Who Wants Freedom?
Who Wants Freedom?
As we are engaged in this great struggle for our nation’s future, perhaps this is the most fundamental question of all. As conservatives, libertarians or patriots who love America and the freedom it has represented for two centuries, freedom that we fear may soon become merely a footnote in our mythological past, we enter the contest for liberty with a few important assumptions in mind. We believe that "no man, in his right mind, would choose to be a slave." We believe that all the "teeming masses" of the world "yearn to be free." We believe that freedom is a gift from God, it is the natural state of man, and it is only through force or fraud that any man would give up that gift. We look around at our fellow citizens and assume that if we could somehow remove the wool from their eyes they would see the chains with which they are bound and join us in demanding a return of our liberty. It is this effort to educate and convince our fellow man of the deception that enslaves him that motivates us to give our time and treasure to the task. We hope to add ever growing numbers to the chorus of voices crying for freedom today so that tomorrow our children will realize the dream of the founders rather than the nightmare of the statists.
We must ask, however, if these assumptions about human nature are true. Does every man want to be free? Does every man and woman want to take responsibility for his or her actions and reap the consequences, good and bad? Does every person want unlimited opportunity and the accompanying unlimited risk? For the vast majority of our ancestors who settled this land, the answer was an unequivocal yes. The first settlers believed freedom was valuable enough to gamble their very lives. Most others came here with little or nothing but will and an unshakable belief in their ability to succeed if only give the chance, free from the constraints of caste or the petty meddling of innumerable government bureaucrats and tax collectors. The rapid ascent of the United States to a world power economically and militarily is a testament to the veracity of their faith.
That speaks of those who came, the ones with the moral and physical courage to stand on their own two feet, to "take the bull by the horns." Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was ruled by monarchs and their bureaucracies and any freedom the common man had was at their behest. Their choices were limited, their responsibilities few, their opportunities rare. They existed for the good of the monarch and the state. The food and goods they produced were the property of the state, their sons were cannon fodder, the land on which they toiled was someone else's. There was little hope to improve one’s lot in life. Those who found this intolerable took the first and greatest risk of all, they left.
What of all those left behind, those without such courage? Who remained in Britain, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Poland? Government bureaucrats and people either happy with the status quo or lacking the courage to stand against it. People who were either masters or slaves and content with their lot. The vast majority of those who stayed behind chose a life of slavery for they lacked either the heart or the will to change it or escape it. A life of familiar servitude was preferable to a life of unknown risks even if those risks could bring about unlimited rewards. Is it any wonder then, how Europe has evolved over the last one hundred and fifty years? A people, comfortable with servitude, when given the opportunity to vote for their own destiny merely chose new masters who would take care of them. With such passive people, government easily manipulates and grows. And people who have so little of their lives under their own control easily blame others for their misfortune whether it be "others" in their midst or the nation next door. When a Napoleon, a Lenin or a Hitler promises to punish those perceived to be responsible for their misery, support is easy to come by. In times of peace, living within the constraints of socialism is amenable to the ancestors of the sheep. They are taken care of from birth to death, living in endless moderation, insulated from pain and restrained from achievement.
The United States, in her history, has experienced a similar drain of "rugged individualists" who valued the freedom of opportunity and risk above anything else. From the sparse settlements on the east coast, these men and women constantly pushed west, leaving the more "risk averse" in the settled areas. With few exceptions, the longer a state has been around and the more densely populated it is, the more statist is is. Look at New England, the most consistently "liberal" region of the country. Cities attract those with a statist mind more than rural areas for the sheer fact of circumstance. In a rural area, self-sufficiency is essential. In a city cooperation is necessary, specialization routine and the acceptance of government regulation is a given. As long as we were a frontier society, more rural than urban, circumstances favored our libertarianism and the traits of the original immigrants were reinforced. We remained a country where absolute liberty was prized, government was distrusted and rare was the man who considered living at the expense of others his "right".
