Happy 4th of July.
A few years ago, Congressman Ron Paul wrote this brief essay clarifying some of George Orwell’s “meaningless words.” My paraphrase:
Freedom: The absence of government coercion. Our Founding Fathers understood this, and created the least coercive government in the history of the world. The Constitution established a very limited, decentralized government to provide national defense and little else. All government action is inherently coercive. If nothing else, government action requires taxes.
Democracy: The word “democracy” is found neither in the Constitution nor the Declaration of Independence. Democracy is simply majoritarianism, a tyranny of the majority, which is inherently incompatible with real freedom. James Madison: “[under a democratic government] there is nothing to check the inducement to sacrifice the weaker party or the obnoxious individual.” John Adams argued that democracies merely grant revocable rights to citizens depending on the whims of the masses, while a republic exists to secure and protect pre-existing rights. A truly democratic election in Iraq, without U.S. interference and U.S. puppet candidates, almost certainly would result in the creation of a Shiite theocracy.
Liberalism: Liberalism once stood for civil, political, and economic liberties, but has become a synonym for omnipotent coercive government. The political left equates freedom with liberation from material wants via a large and benevolent government that exists to create equality on earth. To modern liberals, men are free only when the laws of economics and scarcity are suspended, the landlord is rebuffed, the doctor presents no bill, and groceries are given away. But philosopher Ayn Rand (and many others before her) demolished this argument by explaining how such “freedom” for some is possible only when government takes freedoms away from others. In other words, government claims on the lives and property of those who are expected to provide housing, medical care, food, etc. for others are coercive – and thus incompatible with freedom.
Conservatism: The political right equates freedom with national greatness brought about through military strength. Like the left, modern conservatives favor an all-powerful central state – but for militarism, corporatism, and faith-based welfarism. Unlike the Taft-Goldwater conservatives of yesteryear, today’s Republicans are eager to expand government spending, increase the federal police apparatus, and intervene militarily around the world. “Conservatism,” which once meant respect for tradition and distrust of active government, has transformed into big-government utopian grandiosity.
We must resist any use of the word “freedom” to describe state action. We must reject the current meaningless designations of “liberals” and “conservatives,” in favor of an accurate term for both: statists. Every politician on earth claims to support freedom. The problem is so few of them understand the simple meaning of the word. Read more from lewrockwell.com
“. . . man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.” ~ Ronald Reagan
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