."
If you want an ever more statist, ever more socialist Republican Party, vote for its current crop of candidates. Tell yourself that you're doing the only think you can to preserve what freedom remains to us. But don't come crying to me when your hopes and good intentions turn to gall in your mouth; I told you so, and I won't be abashed about reminding you.
So what do you think of it all, Gentle Reader? Are you quite happy with the way things are trending? Do you think the alternatives the major parties have presented us include one that could reverse the tyrannizing trend of the Twentieth Century? Or have you decided that things are as they are for reasons beyond your control, and that no exertion of yours could possibly affect them?
Do you understand and love freedom?
What are you willing to do about it?
Comments
Unless someone comes up with a new idea, I’m pretty sure any sort of civilian resistance to this creeping statism is impossible. I will reread your referenced posts but I am not hopeful
The mass media controls the vote and the vote controls who gets elected. The mass media and the universities even control what is fashionable and acceptable.
I think Thomas Sowell saw through all this when he speculated about the military.
If the left gets its way things are going to get a lot worse, both in terms of freedom and in terms of destruction of material wealth. I thought myself about leaving, then I discovered the government made itself entitled to 10 years of your income after renouncing your citizenship. After the next administration they may just make it illegial for any individual to transfer significant assets outside of the US.
Posted by on 06/20/2008 at 10:54 AMOK I read everything. You are advocating Jimmy Carter because it lead to Ronald. Romald other than reducing the income tax rate did not undo anything of the creeping statism. Departments ended = 0, regulation put aside for good = 0, percent of national production directed by government at all levels increasing to this day. Bah.
Posted by on 06/20/2008 at 07:43 PMI could be wrong, Doug. I hope I am. But I don’t think so. I maintain that the GOP will not unlearn its statist ways without the lesson of a shattering defeat...and the Democrats, hagridden as they are by their dependence on the special-interest dynamic, will never unlearn theirs at all.
Posted by Francis W. Porretto on 06/20/2008 at 08:31 PMI think: what made limited government work for so long as it did and made it fall so slowly was the Constitution, tradition, and the foundation built.
There was never an effective party of lesser government power. Parties exist to seize the available power, increase it and use it. There will never be a popular consensus to give away power. There will never be a successful party of devolving power away from that party.
Why did the 1st Amendment work until roughly McCain-Feingold? It required no party to defend it, the procedure to change the words was very hard, the public would not yet accept judicial activism so blatent in an area with so much pride and prestiege (which outlived even understanding why it was an achievement).
No chastisement of the Republican party will ever move it any more libertarian. We now have unlimited government, any person who wants to sit in the pilot’s seat on the platform he will not touch any of the controls will ever win again. I’m sorry, as Billy Beck said, no people in our position has ever voted their way out of it.
Posted by on 06/20/2008 at 09:27 PMi am voting for McCain because he advocates vigorously prosecuting the war on terror. If we’re all dead or enslaved by muslims, the other stuff doesn’t matter.
Someone said (look it up, I’m too lazy) there’s a lot of ruination in a country. I’m a lover of American history. From my reading I’ve concluded that nobody was right about everything. As long as he has the important stuff right, he’s my man.
Posted by mIRIAM on 06/21/2008 at 11:25 PMI absolutely, completely agree with you Fran. I will not vote for McCain and encourage the Republicans along their road to tyranny lite. No way. And what if McCain wins? Everything he does will be blamed on conservatives when in reality he’s nothing of the sort.
Now is the time to take a stand. We are running out of chances AND time. If a pandering, liberal squish must screw up the country six ways to Sunday at least let him be a Democrat. We’ll have something to run on next time.
Posted by Lana on 06/24/2008 at 09:36 PMI’m torn. I truly fear the damage an Obama presidency can do - the ability to name young Supreme Court justices & federal judges, raise taxes and impose taxes that will cripple our grandchildren’s future, concessions he will make that harm our national security - that leaves me sleepless at night.
But McCain is no bargain - the amnesty thing, tendency to capitulate to Democratic petulance, McCain-Feingold - I could go on and on.
I feel like I’m being offered the choice of the firing squad or the guillotine - neither appeals to me.
Posted by Linda F on 07/01/2008 at 07:55 PM
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