The great Frederic Bastiat observed that man has only two ways of satisfying the wants and needs of his life. "Through the ceaseless application of his own faculties to natural resources" or his own labor. This is the origin and value of property. The other way is "by seizing and consuming the products of the labor of others." This is "plunder." Bastiat then identified what he termed the fatal flaw of mankind-his "primitive, universal, and insuppressible instinct that impels him to satisfy his desires with the least possible pain." Since labor is pain, it naturally follows that "men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work." Plunder will only stop "when it becomes more painful and dangerous than work." (All quotes from "The Law")
For Bastiat, the purpose of the law was to make plunder more risky and painful than labor. I would add that that the mores of society will also make plunder more or less acceptable to an individual without the application of force. If the society as a whole values work and expects each man and woman to "pull his own weight", the idea of living through plunder would not be part of the mindset of most, including those charged with creating and implementing the law-government. Government, however, possessing the unique ability to "legally" use force in a society, finds it irresistible to begin plundering for its own benefit and those of its benefactors and becoming, by definition, tyrannical. Our founders wisely formulated a system to keep this tendency at bay but if plunder becomes more acceptable in society, the original system and ideals will be circumvented and eventually discarded. This is where we find ourselves today.
In today’s democratic societies, politicians are elected based on promises made possible by plundered wealth. Those who vote for such politicians are merely hiring the government as a mercenary to take the wealth of one citizen to give it to them. They, like government, live on plunder. Some of our citizens live entirely on plundered goods. Government food, housing, health care and retirement provide all the necessities for some. Others receive only some of this plunder. Business or individuals use government regulation and power to ‘plunder’ an advantage over their competitors. All the while government continues to grow at its citizen’s behest and eventually everyone desires to live at the expense of everyone else. Politics becomes everything to everyone because nothing is outside its domain. We reach a point where "legislation will then be-in fact, already is-the battlefield for the fantasies and greed of everyone." Bastiat was prescient, was he not?
Our nation, once proud of our traditions of individual independence, risk taking, hard work and unlimited opportunity, has become a nation of "moochers and looters," to quote Ayn Rand. We have returned to that sad state of serfs and masters we left behind so many centuries ago. The masters have not changed. There will always be those who insert themselves into power to live easily and richly at the expense of others. We, the American people, have changed. We have become slaves to plundered goods. Only our situation is worse than any other. In most nations, as Margaret Thatcher observed, "socialism only works until you run out of other people’s money." There is a limit on plunder and hence, on the standard of living of those who live on it. If one is living on plundered goods, one can only have the house the government will provide, nothing bigger or better, only the food provided, nothing more or of higher quality, the retirement provided, nothing fancy or comfortable, only the health care provided, nothing extensive or expensive. The more widely distributed the plunder, the lower the standard for everyone. The slaves are at the mercy of the efficiency of government in acquiring and distributing the plunder and the victims, their ability to provide it.
In the United States, however, our plunder is supplemented by the printing press. This enables the recipients of the plunder to receive much more than they would otherwise. Therefore, if we accept that Bastiat is correct and most men will live on plunder as long as it is easier than labor and a life of "mooching" is a life of slavery, how do we then answer our original question? Do all Americans, or even most of us, want to be free? If the moocher suddenly finds his supply of plundered goods cut off, will he not try to restore his former lifestyle? Like the traitor in the film "The Matrix", will the easy fraud of the matrix become preferable to the risks of living in freedom? Will the serfs pledge their undying allegiance to masters who promise to continue allowing their parasitic lifestyles? What about you? Can you conceive of life without the government "safety net" and even if you can conceive it, do you want to live without it? Are you willing to educate yourself and stop relying on government to ensure your safety? Are you prepared to take on the responsibility of your choices beyond government defined parameters? Are you willing to trust your future to your own abilities and not on the capacity of government to secure it with plundered wealth?
