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What Does Freedom
Really Mean?
Few Americans understand that all government action is
inherently coercive. If nothing else, government action requires
taxes. If taxes were freely paid, they wouldn’t be called taxes,
they’d be called donations. If we intend to use the word freedom
in an honest way, we should have the simple integrity to give it
real meaning: Freedom is living without government coercion. So
when a politician talks about freedom for this group or that,
ask yourself whether he is advocating more government action or
less.
By Ron Paul
“…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
12/26/07 "ICH"
-- - We’ve all heard the words democracy and freedom used
countless times, especially in the context of our invasion of
Iraq. They are used interchangeably in modern political
discourse, yet their true meanings are very different.
George Orwell wrote about “meaningless words” that are endlessly
repeated in the political arena*. Words like “freedom,”
“democracy,” and “justice,” Orwell explained, have been abused
so long that their original meanings have been eviscerated. In
Orwell’s view, political words were “Often used in a consciously
dishonest way.” Without precise meanings behind words,
politicians and elites can obscure reality and condition people
to reflexively associate certain words with positive or negative
perceptions. In other words, unpleasant facts can be hidden
behind purposely meaningless language. As a result, Americans
have been conditioned to accept the word “democracy” as a
synonym for freedom, and thus to believe that democracy is
unquestionably good.
The problem is that democracy is not freedom. Democracy is
simply majoritarianism, which is inherently incompatible with
real freedom. Our founding fathers clearly understood this, as
evidenced not only by our republican constitutional system, but
also by their writings in the Federalist Papers and elsewhere.
James Madison cautioned that 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. Yet how many Americans
know that the word “democracy” is found neither in the
Constitution nor the Declaration of Independence, our very
founding documents?
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. Shiite majority rule in Iraq
might well mean the complete political, economic, and social
subjugation of the minority Kurd and Sunni Arab populations.
Such an outcome would be democratic, but would it be free? Would
the Kurds and Sunnis consider themselves free? The
administration talks about democracy in Iraq, but is it prepared
to accept a democratically-elected Iraqi government no matter
what its attitude toward the U.S. occupation? Hardly. For all
our talk about freedom and democracy, the truth is we have no
idea whether Iraqis will be free in the future. They’re
certainly not free while a foreign army occupies their country.
The real test is not whether Iraq adopts a democratic,
pro-western government, but rather whether ordinary Iraqis can
lead their personal, religious, social, and business lives
without interference from government.
Simply put, freedom is 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. States, not the federal
government, were charged with protecting individuals against
criminal force and fraud. For the first time, a government was
created solely to protect the rights, liberties, and property of
its citizens. Any government coercion beyond that necessary to
secure those rights was forbidden, both through the Bill of
Rights and the doctrine of strictly enumerated powers. This
reflected the founders’ belief that democratic government could
be as tyrannical as any King.
Few Americans understand that all government action is
inherently coercive. If nothing else, government action requires
taxes. If taxes were freely paid, they wouldn’t be called taxes,
they’d be called donations. If we intend to use the word freedom
in an honest way, we should have the simple integrity to give it
real meaning: Freedom is living without government coercion. So
when a politician talks about freedom for this group or that,
ask yourself whether he is advocating more government action or
less.
The political left equates freedom with liberation from material
wants, always 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. “Liberalism,” which once stood for civil,
political, and economic liberties, has become a synonym for
omnipotent coercive government.
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. The
last tenuous links between conservatives and support for smaller
government have been severed. “Conservatism,” which once meant
respect for tradition and distrust of active government, has
transformed into big-government utopian grandiosity.
Orwell certainly was right about the use of meaningless words in
politics. If we hope to remain free, we must cut through the fog
and attach concrete meanings to the words politicians use to
deceive us. We must reassert that America is a republic, not a
democracy, and remind ourselves that the Constitution places
limits on government that no majority can overrule. 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.
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