In the numbered days to come before the Most Important Election Ever (as they all are), the dueling senators will hit We the People hard between viral advertisements, tedious debates and more campaign speeches than we can shake a tire-pressure gauge at. We can expect snappy one-liners, we can expect smears lower than low, and we can expect heartbreaking stories. But we'd better not hold our breaths for either candidate or the media to talk about the most important issue at all.
No, I don't mean the economy. I don't mean the energy crisis, Iraq, or health care. I'm talking about the issue that was most important in 1776 and ever since, and likely the most oft ignored. The issue that fueled the abolitionist movement. The issue at the root of all others:
Freedom. A word said by many and understood by much fewer. The radical idea that a government's legitimacy is gained only through the consent of the governed--that the individual rights to life, liberty and property are inalienable, that these rights don't come from governments, that instead the protection of these rights is the sole responsibility that governments have.
Sure, Barack Obama and John McCain, following the status quo in their parties, pay fleeting lip service to a vague idea called freedom. But what does that idea mean to the powers that be? A nation suitable not for the monument currently on Ellis Island but rather the Statue of Entitlement.
Democrat-filled crowds lauded Hillary Clinton when she said health care should be a right. The sentiment is echoed by her former opponent and their party when they repeatedly justify entitlement programs. But positive rights--like the "right" to health care or the "right" to financial support--can only be legitimate in a universe where something can come from nothing; otherwise, every entitlement is matched by the obligation to provide the entitlement, an obvious violation of liberty. We the People don't live in that universe.
On the other side of the increasingly narrowing aisle, Republicans are talking about entitlements as well. These positive rights, they say, are essential, whether it be to an aggressive military that wages wars irrelevant to protecting the rights of those who fund them, to an airline safety administration that violates more people's rights in one day than it will ever protect, or to any other of the policies based on the idea that one should and must concede liberty for the sake of security. With little if any disagreement coming from the Democratic Party, the Republicans score a hat trick: the forced providing of these entitlements violates the right to liberty, the forced funding of them violates the right to property, and the enacting of them occasionally violates the right to life.
The intended purpose of government is to protect the freedom of its people, but the only way either major party operates is by violating legitimate, negative rights--rights that don't require anyone to do anything against their will.
Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans nominated a candidate running on the inalienability of the rights to life, liberty and property. What does that say about We the People, who keep voting people into office who aim to provide freedom by denying it?
"In a democracy," it is said, "the people get the government they deserve."
No, I don't mean the economy. I don't mean the energy crisis, Iraq, or health care. I'm talking about the issue that was most important in 1776 and ever since, and likely the most oft ignored. The issue that fueled the abolitionist movement. The issue at the root of all others:
Freedom. A word said by many and understood by much fewer. The radical idea that a government's legitimacy is gained only through the consent of the governed--that the individual rights to life, liberty and property are inalienable, that these rights don't come from governments, that instead the protection of these rights is the sole responsibility that governments have.
Sure, Barack Obama and John McCain, following the status quo in their parties, pay fleeting lip service to a vague idea called freedom. But what does that idea mean to the powers that be? A nation suitable not for the monument currently on Ellis Island but rather the Statue of Entitlement.
Democrat-filled crowds lauded Hillary Clinton when she said health care should be a right. The sentiment is echoed by her former opponent and their party when they repeatedly justify entitlement programs. But positive rights--like the "right" to health care or the "right" to financial support--can only be legitimate in a universe where something can come from nothing; otherwise, every entitlement is matched by the obligation to provide the entitlement, an obvious violation of liberty. We the People don't live in that universe.
On the other side of the increasingly narrowing aisle, Republicans are talking about entitlements as well. These positive rights, they say, are essential, whether it be to an aggressive military that wages wars irrelevant to protecting the rights of those who fund them, to an airline safety administration that violates more people's rights in one day than it will ever protect, or to any other of the policies based on the idea that one should and must concede liberty for the sake of security. With little if any disagreement coming from the Democratic Party, the Republicans score a hat trick: the forced providing of these entitlements violates the right to liberty, the forced funding of them violates the right to property, and the enacting of them occasionally violates the right to life.
The intended purpose of government is to protect the freedom of its people, but the only way either major party operates is by violating legitimate, negative rights--rights that don't require anyone to do anything against their will.
Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans nominated a candidate running on the inalienability of the rights to life, liberty and property. What does that say about We the People, who keep voting people into office who aim to provide freedom by denying it?
"In a democracy," it is said, "the people get the government they deserve."
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