Those who truly want and understand liberty have always been a minority. America’s history is unique because for perhaps the first time in history a place attracted enough of those people that they became a majority; and it changed the world. It was the first society based not on plunder but hard work and the rule of law. Wise men formulated a government to perpetuate that society as long as possible and it encouraged successive generations to pass on those unique values. Geography supported it through an ever expanding frontier, constantly providing each generation with an opportunity to experience the rugged individualism of absolute liberty for themselves.
The frontier is gone. We are no longer taught the values of our founding. Plunder has become acceptable. In fact it is an "entitlement," a word anathema to liberty. As a result, people and property are no longer respected, morality has suffered. Government has become society and it is based on theft. Almost everyone assumes the "right" to live at the expense of everyone else. There is still a minority who desire freedom but neither the culture, government nor circumstances support their claim to veracity. We are plundering the legitimate results of our past success as a free people and printing the money necessary to make up for a demand growing exponentially faster than supply. It is a situation that is unsustainable but until what is unsustainable actually ceases to be sustained, living on plunder is easier than work. Every two or four years one needs only show up at a polling place and vote for the masters who will keep the system going as long as possible.
The sad conclusion to our question "who wants freedom" is "very few people." Will people addicted to plunder seek freedom? Would they choose to live without the "safety net"-Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, guaranteed school and home loans? Will they trust their safety to private groups or their own intelligence instead of the FDA, EPA or the Securities and Exchange Commission? Will they take responsibility for their own health, retirement, food, housing and the education of their own children? Most people, perhaps even you, are not willing to go that far. So when will freedom become attractive once again? When the oppression of the state exceeds the value of the plunder to the slaves and the willingness or ability of the victims to provide it. We are not there yet but we are getting much closer at an ever increasing pace. When we do, it is going to be very uncomfortable for everyone and the courage of those who love liberty will be tried in ways not seen since the Revolutionary War. So, do you want freedom enough to pledge your life, fortune and sacred honor? Are you cut from the same cloth as our ancestors, believing in the ability and morality of every man exercising his God given rights to the extent that your own life is put at risk? Or have you joined the majority, content in the servitude of accepting stolen goods from a tyrannical government?
As we are engaged in this great struggle for our nation’s future, perhaps this is the most fundamental question of all. As conservatives, libertarians or patriots who love America and the freedom it has represented for two centuries, freedom that we fear may soon become merely a footnote in our mythological past, we enter the contest for liberty with a few important assumptions in mind. We believe that "no man, in his right mind, would choose to be a slave." We believe that all the "teeming masses" of the world "yearn to be free." We believe that freedom is a gift from God, it is the natural state of man, and it is only through force or fraud that any man would give up that gift. We look around at our fellow citizens and assume that if we could somehow remove the wool from their eyes they would see the chains with which they are bound and join us in demanding a return of our liberty. It is this effort to educate and convince our fellow man of the deception that enslaves him that motivates us to give our time and treasure to the task. We hope to add ever growing numbers to the chorus of voices crying for freedom today so that tomorrow our children will realize the dream of the founders rather than the nightmare of the statists.
We must ask, however, if these assumptions about human nature are true. Does every man want to be free? Does every man and woman want to take responsibility for his or her actions and reap the consequences, good and bad? Does every person want unlimited opportunity and the accompanying unlimited risk? For the vast majority of our ancestors who settled this land, the answer was an unequivocal yes. The first settlers believed freedom was valuable enough to gamble their very lives. Most others came here with little or nothing but will and an unshakable belief in their ability to succeed if only give the chance, free from the constraints of caste or the petty meddling of innumerable government bureaucrats and tax collectors. The rapid ascent of the United States to a world power economically and militarily is a testament to the veracity of their faith.
That speaks of those who came, the ones with the moral and physical courage to stand on their own two feet, to "take the bull by the horns." Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was ruled by monarchs and their bureaucracies and any freedom the common man had was at their behest. Their choices were limited, their responsibilities few, their opportunities rare. They existed for the good of the monarch and the state. The food and goods they produced were the property of the state, their sons were cannon fodder, the land on which they toiled was someone else's. There was little hope to improve one’s lot in life. Those who found this intolerable took the first and greatest risk of all, they left.
