Results tagged “freedom” from The Morning After

President Obama has promised to sign into law a bill that grants the FDA power to hit the tobacco industry with sweeping regulations related to its production and marketing. The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act drew vast support from Congress, winning large majorities in both houses. (Sens. Arlen Specter and Bob Casey, Jr. as well as Rep. Todd Platts all supported the act).

Unfortunately H.R. 1256--hailed by the president as "a bill that truly defines changes in Washington"--undermines America's promise of freedom.

Never mind that the mandatory warning labels depicting smoking's negative effects will have virtually zero consequence for a public that already knows that smoking kills--about 400,000 each year according to the CDC.

Never mind that those who propose limitations to the amount of nicotine per cigarette ignore the painstakingly obvious fact that smokers are addicted particularly to nicotine, not cigarettes, that for example a pack-a-day smoker craves a pack's worth of nicotine rather than a pack's worth of white paper cylinders.

Never mind that an ordered ban of all tobacco advertisements within 1,000 feet of schools and playgrounds, to take effect by 2012, blatantly violates First Amendment rights.

Never mind all of that.

Whatever happened to liberty's most essential ally, personal responsibility?

The idea behind the legislation is this: Because tobacco products are unhealthy and potentially fatal, the federal government must step in and save the people from themselves.

Or more accurately: Because the people are too stupid to make their own decisions about their personal health, the federal government then has a right to make those decisions for them.

How about this zany idea (I know it's radical, but bear with me):

What if each individual makes his or her own decisions on nonviolent matters that affect no others directly? And what if each individual suffers the bad consequences and benefits from the good?

For decades, the word has been out on the dangers of smoking. More and more, we're learning what has been swept under the rugs of Big Tobacco. The knowledge required to make an educated decision is out there.

The more responsibility for ourselves that we cede to the government (or anyone, for that matter), the less free we are. The hole we have dug is already a deep one. Some of us no longer expect to be held accountable for educating our children, paying our mortgages or
generating income while unemployed.

It's time to break the chain. It's time to quit--cold turkey.

This post is in response to an "assignment" from a reader. JB, I hope this meets your expectations.

The ideals of democracy and freedom have been linked by thinkers for thousands of years. It was Aristotle who said, "The basis of a democratic state is liberty." From then until now, politicians have been echoing that sentiment to the point that the two entities are treated like synonyms. Installing a democracy in Iraq, for example, means "liberating" its people. But this conceptual fusion results directly from a collective ignorance of the true meanings.

When the founders spoke and wrote of freedom, it wasn't the perverse way the word is used today, dealing in entitlements. It was in the Lockean sense: the natural rights to life, liberty and property. No one has the right to endanger your health, restrict your actions or steal or alter your possessions.

And a democracy is not, as it is commonly understood, a government of, by and for the people. It isn't a form of governance in which all voices are heard and heeded. Democracy means the majority rules, and it is the voices of the majority that are heard and heeded. Pay no attention to the "restrictions" on majority rule like a Constitution. Even if those in the federal government had faithfully obeyed the document, it takes only a (specific type of) majority to change what it dictates.

Plain and simple, the two concepts have nothing to do with one another. Freedom means no one can take my life. Democracy means it's okay if the majority consents. Freedom means no one can tell me what to do. Democracy means it's okay if the majority consents. Freedom means no one can tell me what to own. Democracy means it's okay if the majority consents. Freedom means individualism, personal rights. Democracy means collectivism, might makes right. Freedom means day. Democracy means night.

Somewhere between Aristotle and now, a group of men knew these definitions. We may do well--as a nation, as a race, as a global community--to remember them.

A pure democracy can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party.

-James Madison

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty, than those attending too small a degree of it.

-Thomas Jefferson

When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was the freedom from responsibility then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.   

- Edward Gibbon

We as Americans have spent the better part of the last two years asking questions like: Is the US ready for a female/Mormon/black/old/Hispanic president? The answer has always been unclear, but one thing remains certain. As a whole, we are not ready to be free.

All too similar are we to the ancient Athenians. We have relinquished responsibility at every turn. If we live in an unsafe neighborhood, we hold not ourselves but the government responsible for our protection. It doesn't matter to us that we are the ones who chose to live in that neighborhood, nor does it matter to us that we can take care of ourselves. Accountability? What's that?

If we fall under hard times, we spend half of our hours blaming people and the other half expecting someone to bail us out. We demand that the responsible people, taxpayers, pay for the mistakes of the irresponsible people. Don't get me wrong--I have nothing against voluntary charity. But when it is mandatory and the receiver does nothing but sit and wait for it, the entire process is bastardized.

If we took out a loan that we can't afford to pay back, we blame the lender for not knowing any better. Or we blame the government for not making a law that stops companies from practicing unsound business, or for making lenders approve loans for all under the guise of "fairness" and "equality." No one wins in a game of pass-the-buck.

Without individual responsibility, freedom is the chaotic free-for-all that typically comes to mind upon hearing the word "anarchy." With it, freedom means I can't force you to pay for my protection, and you can't force me to pay for yours. Freedom means that our neighbors can't force us to live only in a way that they approve. Freedom means each person taking it upon themselves to protect their own rights and account for their own successes or failures. Freedom means that your neighbors' failures don't get funded by your successes.

We may be ready for a woman, a Mormon, a black man, an old man or even a Hispanic man as president. But are we ready for freedom? No way.

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."