What of all those left behind, those without such courage? Who remained in Britain, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Poland? Government bureaucrats and people either happy with the status quo or lacking the courage to stand against it. People who were either masters or slaves and content with their lot. The vast majority of those who stayed behind chose a life of slavery for they lacked either the heart or the will to change it or escape it. A life of familiar servitude was preferable to a life of unknown risks even if those risks could bring about unlimited rewards. Is it any wonder then, how Europe has evolved over the last one hundred and fifty years? A people, comfortable with servitude, when given the opportunity to vote for their own destiny merely chose new masters who would take care of them. With such passive people, government easily manipulates and grows. And people who have so little of their lives under their own control easily blame others for their misfortune whether it be "others" in their midst or the nation next door. When a Napoleon, a Lenin or a Hitler promises to punish those perceived to be responsible for their misery, support is easy to come by. In times of peace, living within the constraints of socialism is amenable to the ancestors of the sheep. They are taken care of from birth to death, living in endless moderation, insulated from pain and restrained from achievement.
The United States, in her history, has experienced a similar drain of "rugged individualists" who valued the freedom of opportunity and risk above anything else. From the sparse settlements on the east coast, these men and women constantly pushed west, leaving the more "risk averse" in the settled areas. With few exceptions, the longer a state has been around and the more densely populated it is, the more statist is is. Look at New England, the most consistently "liberal" region of the country. Cities attract those with a statist mind more than rural areas for the sheer fact of circumstance. In a rural area, self-sufficiency is essential. In a city cooperation is necessary, specialization routine and the acceptance of government regulation is a given. As long as we were a frontier society, more rural than urban, circumstances favored our libertarianism and the traits of the original immigrants were reinforced. We remained a country where absolute liberty was prized, government was distrusted and rare was the man who considered living at the expense of others his "right".
The great Frederic Bastiat observed that man has only two ways of satisfying the wants and needs of his life. "Through the ceaseless application of his own faculties to natural resources" or his own labor. This is the origin and value of property. The other way is "by seizing and consuming the products of the labor of others." This is "plunder." Bastiat then identified what he termed the fatal flaw of mankind-his "primitive, universal, and insuppressible instinct that impels him to satisfy his desires with the least possible pain." Since labor is pain, it naturally follows that "men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work." Plunder will only stop "when it becomes more painful and dangerous than work." (All quotes from "The Law")
For Bastiat, the purpose of the law was to make plunder more risky and painful than labor. I would add that that the mores of society will also make plunder more or less acceptable to an individual without the application of force. If the society as a whole values work and expects each man and woman to "pull his own weight", the idea of living through plunder would not be part of the mindset of most, including those charged with creating and implementing the law-government. Government, however, possessing the unique ability to "legally" use force in a society, finds it irresistible to begin plundering for its own benefit and those of its benefactors and becoming, by definition, tyrannical. Our founders wisely formulated a system to keep this tendency at bay but if plunder becomes more acceptable in society, the original system and ideals will be circumvented and eventually discarded. This is where we find ourselves today.
In today’s democratic societies, politicians are elected based on promises made possible by plundered wealth. Those who vote for such politicians are merely hiring the government as a mercenary to take the wealth of one citizen to give it to them. They, like government, live on plunder. Some of our citizens live entirely on plundered goods. Government food, housing, health care and retirement provide all the necessities for some. Others receive only some of this plunder. Business or individuals use government regulation and power to ‘plunder’ an advantage over their competitors. All the while government continues to grow at its citizen’s behest and eventually everyone desires to live at the expense of everyone else. Politics becomes everything to everyone because nothing is outside its domain. We reach a point where "legislation will then be-in fact, already is-the battlefield for the fantasies and greed of everyone." Bastiat was prescient, was he not?
Our nation, once proud of our traditions of individual independence, risk taking, hard work and unlimited opportunity, has become a nation of "moochers and looters," to quote Ayn Rand. We have returned to that sad state of serfs and masters we left behind so many centuries ago. The masters have not changed. There will always be those who insert themselves into power to live easily and richly at the expense of others. We, the American people, have changed. We have become slaves to plundered goods. Only our situation is worse than any other. In most nations, as Margaret Thatcher observed, "socialism only works until you run out of other people’s money." There is a limit on plunder and hence, on the standard of living of those who live on it. If one is living on plundered goods, one can only have the house the government will provide, nothing bigger or better, only the food provided, nothing more or of higher quality, the retirement provided, nothing fancy or comfortable, only the health care provided, nothing extensive or expensive. The more widely distributed the plunder, the lower the standard for everyone. The slaves are at the mercy of the efficiency of government in acquiring and distributing the plunder and the victims, their ability to provide it.
In the United States, however, our plunder is supplemented by the printing press. This enables the recipients of the plunder to receive much more than they would otherwise. Therefore, if we accept that Bastiat is correct and most men will live on plunder as long as it is easier than labor and a life of "mooching" is a life of slavery, how do we then answer our original question? Do all Americans, or even most of us, want to be free? If the moocher suddenly finds his supply of plundered goods cut off, will he not try to restore his former lifestyle? Like the traitor in the film "The Matrix", will the easy fraud of the matrix become preferable to the risks of living in freedom? Will the serfs pledge their undying allegiance to masters who promise to continue allowing their parasitic lifestyles? What about you? Can you conceive of life without the government "safety net" and even if you can conceive it, do you want to live without it? Are you willing to educate yourself and stop relying on government to ensure your safety? Are you prepared to take on the responsibility of your choices beyond government defined parameters? Are you willing to trust your future to your own abilities and not on the capacity of government to secure it with plundered wealth?
Those who truly want and understand liberty have always been a minority. America’s history is unique because for perhaps the first time in history a place attracted enough of those people that they became a majority; and it changed the world. It was the first society based not on plunder but hard work and the rule of law. Wise men formulated a government to perpetuate that society as long as possible and it encouraged successive generations to pass on those unique values. Geography supported it through an ever expanding frontier, constantly providing each generation with an opportunity to experience the rugged individualism of absolute liberty for themselves.
The frontier is gone. We are no longer taught the values of our founding. Plunder has become acceptable. In fact it is an "entitlement," a word anathema to liberty. As a result, people and property are no longer respected, morality has suffered. Government has become society and it is based on theft. Almost everyone assumes the "right" to live at the expense of everyone else. There is still a minority who desire freedom but neither the culture, government nor circumstances support their claim to veracity. We are plundering the legitimate results of our past success as a free people and printing the money necessary to make up for a demand growing exponentially faster than supply. It is a situation that is unsustainable but until what is unsustainable actually ceases to be sustained, living on plunder is easier than work. Every two or four years one needs only show up at a polling place and vote for the masters who will keep the system going as long as possible.
The sad conclusion to our question "who wants freedom" is "very few people." Will people addicted to plunder seek freedom? Would they choose to live without the "safety net"-Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, guaranteed school and home loans? Will they trust their safety to private groups or their own intelligence instead of the FDA, EPA or the Securities and Exchange Commission? Will they take responsibility for their own health, retirement, food, housing and the education of their own children? Most people, perhaps even you, are not willing to go that far. So when will freedom become attractive once again? When the oppression of the state exceeds the value of the plunder to the slaves and the willingness or ability of the victims to provide it. We are not there yet but we are getting much closer at an ever increasing pace. When we do, it is going to be very uncomfortable for everyone and the courage of those who love liberty will be tried in ways not seen since the Revolutionary War. So, do you want freedom enough to pledge your life, fortune and sacred honor? Are you cut from the same cloth as our ancestors, believing in the ability and morality of every man exercising his God given rights to the extent that your own life is put at risk? Or have you joined the majority, content in the servitude of accepting stolen goods from a tyrannical government?
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